Free Arts For Abused Children

How It All Began

Originally founded in 1977 as Free Arts Clinic, Free Arts for Abused Children was born out of the determination of two women who understood and appreciated the inherent therapeutic value of the arts: Carolyn Sargent, a woman who, as a child, used art to emerge from the sadness and isolation of hearing loss, and Elda Unger, an artist and aspiring art therapist. Both women recognized the need for children in foster care to have meaningful engagement with the arts. By conducting arts workshops, Carolyn and Elda gave the gift of creative self-expression to children in need of positive outlets for their experiences.
 

Free Arts Mission & Vision
Free Arts PROGRAMS inspire hope in the lives of children who have experienced abuse, neglect, poverty and homelessness through innovative creative arts programs and positive interactions with caring adult volunteers.

Free Arts envisions a society of individuals from different communities, cultures and life experiences connecting through the healing power of art to interrupt the cycle of violence, create understanding, build self-esteem and nurture better lives.
 

Growing Programs
Free Arts started with a single PROGRAM at a residential facility. As Free Arts grew, thousands of children participated in the Free Arts Day Program and soon thereafter the Weekly Volunteer Program. In 1993, the organization began coordinating arts activities in the waiting areas of the Edmund D. Edelman Children's Court in Monterey Park, a courthouse dedicated exclusively to child abuse, neglect and abandonment cases. In 2009 we expanded to the McCourtney Juvenile Justice Center in Lancaster. Free Arts also introduced the Parents and Children Together with Art (PACT) Program in 1994 to help families in crisis.

Today, Free Arts has four thriving cornerstone PROGRAMS, each of which relies heavily on the dedication of community volunteers who use art as a bridge to connect with vulnerable children.

Reaching Out Around the Country

Free Arts for Abused Children is the legacy organization for a network of affiliates across the United States. After experiencing success in delivering our program models for more than 15 years, an expansion effort was launched in 1993 when an AFFILIATE AGENCY was founded in Arizona. Since that time, several Free Arts affiliates have been established including Free Arts Minnesota and Free Arts NYC. Please contact them directly for information about their local PROGRAMS.

Thank you

"Your support and the knowledge throughout this semester, that we have done the RIGHTthing deciding to pursue our education. Thank you very much for your kind words, love and care you give to me through out the process. You are all incredibly important to me and I appreciate you!"



There is no perfect teacher and no teacher can ever say that he/she has reached their full potential ever. There is always room for growth and to learn new things.

Through this semester I can truly say that I have picked up some good ideas from other teachers. In our field of education, this is not called copying, but modeling. All of you have been eager to share  your experiences with me, and for that I'm truly grateful. Much success, Rachel

Welcoming Families From Around the World

African Americans often seem cut off from the economic mainstream. They face higher risks of poverty, joblessness and incarceration than their fellow citizens do. Community organizing, civil rights legislation, landmark court decisions and rising education have advanced the cause of racial equality. Overt bigotry has been banished from public places, and polls show that whites harbor fewer prejudices than they used to. But these improvements have not been enough.

How can disadvantage persist so long after most laws, minds and practices have changed? Thomas M. Shapiro argues in this sober and authoritative book that we should look to disparities of wealth for the answer. Whites are wealthier than African Americans, and whites' wealth advantage is much bigger than their advantages in either income or education (the point of Shapiro's earlier study, Black Wealth/White Wealth, co-authored with Melvin Oliver). Whites start out ahead because they inherit more from their parents, and America's racially segregated housing markets boost whites' home equities, while depressing those of African-American families. Shapiro, a professor of sociology at Brandeis, takes readers through the implications of these inequities and concludes that African Americans will not gain significant ground in the wealth divide until inheritance and housing policies change.

Wealth is the sum of the important assets a person or family owns -- home equity, pension funds,saving accounts and investments. Wealth is better than income because it is durable. People use income to meet daily expenses, whereas wealth accumulates. People who have wealth tap it only to deal with emergencies or to take advantage of opportunities -- opportunities that usually build more wealth.

Wealth passes down from generation to generation. The main reason African Americans are currently worse off than whites, according to Shapiro, is that today's African Americans inherited less wealth from their parents than today's whites did. It is not hard to see why: The generation of African Americans now passed away accumulated less wealth because discrimination in their day kept most of them poor and denied them opportunities other Americans enjoyed.

The disparity in wealth not only persists, it mushrooms. Without a cushion of inherited wealth, emergencies hit harder, and people who have no nest egg have to let opportunities pass by. Because of the wealth deficit, African Americans find themselves more vulnerable to shocks and less able to capitalize on breaks than whites with the same income. So the next generation will inherit less, too. The wealth gap will not close anytime soon.

Shapiro blends statistical analysis and case studies of selected families in Boston, St. Louis and Los Angeles, showing the relative importance of wealth and the disparities in inheritance by class and race. He also supplies some individual case studies, which give depth and humanity to the numbers.

Wealth begins at home. A home-equity loan can see a family through a spell of unemployment or leverage an investment. Millions of middle-class Americans use tax-deductible home-equity loans to pay for their children's educations. Others buy rental property.

Because neighborhoods are racially segregated, African Americans' homes do not grow in value as fast as whites' homes do. Shapiro calculates that housing segregation costs African Americans tens of thousands of dollars in home equity. Homebuyers look for amenities commonly found in predominantly white neighborhoods. They pay extra for parks, convenient shopping and attractive views. Parents pay huge premiums for what they perceive to be good schools. Few parents can judge schools objectively. Instead, they use easy-to-observe markers, including the race of the students. These preferences raise the costs that first-time homebuyers face when they attempt to buy houses in those mostly white neighborhoods. Economic theory implies that if whites continue to waste money on irrational prejudices like this, market forces will eventually undo the racial disparity in wealth. But the experience of the last 50 years suggests otherwise. Inequality has grown because each new generation has been willing to pay a higher premium for these amenities. The market doesn't punish discrimination; it rewards it.

Whites fail to see any injustice in these differences. Shapiro's interviews convinced him that whites hide their privilege from themselves and, accordingly, feel no guilt for the hidden costs they impose on African Americans. People who inherited tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars nonetheless told Shapiro that they were self-made and self-reliant. They proudly told him how the assets they inherited grew under their stewardship. White parents use wealth to send their children to private schools or to give their adult children down payments for homes. They do not see how such practices hand today's inequalities on to the next generation.

Shapiro argues convincingly that these private matters spill over into public investment, too. He interviewed one upper-middle-class woman who told him that she was unconcerned with troubles in the local public school because she never intended to send her children there. Shapiro points out that her indifference -- and that of others like her -- is just one more obstacle in the path of people trying to improve local public education.

Families and generations are at the core of Shapiro's analysis. So I was surprised that he did not directly address how marriage and family structure fit into the cycles of accumulation, inheritance and investment. Married couples accumulate more than single parents do, according to other researchers. That suggests to me that African-American family issues must play a role in the wealth gap.

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Throughout the greater half of the twentieth century, African Americans were stereotyped as dirty and contaminated. Although it is easy to imagine that lower income individuals may not have had sufficient money for cleaning supplies,and might be less concerned about cleanliness, this was simply never true about African Americans. Rather, this stereotype festered to justify laws segregating Black and White Americans under the false notion of cleanliness and disease prevention. Segregation statutes prevented Blacks and Whites from utilizing the same restrooms, drinking fountains, and swimming facilities under the assumption that Whites would be contaminated by shared use. Back in the day, Jim Crow was "just common sense." The medical establishment agreed, proclaiming that African Americans were carriers of disease, "a social menace whose collective superstitions, ignorance, and carefree demeanour stood as a stubborn affront to modern notions of hygiene..." (Wailoo, 2006).

Meanwhile, Blacks Americans were commonly employed as cleaning ladies in White establishments, and nannies and maids for White families, illustrating the paradoxical nature of pathological stereotypes. Black people could cook food for White people, but could not sit at the same dinner table. Blacks could enter homes in White neighborhoods to clean them but not to buy them.

Even today, despite lower per capita incomes, Black Americans spend more on laundry  than their White counterparts, even after adjusting for differences in average annual spending. African American women engage in increased hygiene practices and report more cleaning and grooming behaviors. In fact, a greater emphasis on cleaning behaviors appears to be a cultural norm for African Americans. When taking in these facts and our history as a whole, it's not difficult to see how the stereotype was wrong, and distortion of reality was used to justify the disenfranchisement of a disadvantaged population.

Current Example

So, that was history, what about today? If I ask you what a "typical drug user" looks like, who do you see — a Black person? Most people are surprised to learn that African American youth are significantly less likely to use tobacco, alcohol or drugs than White or Hispanic Americans. Large-scale national surveys like the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) find that African Americans are significantly less likely to have substance use disorders than their White counterparts. Given that African Americans are a statistical minority in the US, the overwhelming majority of drug abusers will therefore be White. Nonetheless, African Americans are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and jailed for drug related crimes. People use the pathological stereotype of the Black junkie or drug dealer to rationalize the imbalanced scales of justice. We stuff our prisons with "those people" to propagate an illusion of safety. We like to think the world is fair, so if Black people are overrepresented in jails for drug-related crimes, we think they must be locked up because deserve it, perpetuating the pathological stereotype.

What if pathological stereotypes are true?

Certainly in some cases, it would seem that the stereotype must represent real differences between groups. For example, African Americans are pathologically stereotyped as poor, and indeed on average Black Americans are poorer than their White counterparts, though not in numbers nearly as high as estimated by the average American (29% reality versus 50% believed). Wouldn't this amount to a 'kernel of truth,' about group members?

Although some pathological stereotypes may represent measurable differences between groups, there will be many members of the group that possess some or none of the stereotypical traits. If we pathologically stereotype Blacks as 'poor,' and two out of three Black people are not poor, we'll be wrong most of the time. Despite what you might see on the nightly news, most Black people are in the middle class and many are upper class as well.

So, when you are standing in line at the supermarket next to a random Black woman in a hoodie and jogging pants, don't make assumptions about class or income. That woman may have a Ph.D. in neurobiology, speak fluent German and French, and earn more than you as a clinical director at a European pharmaceutical company. And if you do bump her, give her a hearty "Guten Tag!" from me, because you've probably run into my younger sister.

Racial Microaggressions In Everyday Life

Recently I went on a trip on a with my family, and we took a train early in the  morning. There were only a few passengers,and the attendant told us to sit anywhere, so we choose seats near the front of the train and across the aisle from one another.

At the last minute, three White men entered the train and took seats in front of us. Just before takeoff, the flight attendant, who is White, asked if we would mind moving to the back of the train to better accommodate everyone . We grudgingly complied but felt singled out as passengers of color in being told to "move to the back of the bus." When we expressed these feelings to the attendant, she indignantly denied the charge, became defensive, stated that her intent was to ensure the trains safety, and wanted to give us some privacy.

Since we had entered the train first, I asked why she did not ask the White men to move instead of us. She became indignant, stated that we had misunderstood her intentions, claimed she did not see "color," suggested that we were being "oversensitive," and refused to talk about the matter any further.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Cultural perspectives impact the way children participate in education.  The table below describes different expectations about "normal" school behavior for students from individualist and collectivist cultures.

Individualist and Collectivist Cultural Perspectives on Education

Individualist Perspective	Collectivist Perspective
Students work independently; helping others may be cheating.	Students work with peers and provide assistance when needed.
Students engage in discussion and argument to learn to think critically.	Students are quiet and respectful in class in order to learn more efficiently.
Property belongs to individuals, and others must ask to borrow it.	Property is communal.
Teacher manages the school environment indirectly and encourages student self - control.	Teacher is the primary authority, but peers guide each other's behavior.
Parents are integral to child's academic progress and participate actively.	Parents yield to teacher's expertise to provide academic instruction and guidance.

Source: Adapted from Individualist and Collectivist Perspectives on Education, from the Diversity Kit (2002) Providence, R.I.: The Education Alliance.

The influence of culture on beliefs about education, the value of education, and participation styles cannot be overestimated. With Asian students, for example, tend to be quiet in class, and making eye contact with teachers is considered inappropriate for many of these children. In contrast, most European American children are taught to value active classroom discussion and to look teachers directly in the eye to show respect, while their teachers view students' participation as a sign of engagement and competence.

Another contrast involves the role of Hispanic parents in education. Parents from some Hispanic cultures tend to regard teachers as experts and will often defer educational decision making to them. In contrast, European American parents are often more actively involved in their children's classrooms, are visible in the classrooms, or volunteer and assist teachers .These cultural differences in value and belief may cause educators to make inaccurate judgments regarding the value that non–European American families place on education. While it is important to keep in mind that different cultural groups tend to follow particular language and interaction styles, there is tremendous variability within cultural groups. 

My Family Culture

I honestly don’t know of many things I will take, seeing that my family is already with me. If the question was stated differently I would haves stated my family. Seeing that will be already with me, I’ve chose three things that mean the most to me.

I’m the type of person that really doesn’t value material things. As long as my family and my health are intact, I’m a happy camper. So for starters I would like to take all the money in my account. Money is universal, so I don’t think that would be a problem. Money is the only thing that I would have a problem with if they said I could not bring it. My logic is that if I had money my family will be efficient.

My second item would be my cell phone. My cell phone contains my life. In my cell phone I have my contacts, and pictures. If I want to contact anyone, I would   need their information to contact them.

Lastly I would bring a necklace that my mom got for me. I absolutely love the necklace, and for personal reasons it mean a lot to me.

When I Think of Research

1. Good interpersonal skills trump everything.  If you don’t have them, then nothing else you do will matter.  People will not want to work with you.   Everything we do and seek to accomplish in life depends upon being able to work well with others.  In modern terms:  “don’t be a douche.”
2. Seek out and rely upon mentors.  You need to find the people whose point of view you respect and turn to them for advice.  Don’t ask them in some cheesy way to be your mentor, rather cultivate this type of relationship with them by going to them out of respect with genuine questions and rely upon them sincerely.  It should not be artificial and contrived.  Don’t make it contrived networking and politiking.  People naturally want to help others and to share their wisdom, so take advantage of this to learn and to grow.  Ultimately, everyone has something to share and to teach you.  When people see that you are earnest, that you respect them and that you rely upon their counsel, they will naturally come to respect you.  Express appropriate gratitude and appreciation for what others have done to help your way.
3. Focus on doing a really good job in everything you do.  Take the time to do things right, to do it right the first time and to do it on-time.  As Grandma says, “a job worth doing is a job worth doing right.”  Ultimately, if we just focus on doing a good job (and we are easy and pleasant to work with) then everything else will take care of itself with time.

Research Around The World

 I read an article that focused on research relating to promoting music in early childhood programs. The  intent of this program is to further the quality of research  in the field of early childhood music education and to stimulate thought and the practice of music in early childhood throughout the world. They bring music educators around  the world to learn and to share the newest ideas regarding research and pedagogical practices in early childhood music education. Their personal theories about the nature of music, the responsiveness of children, and what constitutes effective practice in bringing the two together interest other practitioners. 

The programs goals are :

1. promote music in the lives of young children, regardless of talent, to create an enhanced environment that will result in the well-being and development of the whole child;
2. provide an international forum for the exchange of ideas regarding music and the young child, birth to age eight (and even pre-birth, as more scientific knowledge becomes available in this area);
3. stimulate the growth of quality music instruction, teacher training and research in musical development and instruction with the young child;
4. learn ways that various cultures approach musical enculturation in the young child (i.e. natural absorption of the practices and values of a culture); compare and discuss similarities and differences in music instruction and music learning across cultures; and to
5. examine issues which are of importance to the future of music in the lives of young children such as the influence of mass media and technology; the rapid change of society; the role of the family in musical development; the role of culture and schooling in musical development; and preservation of cultural traditions in the light of the breakdown of cultural barriers.

To accomplish these goals the programl:

1. hold biennial conferences or seminars in conjunction with ISME world conferences every two years in a venue geographically near the site of the conference;
2. contribute to the ISME electronic newsletter regarding early childhood music education; solicit and publish articles in other ISME publications;
3. endorse extra occasional courses which would focus in greater depth in promoting the general practices and principles of the commission. Endorsement of any proposed course, seminar, or conference will require a unanimous vote of approval from all six Commission Members currently serving, and would involve no financial support;
4. present early childhood sessions at ISME world conferences; and
5. work to reach early childhood music educators throughout the world - to maintain regular contact through the ISME electronic newsletter, the Commission Web Site, and biennial conferences and seminars.

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

Resilience in children refers to individuals who are doing better than expected, given a history that includes risk or adverse experience. Simply put, resilience requires two conditions to be met: (1) the child must have experienced some sort of risk or adversity that has been linked with poor outcomes, and (2) the child is generally doing okay despite being exposed to that risk or adversity; they are not showing that poor outcome.

The dominant view is that resilience is a description of a group of children. It is not a trait or something that some children 'just have.' There is no such thing as an 'invulnerable child' who can overcome any obstacle or adversity that she encounters in life. Resilience is not a rare and magical quality. In fact it is quite common. Resilience is the product of a large number of developmental processes over time that has allowed children who experience some sort of risk to continue to develop competently (while other children have not).Research on 'protective factors' has helped developmental scientists to understand what matters most for resilient children. Protective factors are characteristics of children or situations that particularly help children in the context of risk. There are many different protective factors that are important for resilient children. Two that have emerged time and again in studies of resilient children are good cognitive functioning (like cognitive self-regulation and IQ) and positive relationships (especially with competent adults, like parents). Children who have protective factors in their lives tend to do better in some risky contexts when compared to children without protective factors in the same contexts. However, this is not a justification to expose any child to risk. Children do better when not exposed to high levels of risk or adversity.

Resesarch

 the United States, children who experience homelessness are a group that tend to encounter higher rates of adversity, including those literally related to residential instability (e.g., loss of home or social connections)  as well as other stressful life events like exposure to domestic violence or parental incarceration. In addition, children in homeless families tend to be in single-parent, low-income households. Because of the presence of these risks, homeless children usually are considered to be at the high end of a continuum of poverty-related risk.

Despite these risks, many homeless children manifest resilience by continuing to show developmental competence. For example, multiple studies have found that many individual homeless children have reading and math achievement scores that were in the range expected for any student, even though average scores for homeless children as a group were much lower than other children in the same school district.

Not surprisingly, the protective factors that help keep development on-track for homeless children are generally the same ones that matter for other at-risk groups of children: better cognitive functioning (such as IQ and executive function skills) and positive relationships with at least one competent adult (especially parents).

Research on resilience among children experiencing homelessness has increasingly taken a developmental-ecological perspective, with an emphasis on untangling the complex developmental processes that contribute to, or interfere with, positive adaptation. A demonstration of this involves the interplay between two protective factors: positive parenting and good cognitive functioning. Kindergarten-aged children staying in family emergency housing did better at school if they had more competent parents or if their parents showed more positive parenting behaviors.More interestingly, competent and positive parenting was related to better child cognitive functioning (executive functioning and IQ scores) which, in turn, explained why these children did better at school. Meanwhile, children who showed better academic achievement in first grade were more likely to continue to show good achievement across the school years.Positive parenting seems to protect and encourage better cognitive functioning, which the child then ‘takes to school’ as a tool to help function competently in that context.

Research Stimulation: Resilence

Resilience is about how different people respond to threatening or stressful situations. A person's ability to be resilient can depend on circumstances - they may be able to overcome challenges in one situation but not in another. Furthermore, while one person may have difficulty handling a particular situation or use strategies that have negative outcomes for them, another may be able to overcome the same challenge easily. It is important to understand that resilience is not a fixed characteristic in an individual but is changeable and can be improved upon. Building and developing resiliency is a continuous process regardless of the starting point for the individual.

Resilience plays an important role in minimising the affects of negative events in young people's lives, therefore it is crucial to help them develop the ability to cope in spite of adversity and achieve positive outcomes.

My Support System

My Dad

My dad has always been my rock, and someone who I can depend on. As a little girl I could remember my dad being the passive one. If I wanted advice without being judged, or getting "in trouble" I would tell my dad. In our relationship we maintained a bond, where we are friends, but I also respect him as my parent. My dad has always "kept it real" with me , no matter the circumstance. As a child I remembered him nurturing me by spending quality time with me. He would take me out on "dates", where I would get all dressed up , go to a nice restaurant, and we would take time to talk about anything I wanted. I appreciate the time that we spent together, even now as an adult. The relationhsip that we worked when I was a child has blossomed since I've become an adult. When in need I can always count on my dad.

My Mom & Sister

My mother passed away four years ago. Since she passed away I've cherished our memories of when she was alive. My mother was a sassy women. She kept up with all the latest fashion, and was always well put together. As an adult she passed her sense of fashion to me. My mother made me feel nurtured by always making sure I was well taken care of. I was her number one priority. As a child, my mother would make breakfast and dinner , while maintaining full time job. I always imagined my mother as a super woman. She was strong, sassy, and beautiful. As a woman today I remember most her strength. When times get rough ,I remember how strong she was, and I remember that I can do all things.

My sister, and I have always remained close through our lives. My sister is two years older than me, and has always lived true to ger title "BIG" sister. Our parents made my sister responsible for me. Anywhere my sister went, I went. Even as adults we maintain a close relationship. My sisters nurtured me by being my role model. Through thick and thin she stands my side. If I make a mistake she is there to counsel me. I look up to her as a role model, and as a friend. My sister is one of my closest friends.

My Godmother



This is my godmother. This is one of my favorite pictures of her. She’s one of my favorite people. She’s one of my role models.She gets me. She makes me want to be a better person. She loves me just the way I am. She allows me to vent all my terrible and dream all my fantastic. She made time to talk to me as I kid, and offer guidance. She’s taught me to love fiercely. To be wise and patient and kind when it is not always in our natures. To laugh really, really hard. To forgive myself. To forge ahead. To seek my happiness.To listen to my gut. To know my worth.



My Counselor

“God willing,” these are two words that my counselor often spoke. She has a positive spirit and she believes in God. She always said “treat everybody the way you want to be treated, and never take for granted the talent that God has given you”. My counselor is very proud person, and she is bearing of dignities . Anyone’s who knows her respects her. She always advised me to go to school and get an education. Her words are always nurturing and kind. I remember her words about how is important the education and the knowledge. She is full of energy and still cares about everyone .

Childhood Connections To Play

Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.” – O. Fred Donaldson

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” – Plato

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” -  Fred Rogers

Play Is Important

Play is truly the ‘work’ of childhood. Offering a child ample opportunities to play in a variety of settings and with a variety of materials is essential to that child's development.

Benefits of play

It facilitates cognitive development by helping a child develop skills in concentration, memory, perseverance, and motivation.

It advances social development. Playing develops simple skills such as taking turns, and more complex skills such as rule making.

Some forms of play afford children the opportunity to face their fears in a non-threatening way through role play. For instance a child who has just returned from a hospital stay may play out this episode many times with his friends. This will help him overcome the fears and anxieties he may have experienced while in hospital.

It provides the ideal opportunity to explore the world without risk. The opportunity to spend many hours exploring their surroundings enables children to get to know their physical surroundings and learn about the world around them.

Children are naturally active and play encourages physical activity. Rough and tumble play and climbing, jumping, and running all contribute to a child's physical development and wellbeing.

Enjoyable play is important to a child's emotional wellbeing. Children who enjoy imaginative play have been shown to be more likely to smile, to be curious, to show an interest in new experiences, and to express joy in play and in peer relationships.

Encouraging your child to play

As a parent there are a number of things you can do to encourage your child to play:

Recognise the importance of play in your child's life. As parents we tend to place a greater emphasis on schoolwork and educational activities. Remember though that your child will also benefit from plenty of unstructured time when he can play either alone or with his friends or yourself.

From a parent's point of view, a small child's play routine can be boring and repetitive. I'm sure you have all had the experience of picking up an object that has been thrown on the floor for the umpteenth time! Your baby is still enjoying it but you’re beginning to feel that he is making fun of you! Actually your child is simply learning about his physical environment and his ability to control it.

Most parents are tempted to use play to teach their child something. While this is appropriate sometimes, you need to beware of doing this too often. For instance, many parents are tempted to make a game more complex in the hope of teaching their child a new skill. Children who learn through play do so when play occurs in a relaxed and non-threatening environment. When you try to consciously teach your child skills through play you may be introducing an element of stress to the game and block your child from learning.