All posts by Dawn Heinen

Awards, Opportunities & Resources

Apply Now for 2016 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards

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National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards LogoThe President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is accepting applications for the 2016 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards.

The 12 award-winning programs this year will each receive $10,000 and an invitation to accept their award from the President’s Committee’s Honorary Chairman, First Lady Michelle Obama, at a ceremony at the White House.

After-school and out-of-school time arts and humanities programs are encouraged to apply. Access the online application.

Completed applications will only be accepted via the online process and are due by Tuesday, February 2, 2016, 5:00 PM PST.

Showcase

“Strictly Business – Women of Influence” Engages Young Women in Dialogue

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strictly_business graphic
For the past year, young women at Artists For Humanity (AFH) have been working on “Strictly Business – Women of Influence,” a project profiling women as decision makers in today’s society.

Through “Strictly Business” AFH provides an opportunity for young women to engage in a dialogue with women across a variety of industries, to hear first hand stories of success, and to give them  access to positive role models, with the aim of inspiring them to become their own advocates and to advance their future.

The young woman at AFH have interviewed:

  • Martha Coakley, former Attorney General, Massachusetts
  • Debbie First, PR & Communications
  • Karen Kaplan, Chairman and CEO, Hill Holliday
  • Juliette Kayyem, former Assistant Secretary of Intergovernmental Affairs, United States Department of Homeland Security
  • Jean Kilbourne, author, speaker and film-maker
  • Barbara Krakow, owner Krakow Gallery
  • Joyce Linehan, Chief of Policy, City of Boston
  • Joan Y. Reede, Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School
  • Shirley Lord Rosenthal, Former Senior Beauty Editor of Vogue
  • Sally Susman, Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Pfizer
  • Kelly Talamas, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Mexico & Latin America

Check out their bi-weekly online publication.

Advocacy, Opportunities & Resources, Policy/Trends

Join AFTA’s Creative Youth Development Webinar, Tweet Chat on Sept. 15

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Learn more about Creative Youth Development as part of Americans for the Arts’ (AFTA) webinar series: “Arts Education: What You Need to Know” on Tuesday, September 15 at 3pm. MCC’s Dr. Erik Holmgren will join partners from the President’s Committee on the Arts & the Humanities, and National Guild for Community Arts Education, to discuss this emerging field. Register for the 20-minute webinar, and continue the conversation in Twitter using #CYD from 8-9pm (ET).

Policy/Trends

New Fiscal Year Brings New & Expanded CYD Investment, Services

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The Massachusetts Cultural Council  approved a spending plan yesterday for the coming year that will invest more than $12 million in grants to nonprofit cultural organizations, local cultural councils, education programs, and working artists across the Commonwealth.

Of that spending, more than $1 million will go to supporting Creative Youth Development programs and services , including:

Funding:

  • Three-year grants of $15,000/year awarded to 63 organizations:

$675,000 invested in 45 YouthReach projects, which promote integration of substantive out-of-school arts, humanities, and science opportunities into a collaborative community response to the needs of young people – specifically those at risk of not making a successful transition to young adulthood.

$270,000 invested in 18 SerHacer projects, which support the growing number of intensive, ensemble-based music programs that create music as a vehicle for youth development and social change. SerHacer is the first public support system for El Sistema-inspired work in the nation.

  • $10,000 for the creation of a new YouthVoice Program that will provide small grants to young people in funded YouthReach or SerHacer programs to support projects that demonstrate their value as artists in the Commonwealth.

Training: The pilot of a Creative Youth Development Fellows Program to prepare young teaching artists and youth workers to be effective in the classroom, in non-profits, and in their work across sectors with schools and funders.

Research: Support for studies that demonstrate the social, academic, and economic impact of Creative Youth Development.

Resources: The Johnson String Library, which works to remove the musical instrument as a barrier to participation and as a burden to programs, families, and young people.

Advocacy, Environmental Awareness, Science, Voices

More Than the Arts

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The following is a letter to the editor that appeared in The Recorder.  It is a fantastic reminder of how Creative Youth Development transcends discipline and allows us to honor creativity in unexpected places:

Thursday, August 6, 2015

In regards to the article “Statewide arts funding increases” (Aug. 1), in addition to wonderful arts-related programs, it is lesser known that the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) also supports several science and environmental initiatives.

Seeds of Solidarity’s SOL Garden program for North Quabbin youth relies on funding from the MCC YouthReach program (and the generosity of individuals locally and beyond) to provide low-income teenagers with a high-quality, garden-based program after school and throughout the summer. Each year, we provide hundreds of North Quabbin high school students with ecology, sustainable-agriculture and renewable-energy presentations in their school science classes. Then, throughout each spring, summer and fall, a diverse group of 25 North Quabbin teens engage in authentic learning and critical conversations on topics such as food and climate change, soil ecology and food justice plus gain real skills for resiliency through growing and cooking healthy food, and design/building projects. They learn civic engagement as they prepare community meals for those in need, help create gardens for local day cares, and educate thousands about composting at the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival, among a host of other activities.

Importantly, and amidst a social backdrop of increased opiate use, the program provides a safe setting that is a beacon of hope and lifeline to a positive future. For many of the 400 local youth who have participated in our program since 1999, SOL Garden is a focus of their college essay (often first in their family to go) and a significant volunteer and work experience helping qualify them for jobs and careers. We offer our curricula, resources and videos on our website (seedsofsolidarity.org) to help launch similar programs regionally and nationally.

We do our best to keep our local legislators informed about SOL Garden and our other programs, and are very grateful for their efforts on the recent budget and override. This “arts” funding has the added benefit of supporting innovative science and environmental education, and creatively transforming the lives of many North Quabbin youth.

DEB HABIB

Deborah Habib, is director of the Seeds of Solidarity Education Center. Seeds of Solidarity re-imagines a self sustaining farm as a space for Creative Youth Development in Orange, MA and represents a strong cohort of programs in the sciences and humanities that are supported by YouthReach, STARS, and other MCC programs.

Policy/Trends, Research, Theater

Innovation in Action: Three Case Studies from the Intersections of Arts and Social Justice

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Innovation in Action coverHow can creative change makers walk their talk and more effectively enact the change they want to see in the world? What do innovation and adaptive change look like for organizations that have social change as their core mission? A collection of profiles released this month as part of EmcArts’ Innovation Labs explores these questions in their publication, “Innovation in Action: Three Case Studies from the Intersections of Arts and Social Justice.”

Featuring Massachusetts’ own The Theater Offensive, as well as Alternate ROOTS, and Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, this publication examines the contours, possibilities and limitations of innovation and adaptive change at the intersection of arts and social justice.

The Theater Offensive entered the Innovation Lab to design a national organizing model to support and encourage Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) youth theaters nationally through
the Pride Youth Theater Alliance (PYTA). PYTA’s mission is to “connect and support queer youth theater organizations, programs, and professionals committed to empowering lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and allied (LGBTQA) youth in North America.” Through the Innovation Lab process, the The Theater Offensive team explored these questions:

  1. How can youth leadership be operationally central to PYTA, and
  2. How can the national PYTA network take advantage of the capacities of the locally grounded organization (The Theater Offensive)?

Download the full publication.

Policy/Trends, YouthReach20

Progress Report: Collective Action for Creative Youth Development

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policy plank working group at National Summit on Creative Youth Development

The growing, national collective action around the emerging field of creative youth development continued last week at the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s conference.

Local and national partners reflected on the ways in which we can each support youth-centered programs in the arts, sciences, and humanities while also building capacity as a field—an imperative from the National Summit on Creative Youth Development hosted by MCC earlier this year.

As we tackled questions such as How might we capitalize on the strengths of individual leaders and programs, and How might joint efforts better serve youth?, the Guild’s Executive Director Jonathan Herman reminded us of the many creative youth development accomplishments that have unfolded this year:

And, First Lady Michelle Obama has adopted the term creative youth development when speaking about this work.

We’d like to hear from you: What are some accomplishments from your creative youth development work in 2014?

Awards, Music

Project STEP: 2014 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award Winner

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First Lady Michelle Obama with Project STEP student Ajani BoydEarlier this month, First Lady Michelle Obama presented Project STEP (String Training and Education Program) student Ajani Boyd and Executive Director Mary Jaffee the 2014 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program (NAHYP ) Award on behalf of the entire Project STEP community.

Project STEP received the award for its rigorous, comprehensive, year-round classical string training program for underrepresented minorities. The NAHYP Award recognizes the country’s 12 best creative youth development programs for using engagement in the arts and the humanities to increase academic achievement, graduation rates, and college enrollment. The awardees—chosen from a national pool of more than 350 nominations and 50 finalists—are also recognized for improving literacy and language abilities, communication and performance skills, and cultural awareness.

First presented in 1998, the NAHYP Award is the signature program of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). The awards are presented annually in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

From the NAHYP web site:

Project STEP seeks to increase diversity in professional classical music by tooling students, primarily from underrepresented groups, to compete and excel in that realm. So, nearly every Saturday during the school year, Project STEP brings several dozen students, mostly Black and Latino, to Boston’s august Symphony Hall. Toting violins, violas, cellos, and double basses, these students have arrived for lessons with some of the best classical musicians in the Boston area. Throughout this extraordinary 12-year-long program, these young musicians will receive what has been called a “world-class arts learning opportunity,” one designed to change the course of these young people’s lives, while changing the classical music industry.