PUTTING IT INTO ACTION

to coach groups,” and “a curriculum to teach future groups”. As a result, the group focused their efforts on creating a curriculum for a series of training workshops for cohorts of arts education and clinical practitioners that would raise awareness of “What is Trauma?” from healthcare and clinical perspectives and introduce best practices about traumainformed teaching in the arts.

In 2018-2019, to move ahead with an effective program, the group developed a logic model. In the process, they identified the inputs, the activities, the outputs, and then the initial and long-term outcomes.

The logic model helped to capture and clarify some of the long-term outcomes including the “Reduction of trauma effects on students”. Other long-term outcomes, such as a “Framework sharing of trauma-informed arts education work,” “Encourage increased health and arts sector partnerships,” and “Share best practices in the healthcare sector and arts education sector” provided focused objectives to keep in mind during initial program planning. In turn, these shaped the development of outputs and initiatives that included “a shared learning community around trauma-informed arts education work,” “a user guide and resource manual of best practices,” “teams of teaching artists and social workers

Even as curriculum development for the training sessions progressed, the planning group continued to research, refine and incorporate new knowledge. The “community of learning” they had created went beyond key deliverables. In addition to the program models and curriculum outlines and shared accountability measures. They committed to continue to grow and participate in an ongoing feedback loop, a commitment that has continued beyond the initial scope of the project.

Agendas, facilitator outlines, PowerPoints, resource folders, online recordings and reflections from facilitators and participants, and new program proposals all demonstrate the ways that thinking has evolved. While core programming around trauma-informed arts education has remained, there is new language and guidance that incorporates concepts of healing-centered engagement, CulturallyResponsive pedagogy, and the importance, and joys, of creativity and artistic self-care.