With support from the California Arts Council, Arts as Healing Intervention teaching artists will help 42 incarcerated youth at the Monterey County Probation Department Youth Center learn to manage anger, build emotional resilience and develop a more positive outlook through weekly developmental art classes , murals and community exhibitions that weave creative mastery with emotional skills building. Led by Linda Pedrazzini Hevern, the team works in close collaboration with Youth Center staff.
We provide Arts as Healing programs to reach the underserved and most in need, e.g. seniors, cancer survivors, veterans and East Salinas at-risk youth. Core programs with incarcerated youth and adults dealing with illness, loss, pain and grief introduce participants to Arts projects and practices as meditation and entry into reverie and as means for self-reflection, integration of body/mind and healing. From this point we offer Arts Education skill development helping participants realize abilities they never knew they had –Resulting in enjoyment, community connections and an optimistic view of the future
Professional Development seminars and consultations: Beyond Healing programs for those in need we offer professionals an introduction to a systematic/ interdisciplinary approach to arts as healing that can be applied universally — including 25 years of case studies with cancer patients/seniors and 10 with incarcerated youth– A new holistic/transformational model

