Youth Wellbeing Project

YOUTH WELLBEING PROJECT

Prevention, Resource and Healing Program

The Youth Wellbeing Project benefits not only the youth directly involved, but their classmates, friends, families, and their communities at large.

Overview

Through SafeArt’s Youth Wellbeing Programs, we partner with K-12 teachers, counselors and youth-serving organizations to integrate expressive arts, mindfulness and empowerment activities into their curriculum and programming. 

We support schools and youth-serving organizations to:
  • Address social-emotional issues that are come up in the classroom
  • Help youth identify triggers and develop healthy tools and strategies to respond to them 
  • Hold a safe container to explore challenging issues related to abuse, trauma, identity, oppression, and addiction 
  • Create space for young people to bring their full selves to their learning environments

Modalities SafeArt utilizes include:
  • Visual arts projects, creative writing and dramatic expression 
  • Restorative practice circles 
  • Mindfulness, yoga and embodied movement
  • Dynamic discussions and role-plays
To request programming for your school, fill out this short google form: https://forms.gle/DP17nYhz7eugC6Ng8

Our Program Model 

SafeArt Classroom Residencies
When we partner with teachers for classroom residencies, our goal is to support teachers to build capacity to teach the material themselves in subsequent years. SafeArt can offer residencies on a wide range of topics. Below are examples of residencies we have taught in the past:
  • Theater for Social Change 
  • Trauma, Oppression and Allyship
  • Building Healthy Relationships through Boundaries, Consent and Awareness of Trauma 
  • Self As Superhero: Visioning our capacity to create change in our lives and communities
  • Community mural projects

SafeArt Student and Staff Support Programs 
These programs are designed to support students and staff members to develop resiliency practices to cope with trauma and stress. Our student sessions can be provided to the student body as a whole, or geared to young people who are struggling to manage challenges in their lives and self-regulate, or who have experienced famial or sexual violence. Our work with staff is intended to address the impact of Secondary Traumatic Stress and prevent burnout. 

Resiliency-building support for students (groups and individual sessions):
  • Building Self-esteem, Self-awareness and Self-regulation through Creative Expression
  • “Relax and Renew” Yoga, Mindfulness and Self-Care 
  • Creative Expression After-School Arts

Resiliency-building support for staff:
  • Self-Care for Trauma Stewardship: Skill-building, Discussion and Support Group
  • Relax and Recharge Yoga: Weekly Class for Stressed-out Educators
SafeArt Professional Development Program
Our Professional Development Programs aim to support staff to increase recognition of how developmental and societal trauma is being displayed in the classroom and impacting youth and the school environment. We do so through supporting staff to:
  • Understand how societal and relational trauma impact young people
  • Develop their own resiliency building practices
  • Develop trauma-informed classroom practices 
  • Engage creative expression and community circles to support students’ resiliency 
  • Hold space in the classroom to facilitate difficult conversations
  • Become more comfortable intervening in instances of racism, homophobia and other oppressive dynamics in the school community
  • Grow shared trauma-informed practices as a staff to sustain long term change and support

2019-2023 Partner Schools and Organizations

  • Randolph Union Middle and High School
  • Williamstown Middle and High School
  • Northfield Middle and High School
  • Chelsea Middle School
  • One Planet
  • Earthwalk Vermont
  • Basement Teen Center 

Funding

SafeArt programs are funded in part by our partner schools and organizations and in part by grant funding. We are committed to making our programs accessible and will pursue grant funding to ensure that finances are not a barrier to serving your school. All schools are eligible for partial or full financial aid scholarships. Please contact our Youth Program Director for the financial aid application.

Thank you to our generous donors!
  • Couch Family Foundation 
  • Vermont Community Foundation
  • Vermont Children's Trust Foundation
  • Vermont Afterschool
For more information about SafeArt’s Youth Wellbeing Programs, Contact: 
SafeArt, 802-685-3138 ● info@safeart.org 
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