Arts in Health Update Case Studies Mental Health

Although mental illness is common, the perceived stigma associated with it can produce a sense of hopelessness and shame, undermine personal accomplishment, negatively impact individuals and families, and keep people from seeking help. According to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, “40% of adult New Yorkers with a serious mental illness acknowledged that although they needed treatment, they either did not receive it or delayed seeking help.” [LINK] There is public stigma, which is the bias from the public, and self-stigma, which is the internalization of negative attitudes. Untreated mental health conditions can contribute to substance abuse, incarceration, homelessness, unemployment, and suicide.

The arts can have a significant effect on diminishing stigma and building understanding and engagement. A leading expert on stigma, Dr. Patrick Corrigan, has identified several key ingredients of effective anti-stigma initiatives, including sharing stories about personal challenges, hearing from people with “lived experiences,” face-to-face contact that includes a common goal, and having an uplifting message. Those ingredients undergird programs that the Illumination Fund supports through the Arts in Health initiative.

Teens and young adults in 95 countries submitted 4,600 films to a mental health film competition to foster discussions combat stigma.
Events with Broadway stars connected 9,000+ people of color to free mental health resources.
Interactive theater sparked culturally relevant dialogue about mental health in Latinx communities.

Addressing Trauma

Trauma can be caused by experiencing or witnessing life-threatening or violent events. It can also be the result of prolonged or repeated exposure to injurious conditions. Trauma has a profound effect on individuals, families, and communities, with a disproportionate impact in low-income and communities of color. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated and amplified longstanding health and mental health disparities, and brought new ones driven by high rates of infection, hospitalizations, deaths, unemployment, domestic violence, homelessness, and pre-existing unmet mental health needs.

Creative expression can be a tool to help individuals and communities by aiding with coping and recovery, building understanding of critical issues, promoting wellness and resilience, developing social bonds, connecting to services, and reducing stigma so barriers to care are decreased.

In a nationally representative poll that the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund commissioned, 87% of Americans surveyed said they believe that the arts can help people recovering from a traumatic event such as abuse, a serious accident or injury, or violence, compared to 13% who did not think the arts would be helpful.

Intimate partner violence contributed toward reductions in PTSD symptoms and psychological distress, improved mood, and reduced tension.
Healthcare providers who participated in The Nurse Antigone and Theater of War Frontline reported that they gained new insights about their experiences during the pandemic and that post-performance discussions made it easier to talk about difficult topics.
Refugee women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence who participated in group therapy and the making of story cloths demonstrated a reduction of depression, anxiety, and trauma-related stress.

ART START

Youth Mental Health Initiative

Issue

Teens and young adults experiencing homelessness, court involvement, and income insecurity have few safe outlets to foster their creativity, build skills and confidence, and develop a positive outlook.

The Pandemic +

The Pandemic

When the pandemic began, the Artistic Noise team realized the need to expand the scope of their programming to include not only those impacted by the criminal legal system but also those impacted by mental illness.

“This pivot happened because we saw the needs of the young people in our community, especially during COVID, where the shutdown forced young people into spaces of oftentimes discomfort or unsafety,” said Zwicky.

Keenly aware of the needs of the youth in such an uncertain and stressful environment, Artistic Noise jumped into action, with its art therapist providing mental health care to the organization’s local community.

The Illumination Fund’s support was in lockstep with Artistic Noise, as cracks in the mental health system put an even larger burden on young people during the pandemic.

Developing Leaders +

Developing Leaders

Piloted in 2022, Artistic Noise’s Alumni Artist-in-Residence Program works with alumni who are interested in pursuing their professional goals and developing a career within the visual arts. The program offers physical studio space, artistic support, art making materials, and a variety of additional paid opportunities to an alumni participant who demonstrated continued interest in building their art making career and taking on a leadership role at Artistic Noise.

Each year, a new Alumni Artist in Residence receives a key to the Harlem storefront studio space as well as an art material stipend and opportunities through outside initiatives to help nourish and promote their individual artistic practices. Sustained engagement throughout all stages of a participant’s journey offers immeasurable benefits. These benefits include access to necessary services, free virtual therapy, and the opportunity to mentor current youth.

The Studio Assistant program is another new initiative that creates space for young people currently working in the Art & Entrepreneurship program to move upwards within the organization and to lead by example. It reinforces the idea that consistent attendance, punctuality, and engagement can lead to promotions, greater responsibilities, and higher pay.

“[Through art] I’m trying to shed light on the mental health system that we currently have in place for young people in this city,” said Samantha Cortez, an alumni artist-in-residence, in her exhibition, Vehicles of Isolation. “We need mental health care reform. I don’t suffer from my mental health; my mental health suffers as a result of the environments I have been surrounded by. What inspires me to create are the moments where I feel very isolated. Those are the moments where, instead of putting myself into a stressful situation, I use art instead.”

Support from the Illumination Fund helped Artistic Noise to:

Maintain and expand its programming
Retain and serve more participants in its Art & Entrepreneurship program
Provide virtual programming during the COVID-19 pandemic
Pilot the Art & Care program
Support the organization through a leadership transition
Expand staffing for the Artist-in-Residence program
Maintain connections with the probationary and foster care systems
Strengthen the Artistic Noise Alumni network

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Grantee-Level:

Hover or click to see 20 years of growth in activities and benefits to participants

Artistic Noise connects the power of artistic practice with system-impacted youth

COMMON THREADS PROJECT

New York City Program

“Common Threads Project works with marginalized women who have experienced trauma, sexual violence, exploitation, displacement, and poverty,” explains Rachel Cohen, Ph.D., founder and clinical director. Most of the participants are refugees from war or displaced from conflict-affected regions. “They have experienced the loss of home, loved ones, workplace, community, identity, and hope. The impact of these traumatic experiences on individuals, families, and communities is profound and lasting.” Cohen describes the ramifications of these experiences: “Often survivors struggle with severe depression, stigma, social isolation, family conflict, shame, and distress. Without an opportunity for true recovery, trauma sequelae may get passed on to the next generation.”

Rachel Cohen developed a new — but historically rooted — arts-based recovery methodology — a group process of sewing “story cloths,” coupled with best practices from trauma therapy.

“I stumbled into this ancient practice where women come together in groups and sew story cloths. They stitch together, they support each other, and they find a way to speak the unspeakable,” said Cohen. “They gain understanding, insight, and strength, and they heal from doing this simple practice. It’s something that women have done throughout history in all kinds of cultures, and we’re just borrowing that practice and adapting it, and it turns out to be very powerful.”

While the practice is ancient, the science is new and evolving. This integrative therapeutic process is rooted in current neuroscientific understandings of trauma.

Population

Refugee Women, Survivors of Gender-based Violence

Discipline

Textile

First grant

2022

Common Threads Project’s primary psychological intervention brings women together in a healing circle. Sessions begin with a culturally relevant ritual, such as a game, dance, or song, to bond everyone. After the beginning ritual, participants are taught the benefits of psychological practices and given psychoeducation and tools to regulate their nervous systems in the aftermath of trauma.

Through this process, participants find safety, mutual support, community, and a vital means of self-expression. The program provides a secure space for deep healing and connection with others. Participants learn to access their own strengths and resilience.

“We help the women in the groups to understand what trauma is about, what is happening in their bodies and in their lives,” Cohen said.

In addition to receiving psychological education and tools, survivors make art and participate in art therapy — learning stitches and participating in activities that allow them to explore their trauma safely while building community, reducing stigma, and gaining valuable coping skills to manage challenging emotional states.

“The sewing itself has a kind of rhythmic, meditative quality that actually allows them to stay in a grounded state while processing this emotionally very difficult and potentially destabilizing material and memories. If they’re sewing, they’re able to stay in the here and now,” Cohen explained.

Common Threads Project partners with local organizations to provide direct services to survivors — adapted to the local context and culture — and builds local capacity by training local clinicians in the model.

“I used to be disturbed while recalling my past incidents. I always thought about it. But the program helped us express our stories into a textile, and now I don’t feel as disturbed when I express those things because we expressed it in a piece of cloth.”

Common Threads Project participant

“In New York, we are a center of refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom have been through unspeakable human rights abuses and atrocities, and they need the best kind of healing we can possibly offer. They deserve that.”

Rachel Cohen,
Founder and Clinical Director
Common Threads Project

Common Threads Expands to the U.S. +

Common Threads Expands to the United States

Common Threads Project, which Cohen founded in 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland, spent their first several years working in refugee communities in Ecuador, Nepal, Bosnia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But you don’t have to go abroad to see how tragedies such as gender-based violence in other continents accompany refugees as they seek new homes and new lives. Many come to the United States.

Cohen returned to the United States and in 2019, Common Threads Project began to launch programs in several communities where refugees had resettled.

Common Threads Project continues to work internationally, in partnership with local groups, but is now based in New York City. Common Threads Project has developed partnerships with refugee-serving organizations in the United States, including Seattle and Washington, DC.

As with their international model, Common Threads Project trains their US facilitators to lead healing circles at these various partnership organizations. “We supervise the groups, but the local practitioners adapt this model for their culture and circumstances, and they facilitate their own healing circles,” Cohen said.

Support from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund helped Common Threads Project launch their first New York City programs. Current partners are Sanctuary for Families, a service provider and advocate for survivors of domestic violence, sex trafficking, and related forms of gender violence; and the NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture and NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst’s Libertas Center for Human Rights, both of which provide medical, mental health, social, and legal services for individuals and families subjected to torture and other human rights abuses.

“They’re fleeing human rights abuses. They’re fleeing torture. They have experienced some form of trauma, and they’re seeking safety here in the US and in New York,” says Adeyinka Akinsulure-Smith, a Common Threads Project facilitator who is a psychology professor at City College of New York and a clinician at the Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture.

Common Thread Project’s New York participants are far more diverse than most of those internationally. “The women in Common Threads Project come from all kinds of backgrounds. Many of them are survivors of war in places of conflict or they may be refugees and asylum seekers who have been through these experiences,” said Cohen. The groups at the Bellevue program include women from Francophone West Africa, and participants at Sanctuary for Families included participants from China, Russia, Burkina Faso, Morocco, the US, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Philippines. Circles for participants from Central and South America are conducted in Spanish.

Keyra Carpio-Muller, a facilitator of Common Threads Project healing circles at Sanctuary for Families, observed that “the creative non-verbal somatic approach of Common Threads Project provides a tangible alternative to traditional talk therapy. A lot of times, trauma is captured in images and cannot be described in words. Use of art materials in the creative process is grounding, regulates the nervous system, and reduces stress. Many of our participants chose to share visual representations of their childhood, sharing experiences of isolation, abuse, neglect, and scarcity.”

Because healing isn’t linear, nor is it limited to a timeframe, it can — and usually does — take a long time. Participants join the healing circles for about six months of intensive work. At the conclusion of their therapy, they may choose to continue to remain engaged in other ways, staying connected with the “family” they have formed together, encouraging others to join the process, showing their story cloths in an exhibition, or speaking out for human rights in their communities.

“It is really critical for women suffering from trauma to discover that they’re not alone. Collective trauma needs to be addressed collectively, or it’s very easy to blame themselves for what happened,” Cohen explained.

“When you’re in a group of survivors, it becomes very clear that this is a much larger structural problem that has been perpetrated on all of us.”

Developing affirming, trusting relationships is indicative of significant progress in healing and recovery.

The use of textiles and sewing to create story cloths is grounding, regulates the nervous system, and reduces stress. Credit: Common Threads Project

Launching a New York City Program +

Launching a New York City Program

Cohen heard about the Illumination Fund’s call for proposals during the pandemic and decided to apply. She was thrilled when she found out that Common Threads Project was selected. “Their support allowed us to launch a program in New York City, and the Arts in Health cohort has been instrumental in helping us here.”

“The Illumination Fund understood that deep impact can be as valuable as broad impact,” Cohen said.

One way that the Illumination Fund has sought to support Common Threads Project is through connections. When the Fund learned about the Libertas Center for Human Rights, a program at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, they offered to connect the Libertas staff to Common Threads Project. Each had heard of the other, but they didn’t have a relationship. It has evolved into a new partnership.

In 2023, the Illumination Fund mounted an exhibit, Stitch by Stitch: The Fabric of Healing, at the Illumination Fund’s office gallery. Stitch by Stitch brought together story cloths created by participants from Ecuador, Nepal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bosnia, and the US.

Women from several of the international programs lent their story cloths to Common Threads Project for the exhibition. The story cloths are deeply personal; understandably, some women who go through the program don’t want them to be seen by the public. There is never an expectation that their works will be exhibited, but many were eager to share. They told the Common Threads Project’s team that they wanted people in the US to know of their experiences, of what was happening in their countries.

“With the story cloths, when women decide to display them and to share them with the world, it’s for us to bear witness, to stand in solidarity, to hear the story and to say, ‘I hear you. I’m with you,’” explained Golic.

“When many people think about New York, they think about its enormous wealth and opportunities, and everything that it has here for people, but there are so many people here who are living in displacement and in need of rebuilding their shattered lives.”

Vesna Golic,
Executive Director
Common Threads Project

Restoring a Sense of Dignity +

Impact: A Process That “Restores a Sense of Dignity”

“The true impact of the healing circles and our methods,” Cohen noted, “is clear when the women who participate in the groups tell us that they have come to experience their lives in a different way. ”They no longer feel helpless and alone. They restore a sense of dignity and purpose. They feel solidarity with each other. They overcome this crushing shame and guilt, self-blame, and stigma that they’ve carried with them.”

In addition to providing services directly, Common Threads Project provides training to healing circle facilitators across the world, multiplying the impact far beyond its program participants.

“I have really appreciated the different techniques we practiced together. I’ve been doing a lot of breath tracing and have shared it with friends. I also have been thinking a lot about discussions on the role of these methods in groups and allowing relationships to form in a creative and judgment-free environment,” one trainee reflected.

Common Threads Project shares its success, its methodology, and its science through various webinars, conferences, and workshops. By spreading its work, Common Threads Project is able to introduce different methods of trauma therapy to the psychology and scientific community, enabling learning and adoption across different locations and demographics.

Common Threads Project participants’ story cloths. Image 1: Migrant Life in Sedra (Bosnia). Image 2: Let’s Go Forward (Ecuador). Image 3: Carnaval (Keyra Carpio-Muller, NYC facilitator). Image 4: Dark Places in the Mines (DRC). Image 5: Difficult to Put into Words (Ecuador). Image 6: A Gallega (Kimberly Neill, NYC facilitator). Image 7: My Journey (Nepal). Image 8: Forced to Marry My Rapist (DRC). Image 9: The story cloths were featured at Stitch by Stitch: The Fabric of Healing, an exhibition hosted by the Illumination Fund. Credit: Common Threads Project

The Case for Arts in Health +

The Case for Arts in Health

When Common Threads Project began the US programs, they did not yet have support from other US foundations. That has started to change. After visiting the exhibit at the Illumination Fund, the van Ameringen Foundation, which supports mental health programs in New York and Philadelphia as well as advocacy nationally, decided to support Common Threads Project’s work in New York City. The organization also saw increasing donation levels from individuals, including from newly engaged individual donors.

“If philanthropists are looking for ways to reduce suffering and strengthen communities and individuals, they need to look at what’s possible through the arts,” Cohen said. “These interventions or programs that go very deep with smaller numbers of individuals can be enormously valuable and have great ripple effects out into the larger numbers.”

Support from the Illumination Fund helped Common Threads Project to:

Create and expand its New York City programming
Increase the number of facilitators trained,
mentored, and supervised in Common Threads
Project methodology
Implement additional women’s circles
to facilitate healing
Produce an exhibition of the story cloths created to amplify the voices of survivors

Programming Highlights

The New York City program builds upon Common Threads Project’s international model. Quantitative data from Nepal and Bosnia demonstrate clinically and statistically significant reductions in anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms across participants.

Leadership Development +

Leadership Development

In addition to providing direct services in collaboration with its partners, Common Threads Project provides training for facilitators and clinical staff in every program location. By doing so, they are creating a growing pipeline of people trained in the methodology. Another striking development is that after completing their therapy, some of the participants become community advocates for refugees and survivors of sexual violence, and some have become Common Threads Project facilitators. To date, this process has happened in the international programs, but Common Threads Project anticipates that as the US programs mature, more and more participants will step into those roles.

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Grantee-Level:

The organization measures impact through clinical outcomes as well as the number of participants reached and retained throughout the program, number of facilitators trained, attrition rate, and the production of story cloths.

Across global and domestic programs, Common Threads Project has trained more than 100 clinicians to lead circles, reaching more than 900 survivors with long term trauma treatment. In New York about 50 refugees, asylum seekers, survivors of torture, war, trafficking, and domestic violence participated in Common Thread Project’s intensive long-term healing circles in 2023. In May and June 2024, the team trained 12 more therapists in New York, including a team from their new partner Libertas Center for Human Rights Program at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. Five more healing circles will begin in New York during the last quarter of 2024. A systematic evaluation process will accompany these programs to study and document the effectiveness of this model.

Common Threads Project uses story cloths to heal the trauma of gender-based violence among refugees

[ Jump to Table of Contents ]

COMMUNITY ACCESS

Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Competition and Festival

The majority of mental illnesses begin early in life. Half of all lifetime cases begin by age 14 and three quarters by age 24. 24 [LINK] Too often, there are not enough resources available to help young people and their families to have a healthy, open, and honest dialogue about mental health issues, and in turn, they remain all too prevalent. For young people, mental health challenges can be difficult to navigate, especially alone, fearful of being misunderstood and marginalized. By sharing and discussing short films about mental health, made by young filmmakers, Community Access’ Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Competition and Festival (Changing Minds) aims to positively change how we think and talk about youth mental health issues.

Founded in 1974, Community Access is one of the oldest nonprofits in New York City dedicated to helping people living with mental health concerns access housing, education, job training and placement, and mental health crisis services. Community Access core programs serve 3,500 of the hardest to reach and most vulnerable New Yorkers, the majority of whom are from communities of color, coming off the streets, and out of shelters. In addition to providing direct services, Community Access is also a leading advocacy organization for the rights of people living with mental health concerns. Through anti-stigma initiatives — including the NYC Mental Health Film Festival and Changing Minds — they shine a positive light on mental health and create safe spaces for people to share their authentic mental health stories.

“Our collective experience over the years is that mainstream media — film and television — portray stereotypical images of those that struggle with mental health concerns,” said John Williams, who leads the organization’s development and communications work. “These images perpetuate and fuel stigma around mental health in ways that put up many roadblocks for people that we love. We wanted to change that paradigm and use the media to offer positive messages about mental health.”

Population

Youth

Discipline

Filmmaking

First grant

2022

In 2015, after nearly ten years of running the NYC Mental Health Film Festival, which had grown to the largest mental health film festival in the country, the Community Access team launched Changing Minds for young people ages 15 to 25. The initial call for submissions asked young filmmakers to share their stories and experiences dealing with mental health. In 2016, the first year of the competition, the team received 22 submissions. The following year, it was in the hundreds.

“The Illumination Fund team reached out in 2017,” Williams said, “and started a dialogue with us about our hopes and dreams to scale up the program so that we could get the message out to more young people. With their support, we have been able to do that.”

“There was a need and an opportunity to help scale Changing Minds. That’s why we got behind Community Access as one of the first grantees in our Arts in Health Initiative,” said Rick Luftglass.

Williams went on to say the Illumination Fund was “the first foundation that recognized how vital the Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Program and Festival could be.”

The films address a wide range of mental health concerns, including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, bullying, loneliness, and issues related to gender identity, among many others.

“We talked a lot about our own creative journeys while we were storyboarding the film,” shared one young filmmaker. “We opened up to each other a lot about the insecurities we had and the kind of processes we go through to overcome them. Seeing the thousands of views my film got on Changing Minds’ YouTube channel, along with reading the comments — that made me feel a lot less alone.”

“Young people report that the process of making their film is healing and important to their social and emotional well-being. The filmmakers assemble larger teams to bring the idea to fruition, which multiplies the direct impact.”

John Williams,
Chief Development and Communications Officer
Community Access

Peer stories and contact matter. In an article in the International Review of Psychiatry, the authors reported that:

The key active ingredient identified by all intervention groups and workshop facilitators were the testimonies of service users. The statements… about their experience of mental health problems and of their contact with a range of services had the greatest and most lasting impact on the target audiences in terms of reducing mental health stigma. [LINK]

Community Access team shares these films in as many ways as possible. In addition to the annual film competition and festival, Community Access hosts programs each May to mark Mental Health Awareness Month and runs active social media channels aimed at combating mental health stigma, reaching a growing number of teens and adults. In addition, the team created free discussion guides to enhance conversations around mental health and films. Throughout the process, young people are at the center — reviewing the submissions, selecting films for the festival, managing social media, and more.

Since the Illumination Fund’s first grant, the festival has grown by leaps and bounds and inspired festivals in other places, including a mental health film festival in Singapore. Changing Minds provided guidance and materials to their colleagues in Singapore to help them shape their work and shared key learnings.

Films engage young filmmakers and their peers, from story development to film creation and distribution. Credit: Community Access

Transformation and Impact +

Transformation and Impact

Community Access has created a guide, How to Make a Film, which is available online for high schools, libraries, colleges, and community organizations to use as a toolkit for creating and presenting films. Its goal is to destigmatize mental illness on multiple levels and make it easy for institutions and individuals to participate in the programming and to replicate it in their communities.

Changing Minds has created significant impact:

Viewers see and experience stories about mental health and are encouraged to examine their own beliefs and reactions during the films.
The filmmakers themselves are given a creative outlet to share their own experiences of mental health, helping them to find community and self-acceptance.
The Changing Minds team, which includes young people, learns and grows emotionally and professionally from the experience of reviewing submissions and determining the film festival selections.
Outreach beyond the Festival touches thousands more people. The Changing Minds team uses social media channels and creates discussion guides that encourage high school teachers and community groups to screen the films and engage in discussions on mental health and stigma.

One way the team evaluates its impact is by surveying audience members after the film festival. Following the 2023 festival, the team learned that 60% of participants receive mental health services. After the festival, when asked: “Do you feel today’s films help fight the stigma often associated with mental health concerns?” 90% of participants responded, “very much so.”

Changing Minds also increases their impact through partnerships. In 2019, the Changing Minds team joined forces with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation. The teams have continued to partner to plan and execute the annual festival. Born This Way has been a key partner for advertising the festival.

The Pandemic +

The Pandemic

After their launch, Changing Minds continued to evolve and grow, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the rates of mental health issues such as anxiety and depression skyrocketed. Young adults were among the most highly affected populations. As a result, conversations around mental health and youth became more common.

“The pandemic,” Williams said, “opened the world’s eyes to having conversations about mental health in ways that did not exist before 2020. We are now having these conversations at the peer level, at the family level, and at the community level. Mental illness did not used to be a topic discussed around the dinner table, but a huge shift has happened. Folks are now willing to have these conversations.”

As the world shifted online, so too did the film festival. A record-breaking 770 young people submitted films. When Williams and his team logged on for the 2020 virtual film festival, they were joined by more than 2,000 participants from across the globe.

“There is an epidemic of isolation and loneliness in the United States, and there is a lot that we can achieve through virtual settings,” Williams said.

During the pandemic, the film festival and the surrounding activities not only provided a platform for young people to speak openly about their experiences and mental health, but also served as a means of finding community virtually as the global population remained physically distanced. Changing Minds served as a critical outlet for young people who had preexisting mental health concerns as well as those who found themselves confronting these issues for the first time.

Approximate number of submissions received since program’s inception, from 95 countries

The Case for Arts in Health +

The Case for Arts in Health

“Film,” Williams said, “can be the starting point

for conversation.”

It can help shift mindsets, to move our society from negative imagery and language toward positive thinking. The Changing Minds team believes in a world where mental illness is appropriately recognized in the headlines and in media, and a world where vocabulary around mental illness is “person-centered, hopeful, and celebrated.”

The arts can and must play a significant role in our societal conversations around mental health and mental illness.

Williams had one resounding piece of advice to the philanthropic world:

“Pay attention! Prioritize mental health.”

Support from the Illumination Fund helped Community Access to:

Run an annual film festival – in-person, virtual, and hybrid
Plan and launch Mental Health Awareness Month programming each May
Develop a YouTube channel to increase access to a curated set of films, organized by the specific issue
Create a discussion guide to aid high schools and community organizations in best utilizing films toward discussions on mental health
Launch Monthly Film Fridays on Instagram

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Grantee-Level:

Community Access has received 4,891 film submissions from 95 countries
The Changing Minds discussion guide has been downloaded 450 times, and the “How to Make a Film” guide has been downloaded 315 times
60% of participants in the 2023 festival reported receiving mental health services. After the festival, when asked: “Do you feel today’s films help fight the stigma often associated with mental health concerns?” 90% of participants responded, “very much so.”
The Changing Minds YouTube channel (@changingminds2889) has 2,340 subscribers as of Summer 2024, and the films have been viewed about 43,000 times

After the 2023 Festival, when asked: “Do you feel today’s films help fight the stigma often associated with mental health concerns?” 90% of participants responded, “very much so.” Credit: Community Access

Changing Minds Young Filmmakers Competition and Festival combats mental health stigma

Community Access: Changing Minds Young Filmmaker Competition Submissions from 95 countries and territories (2017-2024)

DANCE / NYC

Staff Wellness Program

Issue

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, as the global health crisis, economic instability, and social unrest devastated the dance community, Dance/NYC experienced a rapid and exponential growth in the demand for its services.

To meet this demand, Dance/NYC staff took an all-hands-on-deck approach to offer both resources and direct cash awards via its Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund and other means of support such as facilitating regular virtual gatherings and sharing critical information through its communication platforms.

Despite its efforts to administer and deliver a generous emergency relief strategy, Dance/NYC also reckoned with the reality that the need in the dance field far outweighed the capacity of its staff and its fiscal reach as an organization. After 18 months of intense relief efforts, the Dance/NYC staff (most of whom are also dancers) was depleted and in need of true rest and restoration, not only on a personal level but also to heal their relationship to a professional role that requires emotional labor as well.

Such a prolonged and intense period of overwork resulted in the creation of the Dance/NYC Staff Wellness Program aimed at developing more capacity to maintain the individual and collective well-being of Dance/NYC staff. The program includes social-emotional development, mental wellness support, staff cohesion, and resilience driven by a holistic, humanistic, and integrated approach.

The Work and the Illumination Fund +

The Work and the Illumination Fund

“Without that support from the Illumination Fund, we certainly would not have what we built with REBUILD. We get so many REBUILD signups because of this event,” Ector said. “Additionally, the Illumination Fund created a video that we now use for our fundraising.”

Additionally, by leveraging the Illumination Fund’s connection, Darkness RISING Project partnered with New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex to provide information to people upon their release, facilitating access to mental health resources. This program is one of the first of its kind and, with its deep impact on participants, affects a whole community.

The Illumination Fund’s support of Darkness RISING Project has fostered the organization’s growth, raised its visibility in activist and therapeutic communities, and provided ongoing support and collaboration.

“It’s so great to hear from the Illumination Fund about how important our work is to them and to witness how dedicated and committed they are to every grantee.” Being a part of the Illumination Fund’s Arts in Health grantee cohort has been indispensable to the organization’s overall success.

“It is one of my favorite things, I think, about being a grantee, to learn about other work that’s happening, because there’s always so much room for collaboration. Even when there’s not necessarily overlap in the type of work we do, I learned so much from them about their processes just by spending time with them,” Ector said.

Impact +

Impact

Darkness RISING Project measures the results of its diverse set of programming through a variety of quantitative statistics — how many people have received therapy from the REBUILD program, therapy sessions funded, recidivism rates (less than 2%), number of formerly incarcerated participants completing a therapy course, and number of people matched with a Black therapist.

“The comments that we receive from the people who walk up to us during our in-person events and say, ‘Because of this event, I’m going to go talk to my aunt about therapy, and I’m going to let her know that I’m interested in starting,’ those are the types of impact that matter the most to us,” Ector said.

Darkness RISING Project’s impact is real, profound, and life-changing, J.M., a program participant, reported that he spent half his life in the system. “I knew that I would need an outlet to process my experiences and trauma,” he said. “REBUILD helped connect me with a tailor-fit local therapist and removed the burden of how to pay for the much-needed services. I refer people to REBUILD every single day!”

Additionally, Ector notes, many participants who complete the program are able to identify their triggers, work through their issues, and maintain employment.

The Case for Arts in Health +

The Case for Arts in Health

As a small, Black-led organization, Darkness RISING Project faces unique challenges in the philanthropic space. Ector mentions the importance of creating funding opportunities for small organizations with small staff working within marginalized communities.

“We still need more funding for small nonprofits, and we still need more access to areas for training for nonprofit leaders, especially for nonprofit leaders in marginalized communities,” Ector said.

Darkness RISING Project illustrates the richness of the work that can be done at the intersection of arts in health. They not only provide enjoyable and educational experiences, but they guide people who need support toward culturally competent resources they may have not known existed or shied away from in the past.

Out of the darkness, it seems, rises light.

Support from the Illumination Fund helped Darkness RISING to:

Expand its Darkness Rising: Live event
Establish and maintain partnerships with local mental health organizations throughout New York City
Provide a platform for its REBUILD program within New York City

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Grantee-Level:

2022-2023 Darkness RISING:

Harlem: 1,340 attendees; Brooklyn: 400; Queens: 600; Staten Island: 80; Bronx: 50, online 9,000
680 people downloaded the Black Mental Health Resource Packet
425 people accessed Findmeatherapist.org

Building Access +

Building Access

Provides free mental health resources and information to marginalized communities (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and formerly incarcerated individuals)In 2023, Darkness RISING Project connected more than 257 Black community members to Black therapists through Find Me a TherapistEnables formerly incarcerated individuals to receive ten free therapy sessions from culturally competent therapists› In 2023, Darkness RISING Project funded more than 422 therapy sessions for formerly incarcerated community members of color through REBUILD

Darkness Rising Project provides mental health resources and referrals

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DE-CRUIT

New York City Program

Issue

The mental health needs of military veterans are largely underserved. Clinical and epidemiological data show that New York City’s military veterans have been disproportionately affected by the COVID pandemic physically, psychologically, and economically. These trends persist due to a constellation of vulnerability factors affecting veterans, including elevated rates of unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, and poverty.

Compounding these problems are veterans’ pre-existing mental health challenges, with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression rates greater than the general population. According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2023 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, there were 6,392 Veteran suicide deaths in 2021, 114 more than in 2020. The impact of COVID-19 has also affected veterans in unique ways, most notably as a traumatic triggering event. For many of New York City’s veterans,

the exposure to stress, injury, and ongoing loss of life — once witnessed in combat — is repeating itself during the pandemic. [LINK] That trauma is particularly prevalent for veterans in communities of color and low-income communities, where mental health problems resulting from the pandemic are not only more common, but also more likely to go untreated.

There is thus a need to expand and deliver mental health services to the city’s most vulnerable veterans in ways that are responsive to their needs and that acknowledge the strength and resilience in their communities. DE-CRUIT meets this need by using theater, premised on the philosophy that the arts are central to recovery, healing, and community transformation.

Gibney Community Action +

Gibney Community Action

Over two decades ago, Gina Gibney founded the Community Action pillar of Gibney Company, collaborating with social service agencies and survivors to create a unique movement program supporting the healing of those impacted by intimate partner violence. In 1999, Gibney launched the Move to Move Beyond® workshops in partnership with Sanctuary for Families. These trauma-informed sessions, led by trained dancers, help participants reconnect with their bodies, build community, and practice self-care.

Today, Gibney is a dance company, performing arts hub, and social action incubator, hosting thousands of artists and community members across two NYC locations with 23 studios and five performance spaces. Gibney now partners with numerous organizations, offering 100 Move to Move Beyond® workshops annually in domestic violence shelters and partner sites to support people affected by domestic and gender-based violence.

In response to the CDC’s findings that a majority of intimate partner violence victims were first victimized before age 25, in 2014 Gibney, in partnership with Day One and the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, developed the Hands are for Holding® program. This youth-centered violence prevention initiative uses dance and movement to engage youth in conversations about healthy relationships, expanding annually to reach more schools and community partners.

As one youth participant shared: “One thing I will remember from this workshop is what is healthy and what is unhealthy [in a relationship].”

From Survivors to Leaders +

From Survivor Leaders to Move to Move Beyond® Storytellers

Some of the participants in Move to Move Beyond® wanted to take a public role as peer advocates using their artistry, so Gibney created a group of Sanctuary for Families Survivor Leaders to offer a series of performances and advocacy opportunities to inspire broader communities. The Survivor Leaders share their truths, touching and transforming witnesses through performance and storytelling. The participants renamed themselves Move to Move Beyond®Storytellers, illuminating the capacity and need for positive change.

“We have an opportunity to share our painful processes and talk about things that are relevant to each of us, “a program participant shared.” Together, it becomes something different; it helps us move further away on the other side of the pain, which is essentially the healing process.”

One of the first public performances of the Survivor Leaders took place in 2018 at The Role of the Arts in Addressing Trauma, an Illumination Fund convening during the first year of the Arts in Health initiative. Held at Hostos Community College for an audience of about 400, the convening demonstrated the power that performances could have. “Gibney is a prime example of an arts organization addressing trauma and conducting public-facing performances to demonstrate how art can be used to heal and to raise awareness of health and social justice issues,” said Rick Luftglass. “Stepping into an advocacy and education role is bold, and it shows the profound impact of the program for the participants.”

In 2020, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illumination Fund, Gibney partnered with Sanctuary for Families and Teachers College, Columbia University to conduct the first-of-its-kind randomized controlled study exploring the impact of dance and movement on the mental health and well-being of survivors of intimate partner violence. As the study began, Gibney found the partnerships formed within the Arts in Health cohort to be supportive.

“The clinical trial was really new for us, and even with my research background in psychology, it was big,” said Yasemin Özümerzifon, Senior Director of Gibney Community Action. Through the Arts in Health cohort, Yasemin connected with David Leventhal of Dance for PD® and gained insight into his experience of dance research, which helped inform her own. And Özümerzifon shared, “We couldn’t have done this work without the expertise of Dr. Allison Ross, senior deputy director at Sanctuary for Families, and Dr. Carol Ewing Garber, professor of Movement Sciences, director of the Graduate Program in Applied Physiology at the Teachers College, Columbia University.”

Pandemic Response +

Pandemic Response

In 2020, as lockdown descended, Gibney immediately reached out to their partners to survey the needs of gender-based violence victims and survivors — many of whom were in situations where they were forced to stay in unsafe conditions due to pandemic isolation orders.

The United Nations described increased violence against women during the pandemic as a “shadow pandemic,” and the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice reported an 8% increase in domestic violence in the United States in 2021. [LINK]

Özümerzifon stated, “Another thing that became clear for us is that there were a lot of immediate needs for safety and survival, such as where to get food, and we started adding those to our resources, as well as baseline safety protocols.”

In the early days of the pandemic, the arts community in New York City was severely impacted and performing artists lost their ability to rehearse, perform, and earn money. The Illumination Fund increased its support to Gibney to help launch OKAY, Let’s Unpack This, an initiative created by Leal Zielińska, artistic associate at Gibney, with the dual goal of normalizing and destigmatizing the conversation surrounding mental health in the dance field and increasing dancers’ access to mental health support resources. Between 2020-2021, the initiative provided more than 230 sessions of individual therapy to the national dance community with culturally competent therapists who have specific experience in working with dancers. The initiative has also provided Gibney staff with individual therapy on an ongoing basis.

Meanwhile, Gibney pivoted Move to Move Beyond® to an online format and restructured the research study to reflect the new reality of the pandemic, yielding the manuscript, Exploring a Dance/Movement Program on Mental Health and Well-Being in Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence During a Pandemic, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry. [LINK]

The results of the study illustrated the impact of movement on survivors of intimate partner violence, as those who participated experienced improved mood and reduced tension. With symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological distress lessening, each participant left the program with a new set of self-care habits and tools. More importantly, the study showed the effectiveness of Move to Move Beyond® in a digital format, allowing survivors who may not have access to Gibney’s physical space an opportunity to reap the benefits of the program.

Like many of the other Arts in Health grantees, even as the pandemic waned, Gibney has continued digital programming to provide greater access for communities.

Impact +

Impact

Gibney’s impact is evident through both qualitative and quantitative measures, including participant feedback, partner organization testimonials, and metrics like the number of workshops, participants, and partners. Notably, a clinical trial confirmed the effectiveness of Gibney’s methods, providing evidence-based validation that has bolstered the work of other arts organizations at the intersection of arts and health, and encouraging further research funding.

The trial revealed significant benefits for Move to Move Beyond® participants, including enhanced self-connection, expression through movement, community building, stress relief, positive emotions, and the adoption of self-care practices into daily life. Participants discovered new, beneficial ways to express themselves through movement.

In addition to the formal evaluation of Move to Move Beyond®, Gibney continually assesses Hands are for Holding®.

Students who experienced Hands are for Holding® expressed that the opportunity to connect with movement was powerful, both as a self-care tool and to learn what healthy relationships entail.

Support from the Illumination Fund helped Gibney’s Community Action to:

Maintain and expand its programming
Establish the Move to Move Beyond®Storytellers work as a program with ongoing programming
Increase the number of “Community Actionists” (specially trained dancers) for Hands are for Holding® programming
Maintain relationships with domestic violence and gender-based violence institutions across New York City
Increase resources provided on Gibney’s Community Action Hub
Expand COVID-19 response in programming
Provide free therapy session to Gibney professional dancers
Conduct the NEA clinical trial in conjunction with Teachers College, Columbia University and Sanctuary for Families

Building Knowledge +

Building Knowledge

Gibney published “Exploring a Dance/Movement Program on Mental Health and Well-Being in Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence During a Pandemic” in Frontiers in Psychiatry, the second most-cited journal in the field of psychiatry with 38 million views internationally. It was also republished on the National Institute of Medicine’s National Library of Medicine public access website.
The findings point toward the meaningful and effective role (choice, self-expression, trust-building, sharing) dance and movement can have in addressing trauma as a complementary tool to social services.
Yasemin Özümerzifon joined Rick Luftglass for panels at Grantmakers in the Arts and United Philanthropy Forum, where some Move to Move Beyond Storytellers performed, and presented at the American Psychological Association moderated by Sunil Iyengar, Research and Analysis Director for the National Endowment for the Arts.

A clinical trial confirmed the effectiveness of Gibney’s Move to Move Beyond® with program participants reporting enhanced self-connection, stress relief, positive emotions, and the adoption of self-care practices. Credit: Gibney

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Reaching over 12,000 survivors through the Move to Move Beyond® program in all five boroughs since 1999
Reaching over 40,000 participants through the Hands are for Holding® program in all five boroughs
Move to Move Beyond® Storytellers reaching an audience of over 4,000 people

Through Gibney’s Move to Move Beyond® Client Survey, Gibney learned that:

Before the workshop, 68.2% of clients reported feeling tired, 36.4% reported feeling nervous/anxious and 34.1% reported feeling stressed
After experiencing the workshop, 65.9% of clients reported feeling relaxed, 43.4% reported feeling energized, and 40.9% reported feeling inspired
Additionally, 97.7% reported that the workshop helped them connect with others, 100% reported that it helped them connect with themselves, and 86.1% reported that they are likely to try the self-care techniques on their own outside of the workshops

Gibney, in partnership with Sanctuary for Families and Teachers College, Columbia University, conducted a National Endowment for the Arts-funded study on the Move to Move Beyond® program. Conducted over 12 virtual sessions during the pandemic, this first randomized trial for survivors of intimate partner violence, revealed:

Significant reductions in PTSD symptoms and psychological distress
Improved mood
Reduced tension

Participants found new ways to:

Express themselves
Attune to their bodies
Learn new self-care habits, and
Build community

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ID STUDIO THEATER

Bilingual Healing Arts Initiative

Issue

The South Bronx neighborhood where ID Studio Theater is based is the poorest congressional district in the country. The community is vulnerable to risk factors for poor health outcomes, including poor air quality, limited access to healthy food options, and insufficient health services. Combined with the effects of COVID-19, the community continues to face high levels of stress, grief, and anxiety.

Montefiore Medical Center’s 2018 Mental Health Dashboard highlighted that 91% of the Bronx population insured by Medicaid lives in a Mental Health Shortage Area, meaning that access to mental health services is limited. Considering the stigma around mental health, combined with language barriers and low accessibility of health services, it is critical for community organizations to fill in the gaps. Health disparities will continue to be exacerbated if the community is not given the tools and support to combat the challenges they face.

The performing arts are used as a vehicle for personal and community healing. Credit: ID Studio Theater

Transformation and Impact +

Transformation and Impact

Nearly one-fifth of the US population is estimated to be Latinx or Hispanic. Of those, more than 16% reported having a mental illness in the past year, which amounts to more than 10 million people. In Latinx and Hispanic communities, mental health and mental illness are often stigmatized topics, which can result in prolonged suffering in silence.[LINK]

The silence, according to a report by Mental Health America, “compounds the range of experiences that may lead to mental health conditions including immigration acculturation, trauma, and intergenerational conflicts. Additionally, the Latinx/Hispanic community faces unique institutional and systemic barriers that may impede access to mental health services, resulting in unmet needs and reduced help-seeking behaviors.”

That’s part of why it’s essential for the community to see themselves represented in the performance.

“Audience members are not only spectators. Through the forum theater model, they are part of the interactions,” Lopez said.

Audience members agree.

“There is a difference between hearing and listening. When you listen to someone, you actually put yourself in their shoes: it gets deeper,” JoAnn Candelis, an audience member, said after one performance.

Pregones/PRTT believes this experience will have long-term impacts — a sustained community interest in monitoring and remediating mental health.

The Case for Arts in Health +

The Case for Arts in Health

Reflecting on the BURNED experience, Merced shared: “It was very rewarding to understand that yes, you can join health services and art services in a way that they can coexist — the two can join in the same arena without overshadowing each other.”

The Pregones/PRTT team clearly see the way that theater — both the act of creating theater and experiencing theater — is uniquely positioned to surface difficult conversations about mental health. Audience members are able to connect with one another — to be in community, even if for just a fleeting hour or two together — and to open up.

Merced added that “Artists already understand the different ways in which art can really be a part of our community, our society — and our world.” The rest of us should follow the path of those artists toward a healthier future.

Support from the Illumination Fund helped Pregones/PRTT to:

Engage members of NYC’s Latinx community in the process of creating original theater about mental health and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on New York City’s Latinx community
Connect the Latinx community with mental health resources, including referrals to community-based services
Translate and stage four original pieces of micro-theater by project playwright Alejandra Ramos Riera
Commission and stage a new short play about mental health in the interactive “forum theater” format by Alejandra Ramos Riera
Facilitate post-performance community conversations following each forum theater live performance

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Grantee-Level:

Abrazo/Embrace for Mental Health engaged 3,500 direct participants primarily identifying as Latinx — to raise awareness of post-COVID mental health crises in the Bronx and to empower audiences to seek and access existing mental health services. The project sparked culturally relevant dialogue about mental health in Latinx communities in the Bronx.

20 total performances of Abrazo/Embrace

Year 1: 10 total: previews of micro plays for local residents, 6 community-based partner performances, 3 general audience performances, all free admission
Year 2: 10 total: performances of BURNED for community-based partners and general audience, all free admission

Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater’s Abrazo/Embrace project supports mental health in the Bronx

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RECESS

Assembly Program

Issue

Early involvement with the justice system begins a vicious and unjust cycle: those who already have limited access to resources are increasingly marginalized due to their court involvement.

The ongoing trauma perpetrated by systemic oppression and racism lead to diagnosed and undiagnosed mental health challenges that interfere with the ability to fully take advantage of the training, mentorship, and opportunities offered. Almost all system-impacted youth report exposure to some type of traumatic event and the majority meet criteria for a mental health disorder, with more than a quarter meeting criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Case for Arts in Health +

The Case for Arts in Health

Theater of War Productions’ work addresses trauma but also goes deeper and delves into moral injury. Moral injury, Doerries argues, is not exactly trauma. “It exists alongside mental health issues and trauma; It’s a soul wound. It’s something that the clinical world doesn’t really know how to wrap its arms and head around.”

Doerries cited John Paul Lederach’s book, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. Lederach, whose work is rooted in conflict resolution, argues in the aftermath of conflict, “the intervention for these types of injuries is not therapy: It’s art.”

Doerries couldn’t agree more.

Support from the Illumination Fund helped Theater of War to:

Develop four new performance-based initiatives for in-person and online audiences participants
Establish dozens of new partnerships in the health care arena
Evaluate the impact of its programming

Measuring Impact +

Measuring Impact

Grantee-Level:

For The King Lear Project, Theater of War Productions delivered 12 performances reaching approximately 1,300 people. Partner sites included senior centers at New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments, the SAGE Center for LGBTQ+ seniors, NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln, and RAICES Times Plaza Senior Center in Brooklyn.

Theater of War Frontline, delivered virtually via Zoom, reached over 7,000 people. It was anchored in hospitals across New York City, In a unique hybrid model, the hospitals also organized in-person groups of staff in conference rooms to increase dialogue and solidarity.

Theater of War Productions presented The Nurse Antigone 11 times to approximately 11,500 people from 70 countries.

Partnerships +

Partnerships

The Nurse Antigone exemplified Theater of War Productions’ focus on partnerships. Host partners included the Greater NYC Black Nurses Association, NYC Health + Hospitals, Organization of Nurse Leaders, New Jersey Hospice and Palliative Care Nurses Association, National Student Nurses Association, American Association of Critical Care Nurses, National Association of Community Health Centers, and Sigma. The partnerships enabled engagement and reach with key stakeholders with varied experiences and perspectives.

Theater of War Productions uses theater to inspire conversations about difficult issues

ViBE THEATER EXPERIENCE

Wellness Curriculum and Staff Training

Issue

According to the 2019 Georgetown Law case study Mental Health and Girls of Color by Kimberlyn Leary, Ph.D., “women and girls of color face unique stressors that are compounded by the intersection of race and gender identities. Negative socio-cultural experiences rooted in racism, discrimination, and sexism contribute to emotional pain, but often remain unacknowledged as sources of distress.” [LINK]

According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, “young women of color living in poverty receive mental health treatment at less than one-third the rate of young white women living in poverty.”[LINK] As the study suggests, “the cause of this gap can be complex, as providers may not recognize need, and girls of color may also not seek services because they report distrust of mental health services, confidentiality concerns, and fear that seeking mental health care will be stigmatizing.”

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The Pandemic +

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Common Threads Expands to the U.S. +

Launching a New York City Program +

Restoring a Sense of Dignity +

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Leadership Development +

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Transformation and Impact +

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The 156-page Arts in Health report was published in December of 2024. Get a free copy of the report via this link.

Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund