Art SEL Program

---

This project is supported in part by a RESTORE THE CORE micro-grant from the Smith/Stocks-Smith Family Foundation doing business as the Urban Action Network. Additional funds have been provided by the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln through the Hanson Family Fund as well as Jane and Paul Ford Family Fund.

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) teaches students ways to develop social and emotional skills and strategies to manage emotions, build healthy relationships, and overcome personal challenges. Art and its various mediums provide an ideal set of tools to help address and practice self-awareness and expression, which not only builds confidence and enriches a students academic curriculum, but also supports connections across other subjects and experiences outside the classroom.

We are in the process of developing an art-based social-emotional learning (SEL) alternative school program. The program will provide weekly hands-on art-based learning activities and exercises during school hours and within the classroom. Lessons will be geared toward helping students explore their feelings, emotions, thoughts, and external forces and providing tools to tunnel their internal and external turmoil through the self-expression of art. Most lessons will focus on creative reuse and upcycling which will also help teach a broader lesson of community, environmental stewardship, and local responsibility. 

Lesson plans and overall program guidelines are currently being developed within the school - with teacher and student feedback and between the program facilitator and program coordinator with final CRM Board approval. Hard date for the completion of program development is the end of the 2024 calendar year. A hard launch of the program within the classroom is expected for the 2nd week of the Spring semester which is Monday, January 13, 2025.

This program will specifically target underserved, disadvantaged, or at-risk youths facing significant academic and/or socio-economic challenges. The program will seek to provide students with creative outlets to help transform the educational experience and enhance student engagement in learning, foster essential social and emotional skills, and empower students through creative expression.

We can use more support. The grants are an amazing start, but we will be paying a program facilitator and program coordinator - both qualified art educators who specialize in curriculum development, at-risk education, and/or special ed with an emphasis or understanding of social-emotional learning and your support could help us out!