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The relationship between learning and mental health, as well as a growing body of literature, underscores the need for art therapy in educational settings. This is particularly true for learners with special needs. Shostak et al. (1985) affirmed that “for children with special needs, art therapy in a school setting can offer opportunities to work through obstacles that impede educational success” (p. 19). School art therapy facilitates improved social interaction, increased learning behaviors, appropriate affective development, and increased empathy and personal well-being. It can be adapted to meet the specific developmental needs of individual students and to parallel students’ developmental, learning, and behavioral objectives. This chapter introduces the reader to the history and basic constructs of art therapy as a psychoeducational therapeutic intervention in schools. Model programs are identified, as well as the role of the art therapist within the context of K-12 education settings. Additionally, examples of special populations who benefit from art therapy intervention within school systems are provided, along with considerations for school-wide art therapy.

The refugee journey is fraught with challenges before, during and after resettlement. There is a critical need for mental health support upon arrival, and refugees face language, cultural and logistical barriers. Arts-based therapies are a promising approach to mitigating such barriers. The purpose of this study was to elicit professional stakeholder perspectives on mental health challenges among refugees, the value of arts-based programs and future directions.

The authors conducted three 90-min focus groups with 19 professional stakeholders in North Carolina, USA. This included mental health professionals, professors and community services/resettlement workers. Participants were identified from professional networks and snowball sampling. Each group was held by videoconference, audio recorded and transcribed. Data were analyzed through a team-based approach using applied thematic qualitative analysis.

Interviewees described a need for targeted, culturally compatible mental health services for refugee families, including trauma-informed, family-focused services with language interpretation. Arts-based therapies were viewed as highly acceptable and culturally responsive approaches for understanding distress and building resilience and less stigmatizing than traditional mental health services. Services in schools and community settings would further reduce stigma and minimize logistical barriers. Participants identified needing strong, culturally sensitive assessment tools to measure treatment progress as a key future direction.

The study offers novel insights into the value of arts-based approaches and considerations for program development. The next phase of the project will obtain the perspectives of refugee parents and children to understand client preferences for arts-based therapies.

The study explored how information institutions can support the resilience of parents of adolescents affected by the Russia–Ukraine war. Ukrainian parents are facing major challenges of supporting their teenagers through a difficult developmental phase while also “buffering” their war-related hardships. By supporting parents, information institutions can also support children.

Fifteen parents were interviewed about mental health challenges and resources that are helpful and/or missing from their support systems. Recordings of participant narratives were analyzed using the qualitative thematic analysis technique.

The findings indicate that both teens and parents rely on internal resilience skills, family, friends and community resources to support themselves. However, a number of additional resources could be offered by information institutions, including content for (1) teens on developing skills in communication, interpersonal relationships, problem solving and academic pursuits; (2) parents on child development and opportunities in their host countries; both groups on (3) both groups on mental health first aid and safe spaces to meet peers. The study recommendations will be of interest to information professionals working with families, especially families affected by disasters.

The study relied on a small convenience sample of participants.

Study recommendations would be of interest to information professionals who develop and provide services to families affected by natural and manmade disasters.

Study recommendations improve understanding of the (potential) role of information institutions and libraries in strengthening family and community resilience.

The study offers a rare insight into experiences of war-affect families and provides evidence-driven recommendations for information institutions to support family and community resilience.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what resources recent refugees to the USA tap into and how collaborative expressive movements were experienced with regard to coping and resourcing, and to derive a theoretical model that would inform the use of dance/movement therapy and other holistic treatment modalities with refugees.

A total of 13 refugees overall participated in parts of this study. Ten of these refugees completed movement sessions and semi-structured in-person interviews. Constructivist grounded theory methods and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.

The findings suggest that refugees draw on a number of resources. The collaborative movement experiences seemed to have both a settling and mobilizing effect with the most important phenomenon of connection to the self or to another person. A grounded theory model, developed based on the findings, shows a dynamic interaction between the encountered categories.

The findings are preliminary and not transferrable because of limited size and potential researcher bias.

The findings contribute to an understanding of the resettlement and acculturation phase of refugees with potential implications and suggestions for current clinical practices and health services.

This study was original in its focus on understanding the role and the potential of body and expressive movement among refugees who have experienced trauma. Adherence to transformative paradigm principles invited participants to become co-researchers.

There has been a reduction of arts funding the United States educational system, even though research has identified the need for socioemotional learning policy/guidelines/requirements in the US Ed. and more school teachers and counselors. In Texas, geopolitical issues and natural disasters impact learners in the state and corporal punishment is still allowed in some districts, such as Pampa Independent School District (ISD). A study of six art teachers across a large urban school district was conducted to better understand this conundrum vis-a-vis semi-structured interviews with art teachers working in public Middle and High Schools. This chapter investigates the impact of art practices and art teachers on socioemotional self-regulation of students, as we consider the impact on teacher retention using the Heuristic model of child self-regulation and reactivity and school outcomes (Liew, Erbeli, Nyanamba, & Li, 2020). Finally, the ironic finding that teaching art classes is financially emotionally draining for teachers to the point of decreasing retention, yet some are still impassioned to teach art classes, is juxtaposed with attachment theory. Recommendations for art education policy and pedagogy are made using the lens of socioemotional learning, art therapy, empathy, and emotional self-regulation.

There is growing interest in the use of music and other arts mediums as a way of addressing mental health and social wellbeing issues in a non‐clinical or therapy setting. This can be particularly apt for more at‐risk young people who may not engage readily with other approaches. Published evaluation of such interventions is however sparse. This paper aims to describe an evaluation of the DRUMBEAT program which uses drumming as a way to engage at‐risk youth, whilst simultaneously incorporating themes relating to mental wellbeing and healthy relationships.

An evaluation was undertaken in 19 schools participating in the ten‐week DRUMBEAT program. Pre, interim and post‐program surveys were administered to participating students (n=180). School‐based data on student behaviour and teacher feedback was also collected.

Positive changes were observed on several measures, including a 10 per cent increase in self‐esteem scores by program completion. School data showed a decrease in reported behaviour incidents for 29 per cent of participants. Overall, the evaluation indicated that the DRUMBEAT program provides a creative medium for working with at‐risk young people and helps develop self‐esteem and social relationship skills.

There is a paucity of published evaluations of interventions of this kind. Also novel is the delivery of the program in a school‐based rather than clinical therapy setting. The paper also demonstrates how a “real world” intervention program can go beyond basic process evaluation to collect outcome data that helps build the evidence base for mental health promotion.

The purpose of this paper is to set an example of how people with severe learning difficulties could be more integrated into our society.

The installation consists of puzzles in the form of a specially designed table with an integrated touch screen. As the visual templates for the puzzles serve pictures painted by a person with severe learning difficulties. The pieces of the puzzles are manipulated directly by the player on the touch screen presenting an intuitive and easily learned user interface.

The framework for the work was a creation of an interactive art installation in the form of a game where users assemble puzzles on a touch monitor, housed in a specially designed table. Paintings by a person with severe learning difficulty served as visual templates for the puzzles. The pieces of the puzzles can be manipulated directly by the user on a touch screen presenting an intuitive and easily learned user interface, which stimulates the learning of fine motor skills and encourages practice, thus making it suitable for persons with severe learning difficulties in an art therapy setting.

As the work has the format of an interactive art installation, this enables it to gain publicity through exhibitions in art galleries.

The installation demonstrates how people with severe learning difficulties can be integrated into the broader society. At the same time, these people are encouraged to use modern computer information technology, which is becoming a necessity also for this group of users. Ethical issues regarding how this group of people can get involved in such work are also discussed.

Combining the habituation of people with severe learning difficulties with computer technology in the form of a game, and framing the whole process as a fine art undertaking, to win the public recognition, is a novelty in addressing the needs of these people.

Children experience trauma more often than many early childhood educators realize. As many as 26% of children experience multiple trauma events such as abuse, neglect, parental substance abuse, parental incarceration, and so forth. Trauma impacts brain development in many negative ways that may have serious consequences on the child’s ability to learn, grow socially and emotionally, and develop physically. These brain changes also change how the child will play in the early childhood classroom, and information is given to help recognize the signs of trauma in children. The early childhood educator can make trauma-sensitive modifications in the classroom to assist the traumatized child’s ability to play out the problem. School counselors can be a resource for assisting early childhood teachers when working with traumatized children. A brief description of the importance of play therapy as a developmentally appropriate method to help traumatized young children is provided.