Art SEL Program

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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 Illinois Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, and 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 have developed an art-based social-emotional learning (SEL) alternative school program. The program is designed to provide weekly hands-on art-based learning activities and exercises during school hours and within the classroom. Lessons are 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 creative art. Most lessons focus on creative reuse and upcycling which also helps teach a broader lesson of community, environmental stewardship, and local responsibility. 

Lesson plans and overall program guidelines were developed with staff, teacher, and student feedback as well as a soft launch of the program with in school hands-on art related projects during the 2024/2025 academic school year. A hard launch for the program is anticipated for the 2025/2026 academic school year. 

This program specifically targets underserved, disadvantaged, or at-risk youths facing significant academic and/or socio-economic challenges. The program seeks 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 need to pay for program staff, including a program coordinator and facilitator. The more support we get, the better we are able to provide in-class hands-on learning year-round. Thank you in advance!