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Programs for Children
Objective: Discuss basic considerations in planning creative protection programs for children
By this point in the course you have learned a lot about how children benefit from the arts and art-making, but what can you do with this knowledge? How do you move from ideas into action? This section will help you start thinking about what it takes to start a project or program for children. Before you start a creative community protection program for children you should consider:
Who will you serve?
Who is your target population—that is who is the project intended to benefit? The project that you plan should be child-centered which means that it focuses on the needs and interests of the child. You need a lot of information about the children that you will target to do this effectively. For example, you should know what ages and how many children your program has the capacity to handle. It is also important to know what types of art activities these children are interested in and which ones are appropriate for their age group. The chart at the end of this section will help you think about what arts activities are appropriate for various age groups. You should also talk to children, parents, and others with knowledge of children in your community.
Who will lead or support your project?
You should also consider who will lead your program and what skills and qualities these individuals should have. You may need teachers, artists, business people, or NGO workers to help accomplish your program. The most successful community arts programs are led, in part, by groups of people in the community that they serve. Choosing these groups of project leaders should be based on who is willing and who is able. Ability is not just based on education or training, but should also be based on experience. Creative protection programs for children should include creative people with knowledge of the arts and people who have experience working with children. Children or youth should be involved in planning projects from which they will benefit. Parents are also an important group to include in project planning and leadership. The people that work directly with children should be well prepared to create a safe creative learning environment.
Creative people that can build creative safe spaces for children:
Are empathetic, optimistic, and hopeful
Will set a good example for children
Are committed to excellence
Believe in children’s abilities to address their own challenges
Create safe creative spaces for children
Set clear boundaries
Respond to children with respect and professionalism
Are comfortable working as a part of a diverse team
Before you start recruiting volunteers, write your own list of qualities that are important to your project or program. Sometimes these creative people need to be trained in some of the things that you learned in this course like how to create a safe creative place for children. It is also important that you have enough creative people to manage the number of children that you wish to serve. You should have at least two adults with any sized group of children, and at least 1 adult for every 5 children in larger groups. Some of these adults can be teaching artists and others can be assistants. Look at the chart below to determine how many adults you will need for your project.
What else is out there?
Finally you must consider what other programs, organizations, or people are doing similar work. There might be an organization in your community who already has children and space but needs help designing a program or adding arts to their program. It is always better to collaborate than to compete with programs in your community. It is also helpful to research successful program models outside of your community. This book series has many examples, but there are many more on the internet and in books. Use the online resources provided to learn more about community arts for children before you start your program.
Experience: Arts Experiences for Different Ages
Goal: Reflect on how art experiences are adapted to different ages
Work in a group to fill out the chart below with examples of art experiences for different aged children. If you do not have knowledge or experience in these arts or age areas, find someone in the room who can help you.
Experience: Planning Programs for Children
Goal: Begin planning a creative community child protection project
Reflect on your community and the range of community projects that would benefit children in your community. Think about the questions you should consider before starting a program and fill in the form below.
Course Summary:
Spaces for children should be designed to meet their universal needs of love, affirmation, meaningful productivity, purpose, and belonging. They should be physically and emotionally safe spaces where children feel free to express their thoughts and ideas without fear of ridicule. Spaces for children should also be sacred so that when children enter they cross a threshold from the ordinary to the extraordinary world. These spaces need to be creative with lots of color, sound, and things to touch.
Creative safe spaces and art-making experiences can encourage healthy and holistic child development. Art-making experiences promote emotional, intellectual, physical, social, creative, and spiritual growth.
Rituals help create emotionally safe, child-friendly spaces. Rituals define a threshold for a community space, build community, create safety, promote healing, and teach values. Child-safe activity rituals include a greeting, a beginning ritual, an art making experience, a closing ritual, and a parting. One way to beginning a child-safe activity is with a motto that reminds children of values and boundaries and creates a sense of community.
Arts-integrated learning uses the arts to more effectively teach academic subjects. Children and adults have preferences for learning called multiples intelligences. These include: linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, body-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal and naturalistic. Arts-integrated learning allows children to use all of their multiple intelligences when learning.
Art-making can be a metaphor to teach things other than arts skills like: wisdom, patience, goal-setting, asking for help, and parenting skills. Children can also use metaphors in art to express feelings that are difficult to express verbally. The art-making process can be a metaphor to describe life.
Children are naturally resilience, but poverty, violence, and catastrophe can prevent children from bouncing back from challenging experiences. Arts interventions provide a sense of normalcy, support and encouragement, aesthetic nourishment, and a sense of belonging —all of which foster their resilience to future trauma.
Before starting a program for children, community leaders should decide who the program will serve and learn about this target population. You should also consider who will lead your program and what skills and qualities these individuals should have. Finally you must consider what other programs, organizations, or people are doing similar work so that you can collaborate and learn from their work.
Course Reflection:
What was the most interesting thing that you learned in this course?
What would you like to learn more about?
Do you think these concepts will work with children in your community?
Why or Why not?
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