The National Guild for Community Arts Education, on behalf of a coalition of national partners, has been awarded an NEA Art Works grant for $100,000. The award will support a collective impact initiative and the creation of the first-ever blueprint to advance Creative Youth Development (CYD).
The funds are part of more than $82 million granted in the NEA’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2016. “The arts are all around us, enhancing our lives in ways both subtle and obvious, expected and unexpected,” said NEA chairman Jane Chu. “Supporting projects like the one from the National Guild for Community Arts Education and its CYD partners offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”
Creative Youth Development is a new term that brings together a longstanding community of practice that intentionally integrates the arts, humanities, and sciences with youth development principles, sparking young people’s creativity and building critical learning and life skills. Representatives of the field met in 2014, to form its first-ever national policy and advocacy agenda and charged a national partnership to oversee implementation. Initiative partners include the National Guild , Americans for the Arts, the President’s Committee for the Arts and the Humanities, and Massachusetts Cultural Council. The blueprint project will engage additional cross-sector organizations, cultivating partners from the youth development field.
“This Art Works award is a huge honor, and a recognition of the dedicated organizations across the country offering CYD programs that support young people in developing creative skills and becoming active members of their communities,” said Jonathan Herman, executive director of the National Guild. “Our national partnership hopes to organize this field, maximize its social impact, and produce a structure to inspire more organizations to develop programs that unleash the creative potential of youth.”
