Getting back to school buildings after months of virtual classrooms, record job losses, illness and death during the coronavirus pandemic is going to be a transition for students and educators, especially in hard-hit areas like Newark.
“Families and friends are not only being impacted and sick and potentially dying from COVID, but you also have deportations, unemployment and underemployment,” said Arts Ed Newark Director Lauren Meehan. “So the burden in Newark, as it is in many communities of color right now, is very high. It’s largely unaddressed.”
Meehan’s nonprofit, which works on under the umbrella of Newark Arts, wants to bring trauma-informed care to all staff at a school. The organization put out a request earlier this month to partner with a private, charter or public school that serves elementary school-aged children or pre-K through 8th graders.
The program is free for the school that is selected. The chosen school will get different levels of support over a two to three-year period, depending on grant funding.
Arts Ed Newark, which was formerly known as the Newark Arts Education Roundtable, has been doing this type of programming for some time. It started hosting a workshop on trauma-informed education in January 2020, just before the pandemic began.
The program gives educators tips derived from the arts, like theater or music, to help incorporate expression into the curriculum. Alysia Souder, a facilitator in the program, uses acting exercises to have students portray emotions like excitement or sadness. Students then discuss what emotion looks like.
“So often, we take for granted that children understand and recognize emotion,” said Souder, who sits on the Arts Ed Newark board and is also the Institute of Music for Children director. “People experience emotion in different ways. So this is a great opportunity to do that.”
The techniques could be used as teachers help students transition from months of using chatrooms or emojis back to the in-person classroom setting.
“People have been in their homes almost predominately virtual, up until April of this year,” Mehan said. “It has real consequences for our students, learning being one of them, social-emotional consequences being another.”
The nonprofit received a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment For The Arts around April for the program it developed. Arts Ed Newark has worked on tools to address trauma and build resiliency with artists, educators and health providers since 2018.
Newer programs in Newark are starting to use the arts to promote mental-physical wellbeing, too.
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey’s charitable arm recently awarded the New Jersey Performing Arts Center $3 million for a program with a similar goal. The massive donation will be used for nutritional programming and art therapy demonstrations at NJPAC’s Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center, which is slated to open in 2024.
Arts Ed Newark’s federal $100,000 grant will be used to bolster work that began in July, when the nonprofit hosted a workshop during a Newark Trust for Education summit. Officials from the nonprofit are hoping to expand the program, eventually to reach cultural organizations, more artists and parents.
The federal grant needs to be matched by the end of this year. To support Arts Ed Newark, visit its website at artsednewark.org/donate.
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Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
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After virtual classes, nonprofit wants to bring social-emotional learning to students - NJ.com
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