Art Therapy with the SMART girls~
SMART Girls is a program designed at SVS to promote increased safety, stability and self-esteem among our female Group Home residents, empowering them to lead lives free of violence and abuse and to work toward economic self sufficiency. The implementation of the SMART Girls program—comprising a comprehensive system of components with goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound—provide the young women who enter SVS Group Homes with a positive intervention that will address the emotional and personal traumas they experienced prior to their placement in the foster care system.
We anticipate that SMART Girls will yield highly positive outcomes. Specific short-term outcomes include: improved self esteem; enhanced capacity for decision making, and the ability to accept responsibility for choices made; increased sense of personal comfort, trust, communication, and interpersonal relationships; the establishment of satisfactory relationships within the SVS Group Home; decreased anxiety, stress, and negative behaviors. Specific long-term outcomes would include: academic progress; high school graduation; acceptance to program of higher education/career training; return/repeat engagements with SVS Services after Group Home discharge; and the achievement of economic self-sufficiency through the career of choice.
SMART Girls is a key component of our long term strategy to enhance our capacity to serve our female population. This is a critical goal, as our female population now outnumbers our male population (51% to 49%).
Art therapy is a part of the Smart Girls Program:
Art Therapy Activities
Below is a list of some art therapy directives designed to help achieve treatment goals.
Note: this is not a comprehensive list, but a sampling of possible activities. Art therapy
is most effective when tailored to meet the unique needs of the group and its individual
participants. We aspire to empower the girls to have a voice in shaping the group into a
healing, supportive environment.
1. Group cohesion and safety
• Draw your name (graffiti style or bubble letters) to express personal style
– group introductions. What do you want people to know about you?
• Group Island – Designing community and creating group rules/norms. Imagining
the space as a private island. Using plaster and clay to create our group island.
• Personal boundary diagrams – what stays private/what can be public
• Guided imagery and drawing – what is a safe place?
• Group painting or mural – individual pieces come together into one large picture
2. Improved Self-Esteem / Identity Development
• Plaster masks to explore identity and how labels and life experiences shape us.
• Self portraits – learn to draw a face (skill acquisition and sense of
accomplishment)
• My Inner Superhero. Using cookable clay to create a permanent personal ‘action
figure.’ Focus on strengths and discover how “bad” traits might actually be
sources of power and strength.
• Body Outlines – trace (trust another) and fill-in “real” body outlines to represent
self now or in the future.
• Photo Therapy- use disposable cameras to show who we are in different
situations.
From Our SVS SMART Girls Creative Expression Session, October 7, 2010
Visit www.svs.org for more info and see how you can help our girls brighten their future!
