| Art-Promise/Discovery Programs for At-Risk Youth |
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YAH "Arts Promise" Programs for at-risk youth
The YAH “Arts-Promise” Division, which customizes existing and develops new programs, to serve the specific needs of at-risk children through the arts in a wide variety of community sites, continues to be a priority for YAH. The initial 2007 pilot programs in collaboration with at-risk and special needs YAH strategic partner, ArtReach, at unique centers including the Fort Bend Juvenile Detention Center, Palmer Drug Abuse Center, DePelchin Children's Center, and Catholic Charity’s Refugee Resettlement Program, as well as, afterschool programs led the way to establishing the YAH At-Promise Division in a wide variety of school and community venues in 2008. In 2009-2010, YAH served over 200 participants in venues such as Hermann Memorial Prevention and Recovery Center (PaRC), and four Southwest Schools Residential Treatment campuses with the customized Waste 2 Wonders project which was funded in part by the Texas Commission on the Arts’ Arts Respond grant. Many of these programs spotlight the creation of meaningful and personal works of art that each child may keep, focusing on self-reflection and goals. Additionally, for older children, vocational skills are incorporated when possible, such as screen printing, ceramics and graphic skills through visual arts, public speaking, and problem solving and strategic thinking through dramatic arts, all with the goal of helping participants develop life skills through the fine arts that may translate into greater job opportunities and motivation when integrating back into society.   YAH “Arts-Promise” customized programs Waste to Wonders customized art workshops are an outgrowth and response to the efforts of Young Audiences of Houston and Hermann Memorial Prevention and Recovery Center’s first collaboration of Waste to Wonders (Supported in part by the Texas Commission on the Arts from April through August of 2009). Waste to Wonders multi-component arts program provides at-risk youth and their families with numerous opportunities to build skills, form community partnerships and provide an opportunity for at-risk youth to experience quality fine art enrichment activities in theater, art, music, and dance. This makes a positive impact not just on the youth and their families, but also in their communities (Costello, 1995; Weitz, 1996). Four YAH teaching artists, one from each discipline, provide art workshops at facilities once a week for 60 minutes to work with participants. Each residency culminates with a presentation utilizing the visual arts and a stage production developed through the guidance of the dance, theater and music teaching artists. The final presentation and art exhibit is designed to serve as a creative outlet participants will be viewed by family, friends, facility faculty and the surrounding community.  Young Audiences of Houston’s Artists In Motion program is designed to cultivate a collaboration between teachers of HISD and surrounding districts and Young Audiences of Houston teaching artists which will provide opportunities for students (especially at risk and low performing students) to practice problem-solving skills and master classroom concepts and objectives that are relative to the TEKS and STAAR through the integration of performance and visual arts. The program also provides educators, at-risk youth and their families with numerous opportunities to build knowledge and skills in the arts, enhance protective factors, and form community partnerships that help to prevent delinquency and violence while making a positive impact not just in the youth and their families, but also in their school and surrounding communities.  In May 2011, the initial 14 week pilot project ended the school year with a culminating stage production and student art exhibit that was presented at the school and the Annual International House of Blues Foundation “Houston Action for the Arts Initiative Student Recital. The initiative supports school and community-based music and visual arts programs by providing instruments, musical accessories, art supplies, and resource materials, in which students learn to play instruments and participate in visual arts projects, ending the year with a performance and presentation of their artistic works at House of Blues in downtown Houston.
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