Grantees
and Partners

The Creative Center at University Settlement

Overview

The Creative Center at University Settlement brings the arts to patients and survivors of cancer and other chronic illnesses, older adults across the aging spectrum, and healthcare staff and administrators. The Creative Center’s programs include hospital artists-in-residence, community artmaking workshops in multiple disciplines, creative aging consulting workshops, and professional training to bring the power of creative expression to people with cancer, chronic illnesses, and through all stages of life. The programming is designed to develop participants’ capacity for expression, build community, and train organizers of arts-in-healthcare and creative aging programs throughout the country.

Many people with chronic illness live alone and, because of their diagnosis and subsequent disability, are very isolated. Restricted by both physical and psychological limitations, many people with cancer or other chronic illnesses do not have a community for support and encouragement. Art can be a critical tool for people living with chronic disease, and for older adults, helping them to process and express their circumstances and providing positive distraction and relief. Current research has revealed the value of the arts as a treatment modality for a variety of symptoms and to build community among those living with illness, as well as families, healthcare staff, and the public.

Grant

Purpose: To provide general operating and program support.

The Creative Center’s workshops, which provide instruction in visual, performing, and literary arts, help people living with and beyond cancer develop creative and technical skills to discover a unique means of recovery and an outlet for emotions. Workshops offer a “space away from illness” for some, and a community for expressing concerns, fears, and questions about their illness, diagnosis, treatment, and life beyond illness for others. The demographics of participants are a true mosaic composed of every ethnic and socioeconomic group in New York City, with every type of cancer diagnosis, people living with any chronic illness, and older adults across the aging spectrum. Participants are referred to the program by their medical staff, social workers, support group leaders, and the Hospital Artists-In-Residence. They range in age from late teens to those in their nineties.

The Creative Center’s programs include:

• The Hospital Artists-in-Residence Program provides high-quality arts experiences and instruction to patients, their families and caregivers, and healthcare professionals in hospital settings. The Creative Center currently partners with eight hospitals, including Mount Sinai, New York Presbyterian, NYU Langone, and multiple hospitals within the NYC Health + Hospitals system. In addition to hosting workshops for patients, the Creative Center offers workshops to hospital staff, contributing to a richer employee experience and cultivating empathy between patients and their providers.
• Art Workshops offered in the Creative Center’s studio on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, as well as community sites and hospitals throughout New York City, are designed to serve participants who are living with and beyond cancer, participants with chronic illness, and their caregivers. Workshops are currently being offered daily in both in-person and virtual formats.
• In addition to running its own programs and providing services in New York City, the Creative Center works to build the capacity of organizations throughout the country to deliver creative aging and arts-in-healthcare programs. To this end, the Training Institute for Arts in Healthcare and Creative Aging invites 40 artists and administrators in the field of arts and healthcare and creative aging each year for a week-long intensive to learn best practices and research from the field’s national leaders.

Impact

In 2023, The Creative Center continued to offer a range of transformative arts experiences including:

• 9 Hospital Artists in residence who provide high-quality arts experiences to for patients, families and caregivers, and hospital staff through individual and group arts workshops across 12 major area hospital sites, including 5 hospitals within the NYC Health + Hospital network.
• Approximately 250 arts workshops reaching 2,700 total attendees, with in-person workshops reaching 12-15 participants/session, while virtual workshops, which account for 75% of programming, reaching as many as 40 participants/session.

2024 Training Institute:

• Total Number of Attendees: 41
• Locations represented: 2 countries, 8 states and Puerto Rico
• Number of presentations: 13
• Number of art workshops: 7