Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Crosswalk USA, Inc.

Second Presenter's Institution

NA

Third Presenter's Institution

NA

Fourth Presenter's Institution

NA

Fifth Presenter's Institution

NA

Location

Session 7 Breakouts

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

The focus of this proposal is to explore creative tools that educators and youth development professionals can add to their SEL toolbelts along with current research that validates this approach. The presentation and hands-on activities in this workshop will spotlight creative expression as a tool for uncovering deeper self-awareness, improved self-management, heightened social awareness, and enhanced relationship skills, four of CASEL’s core competencies. As MentalHealth.gov utilizes a broad definition of mental health that includes “our emotional, psychological, and social well-being,” there is unquestionably an overlap between SEL and mental health. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that effective SEL programs also include promoting greater SEL competencies among the adults who are serving the youth. Since the adults in this workshop will be experiencing the activities for themselves, they will be more fully equipped to facilitate them in their own programs as they continue to promote SEL for the youth as well as for their adult cohorts.

Brief Program Description

Join us to uncover the power of the arts as tools for tweens and teens to excavate their social-emotional skills. Be prepared to interact and connect in this hands-on session where you’ll experience creative activities designed to build a sense of community in groups discovering new skills together. You’ll leave with your own unique artwork and written instructions to facilitate the activities in your programs.

Summary

This session is directed toward practitioners with experience and/or interest in using creative exploration and therapeutic self-discovery with adolescents to strengthen social-emotional learning. Built on a mindsets model rather than a behavior modification model, the workshop will offer practical strategies for building authentic relationships that foster a sense of community and an atmosphere of trust within the group using art and other creative activities. The objectives of the session are as follows:

Participants will

  • Explore the power of creative expression as a tool for excavating SEL competencies.
  • Enhance proficiency to inspire a sense of community through team-building activities.
  • Experience the creation of artwork and cultivate skills to elicit therapeutic insight.
  • Employ new strategies for connecting and deepening relationships with teens at risk.

The central concepts to be covered in the session are a) the importance of community and strategies to strengthen social capital; b) using visual art as a motivational tool for youth to dig deeper into self-awareness; c) fun ways to make connections and forge relationships with youth at risk and d) opportunities for reflection inherent in the creative process. The session will combine the presentation of current research, large and small group activities, facilitated discussion, a guided art project, and a time for reflection and evaluation. The content of the workshop is applicable for all middle and high school programs and may also be adapted for older elementary students. Since participants will not only receive a written guide for each of the activities but also engage in the activities themselves throughout the session, they will leave fully equipped to implement the activities in their own programs should they choose to do so.

Evidence

Youth at risk often do not have opportunities to develop strong relationships with trusted adults outside their family or to experience safe environments that challenge them to take appropriate risks in SEL competencies such as self-management and social awareness. Like almost every aspect of human development, social and emotional competency depends upon experiential opportunities. A 2017 report from The Penn Foundation argues, “The arts offer a particularly fertile context in which this type of learning may occur.”1 As noted on artsacad.net, the website for Arts Academy in the Woods in Frazier, Michigan: Coming to the canvas, stage, or instrument invites students to slow down, clear their heads, and figure things out.

Even though for decades research has clearly shown that visual and performing arts can help students respond to moral, social, and emotional issues to which they may not respond any other way,2 the Penn Foundation report referenced above asserts that in schools serving youth at risk, opportunities for social-emotional learning through the arts are typically infrequent if not altogether absent. Thus this workshop proposal seeks to demonstrate the overall message from a two-year study by The Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development: Artistic endeavors — whether performing, creating or responding to others’ work — are likely to involve even more social-emotional skills and opportunities for students to practice them than do their academic endeavors.3

A 2019 report from the University of Chicago found “the arts have an important role to play in supporting the social-emotional development of children and youth.” 4 Yet among all the tools in our SEL toolbelts, the arts are still utilized infrequently if ever in a large percentage of programs. In a 2017 report from research project commissioned by The Wallace Foundation to evaluate the 25 leading SEL programs in the country, only one used art/creative projects or drawing significantly, three used games, five used role-play, and four used skills practice. An astounding 19 of the 25 used discussion more than 50% of the time. Ten of the programs did not use art/creative projects at all, and of the remaining 15, seven used art in 2% or less of their activities.5

The word educate literally means to draw out, yet a large percentage of our educational strategies and methods continue to focus on pouring knowledge into students. In contrast, the core of SEL must be facilitated, not taught. It must be an inside-out approach rather than outside-in.6 The Chicago study cited earlier concludes that the arts can and should play a role in the development of SEL competencies, arguing that each art practice has a social-emotional component. “Over time, these many interlocking layers of art and social-emotional learning yield a multi-textured set of outcomes and points of inflection—moments where students have opportunities to learn new skills and make new choices that, with continued repetition and practice, may turn into ingrained skills and habits of mind.”7

Clearly the world of Social-Emotional Learning is neglecting some valuable tools—tools that this workshop will explore in order to equip adults serving youth, especially tweens and teens, with some creative ways to use them. The activities in the workshop are well-aligned with SEL theory and practice, may be widely implemented and adapted, using materials that are easily accessible.

SOURCES:

1 Holochwost, S. J., Wolf, D. P., Fisher, K. R., & O’Grady, K. (2017). The socioemotional benefits of the arts: A new mandate for arts education. Philadelphia, PA: William Penn Foundation.

2 Best, D. (1978). Emotional education through the arts. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 12(2), 71-84.

3 Linda Jacobson. Education Dive. 11 June, 2019.

4 Farrington, C. A., et. al. (2019). Arts education and social-emotional learning outcomes among K–12 students: Developing a theory of action. Chicago, IL: Ingenuity and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

5 Jones, Stephanie, et. al. (2017). Navigating SEL from the inside out. Cambridge: Harvard Graduate School of Education and The Wallace Foundation.

6 Afterschool Alliance, “In the Field,” May, 2019.

7 Farrington, et. al. p. 16.

Learning Objectives

Participants will

  • Explore the power of creative expression as a tool for excavating SEL competencies.
  • Enhance proficiency to inspire a sense of community through team-building activities.
  • Experience the creation of artwork and cultivate skills to elicit therapeutic insight.
  • Employ new strategies for connecting and deepening relationships with teens at risk.

Biographical Sketch

Gina Moore, LMSW: Having spent 24 years directing a successful high school theatre program, Gina Moore chose to leave the traditional classroom setting in 2007 to focus full-time on program development and curriculum writing for ARTreach 180, a therapeutic after-school arts program initally used in her work with youth at risk and juvenile offenders. Throughout her career in education, social work, and expressive therapy, Gina has seen firsthand the effectiveness of the arts in training young people to cope with difficult emotions, communicate more effectively, empathize with others, deepen self-awareness, and manage stress. With an increased focus on social-emotional learning in schools, she remains committed to training other educators and youth development professionals how to implement creative strategies for navigating adolescents from risk to resilience.

Keyword Descriptors

SEL, social-emotional learning, art therapy, team building, community, belonging, creative expression, mental health, expressive therapy

Presentation Year

2021

Start Date

3-9-2021 3:00 PM

End Date

3-9-2021 4:00 PM

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Mar 9th, 3:00 PM Mar 9th, 4:00 PM

Can You Dig It? Excavating SEL Through the Arts

Session 7 Breakouts

Join us to uncover the power of the arts as tools for tweens and teens to excavate their social-emotional skills. Be prepared to interact and connect in this hands-on session where you’ll experience creative activities designed to build a sense of community in groups discovering new skills together. You’ll leave with your own unique artwork and written instructions to facilitate the activities in your programs.