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

"This book focuses on arts-based approaches to psychosocial health 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 findings, as well as case studies and mixed methods program evaluations, which will serve as examples of how to effectively conduct train-the-trainer models of practice that help bring the benefits of creative self-expression among children and youth in the most challenging environments around the world. Examples from the Healing and Education Through the Arts (HEART) initiative from Save the Children are discussed in depth. Creative arts therapists, public health professionals, healthcare providers, policymakers, and humanitarian groups seeking to provide cost-effective support to communities in need will find this book full of unique findings on the impact of large-scale arts-based interventions in a range of public health settings"--