This essay shares the idea of a grief garden, or a safe, public, green spaces for communities to come together and engage in activities designed for intentional grieving following tragic events and injustice. The idea is being developed by The Justice Fleet, a mobile social justice museum based in St. Louis, Missouri which fosters healing through…

This article explores how sharing and listening to stories linked children and young people, educators, artists, civil society workers, and policymakers as part of a continuum of transitional justice processes in the aftermath of conflict Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) initiative. We argue that sharing stories within a peace education context can…

This study explores artmaking as a therapeutic arts- and trauma-informed practice in critical inquiry with others during the collective activity of a happening. Happenings are nonhierarchical environments that offer the exciting, nontraditional promise of taking art off the walls and into a larger context. In the space of mutual respect and…

This article aims to illuminate the perceptions of a pilot grief- and trauma-informed empowerment arts summer program for adolescents who lived in an at-risk Southern, urban neighborhood identified by the city in question as having a high percentage of street violence. The study it is based on was grounded in qualitative techniques, which…

Schools regularly find themselves dealing with the aftermath of family, community and national tragedies. In this article, two university-based educators share their experiences of working with schools to engage children in arts-based activities to support the processing of the traumatic events they endured. In both cases, children in local…

"Deep visual listening and children's art during times of crisis" explores a way to understand children's art created amidst crisis as well as the meanings we can discern from it through the lens of the "Uncaged Art Tornillo Detention Center" exhibit. In 2018, the U.S. government opened a detention center to hold youth who…

Educators who encounter children facing trauma, present and past, can draw on practices that help all students--like building relationships and helping kids create their own "wellness tools" to handle challenging emotions. See how this educator weaves children's literature and art into practices like these.

The purpose of this self-directed learning (SDL) project for my doctoral level "Adult Learning in Social Contexts" class in the fall of 2018 was to develop an idea to use photography, music, and writing to tell a person's trauma story. Memory Narratives (MN) as a creative method for women survivors of abuse returning to college (WSARC)…

Given the tragedy of war and genocide, words often cannot adequately capture the complexity of war-related experiences. Researchers are increasingly utilizing the arts to enable multiple forms of expression, as well as for its therapeutic and empowering qualities. This paper outlines the use of the "river of life," an arts-based…

Coming of age in an urban setting presents both opportunities and challenges for development and learning. In this paper, I illustrate the importance of understanding the ways in which marginalized young people respond to, resist, and are shaped by complex traumas stemming from structural oppression as a result of ongoing colonial and racial…

Freddie Gray's death tore Baltimore City apart; but a classroom of shaken teens at Mergenthaler High School found their power in the aftermath. Art teacher Sia Kyriakakos used the arts as a vehicle to help her students process the racial trauma that is part of their everyday lives--being young, black, and often unjustly targeted by the city's…

The process of passing loss and bereavement is a difficult period for any human being. At this particular time, it is important to remember to support the child in dealing with loss and grief. Unfortunately, it can happen that the closest environment, such as family and school is not able to help the mourner properly, especially the children and…

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the events that occurred at Pulse nightclub and how a social justice camp collided to create opportunities for campers, preservice teachers, and faculty mentors to use creative activities to connect community members during a time of tragedy. The author begins with a brief introduction to critical…

A small but growing cadre of schools and districts across the nation are turning to interventions rooted in brain science to complement or replace core curricula. Such programs target a related set of cognitive processes, known as executive function (EF), that are key to learning. Executive function skills are essential for planning, executing,…

While studies in the biological and psychological sciences have suggested that writing can promote physical healing, such studies offer a limited understanding of writing as a complex, embodied, and social practice. This article asks how and under what social and pedagogical conditions writing might promote experiences of healing in community…