Arts Activities Support

During two 15-week sessions, 15 clients participated with only two clients overlapping. Staff members report greater participation in activities and willingness to try new things. They indicate a decrease by at least 50% of maladaptive behaviors. For example, Mike has a history of pulling staff member's hair, and In the "Art of Social Skills," he has been learning positive ways to get attention. Achievement of artistic goals: For this grant, our goals for detailed that the clients would: Have high quality artistic experiences in a variety of disciplines; Express themselves through artistic forms of communication (self-expression); Positively and creatively interact with one another (social interaction); Have increased verbal and physical interactions with peers and staff; Collaboratively participate in the creative arts (cooperative learning); and exhibit fewer maladaptive behaviors. The artists from Upstream Arts brought many different disciplines with them: painting, non-verbal interactive play (e.g. an invisible ball), music, exploration of colors, body movements, and acting. This variety of artistic elements gave each of our participants an avenue to express themselves and learn about verbal and non-verbal communications. It is a beautiful thing when we see clients explore new ways of communicating, whether it is through the use of musical instruments, color, or by using their body. We have had considerable reports of less “maladaptive” behaviors from participants in the program; the Upstream Arts program has provided new avenues for self-expression and self-confidence. We have seen an increase in the interest of our non-verbal clients to interact with their staff. Our program area has drums, tambourines, and shakers. Many times throughout the day, we have clients lead staff members or peers to the instruments and engage in a “conversation” with the staff or a friend using these instruments. One of the favored activities by our clients has been collaborative art pieces. The artist brings a canvas and begins telling a story. Each participant takes a turn, choosing from a variety of colors to add to the canvas, deciding what they want to add to the canvas – e.g. a bold line, a squiggly circle, a thin square, or a rippling ribbon of color. Everyone takes great pride in the pieces they create together, or the stories they act out together! What worked or didn't work? What were strengths/challenges of the artistic process? Each session had a core group of participants. On any given week the group would only fluctuate if there was an absence that day. We know that keeping these core participants together built a feeling of camaraderie and trust between the participants and artist instructors. This trust helped clients move out of their comfort zones to try new things. The clients modeled the positive behavior of the Upstream artists by cheering for each other. Staff members have learned from the artists new techniques to engage their clients and also gained confidence to try new ways to communicate with non-verbal clients. Changes for future programing? In addition to "Art of Social Skills," Upstream offers other programing that would be relevant for clients at Merrick, including "the Art of Me" and "Art of Relationships." We would be interested in offering these during our service day as well. Internally, we were sometimes surprised by individuals who expressed interest in participating in the program - clients who had not previously expressed interest in the arts, joined the group for an initial session and chose to keep going back each week. As we mentioned in our proposal, artists from Upstream are trained to assume ability and approached the clients with a fresh perspective of encouragement. The small groups and teams of artists gave each client an opportunity to be included and feel they were being "heard." Clients are asking when the artists will return! We are so very pleased with this program and the advances each individual participant made.