Mission: Transforming children’s trauma to resilience through the arts.
Vision: Every child who has experienced the trauma of abuse, neglect, and/or homelessness has access to resilience-building arts programs and caring adult volunteer mentors.
Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona is a social service organization that uses the power of the arts and mentors to serve children in Maricopa County who have experienced the trauma of abuse, neglect, and homelessness. Free Arts’ research-based program model, Art + Mentors = Resilience, helps children build the resilience they need to overcome trauma by connecting them with caring adults and creative activities that develop their skills and sense of self.
Free Arts believes that healthy connections with adults create change. Through partnerships with local child welfare agencies, Free Arts provides this intervention free of cost to program participants.
Prolonged childhood trauma can adversely affect brain development, the immune system, and hormonal systems of children. In fact, this type of adversity can even triple the chance of heart disease and lung cancer overall resulting in a 20-year difference in life expectancy. Through our programs we help children develop transferrable skills for any challenge and a sense of self-efficacy, or the belief in one’s ability to succeed. In this way, we can mitigate the long-term effects of childhood trauma and equip these children with the coping tools and life skills necessary to live healthy and productive lives as adults.
Free Arts serves more than 7,000 children, on average, each year through five key trauma-informed programs:
- WEEKLY MENTOR PROGRAM – Children at a single partner facility build trusting relationships with consistent adult volunteer mentors who lead weekly sessions of intentional art activities.
- PROFESSIONAL ARTIST SERIES – Children learn an art form from a professional teaching artist and build confidence in their skills.
- CAMP SERIES – Children explore their personal stories and collaborate with each other through multiple art forms.
- FREE ARTS DAYS – Children from multiple partner agencies come together at an arts and culture venue for a day of intentional art activities with adult volunteers.
- ALUMNI PROGRAM – Past participants return to mentor younger children and to continue building skills through specialized programming for older teenagers and young adults
A Diversity Committee was recently formed among stakeholders to inform our long-term Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy, identify growth opportunities, and incorporate oppression-free practices resulting in the goals of our Racial Justice Project. Our Racial Justice Project has accomplished the following so far this year:
- A therapist of color was hired to support our Alumni Program.
- Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro was funded to partner with Sacred Journey, a long-time Free Arts partner agency.
- A virtual presentation for partner agencies is being developed to help connect children with therapists they identify with.