Arts-Based Approaches to Promote Mental Health and Well-Being

This book provides insights on how creative and expressive approaches can promote psychosocial well-being among children, youth, and their caregivers living in conditions of adversity around the world. Arts-based psychosocial approaches give children a means to tap into their strengths as well as adaptively communicate and process experiences in ways that promote their own and overall family well-being. Offering an overview of the impact of adverse childhood experiences on lifelong health and functioning and how arts-based approaches can be protective, this book discusses relevant theory and research, as well as case studies and findings from mixed methods program evaluations. Examples from the Healing and Education Through the Arts (HEART) initiative from Save the Children are discussed in depth, and demonstrate the benefits of creative self-expression among children and families in the most challenging environments around the world. Creative arts therapists, public health professionals, education specialists, policymakers, and humanitarian groups seeking to provide cost-effective support to communities in need will find, in this book, insights on the impact of large-scale arts-based interventions in a range of public health and education settings.

Sara Hommel leads the global Mental Health and Psychosocial Support portfolio, including the Healing and Education through the Arts program, for Save the Children's International Department of Education and Child Protection. Girija Kaimal is Professor and Chair of the Creative Arts Therapies department at Drexel University. Her research examines the physiological and psychological health outcomes of creative visual and narrative self-expression.

1. Healing and Education Through the Arts at Save the Children 2.Growing Through Adversity: Risks and Protective Factors for Children and Their Caregivers 3. Creative Resources: How the Expressive Arts Help Children and Adults Develop and Cope with Adversities 5. HEART in Early Childhood 6. HEART in Childhood 8. 9. The role of HEART in Supporting Staff Well-being 11. Lessons Learned and Looking to the Future