Expressive Arts to Foster Social Emotional Resilience

Format

Poster Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Valdosta State University

First Presenter’s Email Address

tjcunnin@valdosta.edu

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Teddi Cunningham is a Professor of Counselor Education at Valdosta State University. She also directors the Counselor Education program. She has worked at Valdosta State University for 23 years, and prior to working at Valdosta State, she worked as a Counselor Educator at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. She earned her B.S. at Ball State University in Social Work and Criminal Justice. Her master’s and Ph.D. were earned at Purdue University in College Student Affairs, and Counselor Education. Dr. Cunningham has presented at numerous conferences at the local, state, and national level focusing on skills that enhance student performance in academic and social emotional areas, and using experiential activities to engage students in learning.

Second Presenter's Institution

Valdosta State University

Second Presenter’s Email Address

legrimes@valdosta.edu

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Lee Edmondson Grimes is an Associate Professor of Counselor Educator and Program Coordinator for the Counselor Education Programs at Valdosta State University. She earned a B.A. and B.S.Ed. from Valdosta State College and an M.Ed. and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Dr. Grimes started her career as a high-school teacher then transitioned into school counseling where she worked for ten years at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Connected to her work as a counselor educator, Dr. Grimes is active in community, state, and national advocacy and professional organizations for counselors. Her research interests focus on rural school counseling, P-12 career development, and interventions for meeting the needs of diverse learners. Dr. Grimes publishes and presents frequently on school counseling, and when she is not teaching or writing, she can be found on a trail in north Florida.

Location

Poster Mingle and Reception

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

The presentation is relevant to Strand II, Heart: Social and Emotional Skills. The presentation will provide specific expressive arts tools that can enhance the social and emotional skills of students leading to increased resiliency.

Brief Program Description

Visual arts, dance, drama, writing, and music are tools that can be used to build students’ social emotional skills. This presentation will include expressive arts tools and activities that can assist students in increasing social skills and building resiliency. Collaboration between school counselors and other content area teachers in schools will be discussed as a way to provide wrap around SEL resiliency skills in student.

Summary

The poster session will focus on using expressive arts to build social skills and increase resiliency in students. The session will focus on three areas. The first area provides a broad overview of expressive arts. Expressive arts involves as any combination of dance/movement, drama, music, visual arts, and writing. Examples of each of these expressive arts will be provided to participants along with a potential benefit of the using the art form. For example, visual arts can increase fine motor skills. Dance/movement activities can lead to increased confidence. The overall benefits of using expressive arts to work with students will be emphasized. The benefits include increased motor skills, a broadened awareness, reduced stress, increased ability to accept others’ perception, provides a voice for individuals that are nonverbal, and emotional growth. The benefits of using expressive arts to increase social skills and resiliency in students will be outlined. The benefits include increased empathy, increased confidence, ability to share with others, increased emotional regulation, and better communication skills. The second area addresses research that supports the use of expressive arts as a tool to use with students to help them learn social skills and increase resiliency. Research illustrates that expressive arts can be used to build social skills such as social competence, communication, empathy, and emotional regulation. Research also indicates that expressive arts can also increase resiliency factors such as well-being, lower emotional reactivity, and emotional regulation. The third area that the presenters will focus on are specific expressive art tools and activities that participants can implement with students. Tools and activities in the areas of dance, drama, visual arts, music, and writing will be provided to the participants. In this section we will also discuss the importance of collaboration with teachers.

Evidence

Format Evidence that participating in expressive arts increases resiliency

  • Barcelos et. al, 2018 – participation in expressive arts may promote characteristics of resilience such as meaning-making, flourishing, emotional regulation, and well-being
  • Chin & Ricard, 2014 – music enhanced positive emotions, engagement, relationships, coping, and emotional regulation
  • Coholic, Eys, & Lougheed, 2011 - Expressive arts program resulted in children reporting lower emotional reactivity which was a measure of resiliency.

Evidence that expressive arts are useful in building social skills

  • Payne & Costas, 2021 – Dance impacts social emotional learning
  • Broach, Pugh, & Smith, 2015 – Expressive arts can have a positive impact on social and emotional skills of youth at risk for violence.
  • Forrest-Bank, Nicotera, & Bassett, 2016 – Poetry increased social competence in at-risk youth.

Learning Objective 1

To increase participants’ knowledge of the benefits of expressive arts

Learning Objective 2

To increase participants knowledge of the impact of expressive arts on social skills and resiliency

Learning Objective 3

To provide tools and activities that participants can use to build social skills and resiliency in students.

Keyword Descriptors

Expressive arts, Social skills, resiliency

Presentation Year

2022

Start Date

3-7-2022 4:45 PM

End Date

3-7-2022 6:00 PM

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Mar 7th, 4:45 PM Mar 7th, 6:00 PM

Expressive Arts to Foster Social Emotional Resilience

Poster Mingle and Reception

Visual arts, dance, drama, writing, and music are tools that can be used to build students’ social emotional skills. This presentation will include expressive arts tools and activities that can assist students in increasing social skills and building resiliency. Collaboration between school counselors and other content area teachers in schools will be discussed as a way to provide wrap around SEL resiliency skills in student.