CEI Perspectives

• We uphold the value of diversity among participants, trainees, instructors, and staff for building cultural understanding, trust, connection, and a healthy society.
• We also uphold the value of creative expression through the arts as a culturally-responsive practice. We assert that the integration of simple mental health practices can maximize the innate social and emotional benefits of the arts.
• Our social emotional arts (SEA) practices offer accessible community sources of support to address systemic inequities in mental health care. Under-resourced populations may have little or no access to mental health resources, they may receive inadequate care as a result of discriminatory practices and, even with access, those resources may not be utilized due to financial, legal, or cultural concerns.
• We offer sustainable sources of social emotional support to communities disproportionately impacted by trauma, violence, loneliness, intolerance, chronic illness and pain, grief and loss, homelessness, mental illness, displacement, incarceration, environmental disasters, social isolation, and more.

 

CEI practices

• Our SEA practices offer a nonverbal means of communication when words are limited by stress, trauma, language, ability, or culture. Moreover, our practices are directly aimed at enabling all participants to be seen and heard—without judgment. This organically encourages empathy, connection, and empowerment. According to renowned 20th century educator Paolo Freire, shared creative experiences facilitate meaningful dialogue and, in turn, social action.
• Our curriculum materials and teaching methods are trauma-informed and reflect sensitivity to culture and ability. We acknowledge the culture of participants and practice cultural inclusivity in the presentation of art forms.
• Our process of non-judgment supports inclusion and helps to mitigate self-judgment that interferes with creative expression and arts participation. Inherent in self-judgment is the assumption of a fixed notion of ability, which may be associated with devaluation from lack of representation and opportunity or internalization of negative messaging. Embracing the process of creative expression, including any mistakes incurred along the way, builds a growth mindset that challenges fixed notions of ability and promotes achievement.
• We honor the lived experience of our participants and see them as knowledgeable owners of their own narratives and cultures. Therefore, we embrace, incorporate, and routinely solicit feedback from our diverse constituents in the implementation of our programs.

 

CEI Programs

• Created in 2020, our free, online HOPE (Healing Online for People Everywhere) Series has reached a vast global community through experiential workshops that enhance the innate social emotional benefits of the arts. Each session offers a supportive space for connection, healing, and empowerment as we navigate the changes in our world.
• Our Certificate Program in Social Emotional Arts is an affordable and accessible professional pathway for those without the time or resources to pursue graduate education in expressive or creative arts therapies. It offers practical tools for addressing challenges at the front lines of need—such as communication from trauma-informed and cultural perspectives, group cohesion, neurodiversity, needs assessment and evaluation, self-care tools for managing stress, and best practices in six different art forms. This program helps to build diversity of representation among practitioners and mentors in our field.
• Our Social Emotional Arts on a Shoestring: Supportive Art, Movement, Music, and Writing for Individuals & Groups in Any Setting training is designed for sustainable delivery in places with few resources, with guidelines for implementation by age and ability as well as guidelines for communication and management of stress responses.
• Our signature training programs come with scripted curriculum materials to enable anyone to implement them with relative integrity. The scripted materials can be used without training.
• Customized programs are available for all types and sizes of organizations, and we work with a range of budgets. We are also able to offer free presentations to schools, community-based organizations, and student groups.
• Since converting our programming to a virtual format in 2020, we have seen a greater increase in demand for our offerings from diverse communities all across the United States and Puerto Rico, plus over 40 countries from Qatar to Peru. We plan to maintain our virtual offerings and look forward to bringing new and innovative programs to our global audience.

 

CEI policies

• We proactively reach out to, and partner with, organizations serving under-resourced and historically-excluded communities.

• We provide scholarships and payment plans for anyone who wishes to enroll in our programs; we never turn anyone away for their inability to pay.
• We hire staff members with a known commitment to cultural equity and social justice.
• We proactively recruit instructors who represent cultural diversity and who reflect the communities we serve. We also proactively support our instructors in modeling culturally-responsive teaching practices, such as acknowledging past exclusions and injustices, crediting cultural sources to avoid cultural appropriation, and offering cultural perspectives and considerations on our methodologies whenever possible.

 

CEI plans

• To increase diversity among our constituents, and to proactively reach underrepresented communities in need of our services by connecting with new networks and community-based organizations.
• To increase diversity among our core and adjunct teaching faculty, staff, and board members through continual networking and participation in community events. A new proposal submission process for the HOPE Series is bringing new facilitators and perspectives to the program.
• To increase cultural responsiveness and humility in our written curriculum materials and in the delivery of our training programs.
• To deliver website and social media messaging in formats that speak to underrepresented and under-resourced communities.
• To play a leadership role in the conversation on cultural equity and inclusion by hosting an in-depth symposium that brings together diverse voices to provide intercultural pathways for connection and to deepen understanding through storytelling and other creative processes.
• To operationalize CEI within each department’s purview, and conduct a monthly review of goals and strategies through a dedicated workgroup.