As the COVID-19 pandemic has affected youth in a variety of ways, the Casa del Carmen Preschool Academy is helping to mitigate some of its effects in creative ways.

On June 29th, the academy started the pilot program “Spark School-Based Art Therapy” for 27 preschool children participating in the summer camp program of Casa del Carmen.

The American Art Therapy Association defines art therapy as “an inclusive mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art creation, creative processes, applied psychological theory, and human experience in a psychotherapeutic relationship. ”

“It’s like a social, emotional learning experience for them through the use of art,” said Shari Gold, director of the Casa del Carmen Preschool Academy, during an interview with AL DÍA.

The pilot program will aim to positively influence the social, emotional, developmental and cognitive growth and well-being of the children, although this needs to be improved due to the pandemic.

“Last year we noticed that children have been at home for so long [and] that they often haven’t developed their social skills, ”said Gold.

She added that being in quarantine and unable to access childcare for over a year can also lead to psychological trauma for many of the children.

In addition, the art therapy program is intended to aim to fill the gap in the provision of clinical services to students and families who may otherwise not have access to such services.

This is especially needed in the community where Casa del Carmen has served for several decades since its inception, as Latinos make up about 55% of the Hunting Park neighborhood in north Philadelphia.

“We definitely need to talk about social, emotional, and mental health, mostly because [in the] Neighborhood that we represent, we don’t talk about emotions, we don’t express ourselves, ”said Gold.

According to a 2017 Salud America! Research reviews, nearly 78% of Latino teenagers and adults have had at least one negative childhood experience. This is in stark contrast to about 46% of teens in general.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) include poverty, neglect, abuse, and forms of household disorders such as divorce, violence, substance abuse, and others.

In addition, more than 50% of Hispanic young adults ages 18-25 with severe mental illness may not receive treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Authority (SAMHSA).

The social isolation that occurred over the past year due to the pandemic likely added another layer to these numbers.

The art therapy program is led by art psychotherapist Kristen Rashid, who gives children the opportunity to express themselves through wordless language and child-centered art therapy methods and gives them mindfulness tools that children can use in their everyday lives.

Rashid will evaluate the effectiveness of the program through weekly progress reports. She did a pre-test at the beginning and will do a post-test at the end of the program to see how much progress has been made over the entire duration.

As a preschool academy, the children involved in the program are three to five years old – a critical developmental age for children before they go to kindergarten.

Therefore, according to Gold, the academy’s trainers and staff take care to be inclusive in all of their practices.

“We also need to work with our parents to make sure that once [the children] leave us, the tools we gave them are still in use, ”she said.

The Spark School-Based Art Therapy program takes place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays mornings from 10 am to 11:30 am and lasts eight weeks over the summer. Registrations for the program are still being accepted.

More information about the Casa del Carmen Preschool Academy can be found here.