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LA Opera Podcasts: Behind the Curtain
BONUS: At the Intersection of Arts and Health - Creative Wellbeing with Elisabeth Nails
00:50:55
Get ready for the 5th annual LA County Arts and H…
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- [00:04]
A
Welcome to behind the Curtain, LA Opera's official podcast. Each week we dive deep into the creative process with the artists, creatives and scholars who bring opera to life. Get ready to decode the drama, dissect the music and hear the heart behind the high notes. From backstage laughs to history making moments, every opera starts with a story. Get ready for the fifth Annual LA County Arts and Health Week Summit with this conversation hosted by Elizabeth Nails of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. This conversation was recorded live as part of our most recent Exploring Opera session, LA Opera Connect's free virtual learning series. With this session focused on all things arts and health, including an opportunity for moving meditation. In this episode, Elizabeth, joined by a few of Creative well Being's many partners, facilitates a discussion about creative well being which is a healing centered approach for building communities of wellness. It's a truly embodied episode on this week's behind the Curtain and if Arts and Health inspires you, join us for our upcoming Arts and Health week summit this June 12th. You can learn more and RSVP now@laopera.org summit.
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B
Hello everybody. I hope that your day is going well. We are thrilled to be here. I'm Elizabeth Nails, I use she her pronouns and I am the Program Manager for Creative well Being at the Department of Arts and Culture, Also a social worker and a poet and a co founder of a typewriter poet organization called Typewriters Anonymous and on behalf of our Department of Arts and Culture and the Arts Ed Collective which is a public private partnership that Arts and Culture helps steward. We're so thrilled to be with you and to facilitate a session on Creative well Being which is a healing centered approach for building communities of wellness, especially for young people impacted or at a higher risk of being impacted by the child welfare system, the juvenile justice systems and also support for the adults who are supporting the young people. So our session today is going to introduce you to some of the collaborators and invite you to explore, to experience and to engage with some stories about creative well being. I want to give you just a little bit of grounding and overview of creative well being. This is a strategic cross sector collaboration. It grew out of conversations about how can we bring more healing into our system and how can we shift culture and nurture well being through art. So Creative well Being is co developed by the Department of Arts and Culture, also by the Department of Mental Health and the Office of Child Protection and our community arts partner, the Arts for Healing and Justice Network. And this work is really building on long term work in probation camps and halls and expanding it to sites contracted by the Department of Children and Family Services as well as school districts and in other county and community settings. So currently, creative wellbeing is being implemented in partnership with 11 community based arts organizations contracted by Arts and Culture. We have two of them with us today from Contro Tiempo and Center for Empowerment of Families. Creative wellbeing services are taking place at all of these different sites, 30 partner sites at 83 locations and in 26, 27 we're going to be expanding into LA county parks, libraries, transition aged youth drop in centers, and also substance use treatment centers for young people and TAY transitional age youth. The approach of creative well being, it's holistic, it's not linear and we often refer to a figure 8 model for it that allows for reflection, for adaptation, for shared learning. When we all do this together and moving in this figure 8, this interconnection and these ripple effects really get amplified. So at each and every partner site, culturally relevant healing, centered arts engagement and all the cross sector collaboration are the strategies that are enabling us and our partners to really move the needle and reach some of the outcomes we're seeking for children and family and communities across the county. Outcomes like improved mental health, protective factors, reduced stigma, growing connectedness and stronger ecosystems of care. So creative well being is not prescriptive, but it's intentionally shaped. It's shaped by input from youth content advisors with lived experience as well as evidence informed and evidence based practices from mental health, from child welfare and from community engaged arts and also harm reduction. This work is more than programming. It's about shifting systems and integrating arts directly into the systems of care. So creative well being is shaped by the expertise, like I said, of all these young people. And we've come together and there was a process to create a writing team and to develop a curriculum guide. This guide's available to everybody on the Department of Arts and Culture's website. It has an overview of our four guiding foundational concepts. It has a cookbook of activities that anybody can take and cook. Adapt as you wish to bring some creative well being into your own life, into the young people you might be working with and with colleagues. It also has interviews with teaching artists and a ton more resources. So just wanted to make sure everyone knew that that is there for you. So looking at this whole approach, it really takes whatever form is needed to meet folks where they're at. And that's why I'm so excited today to introduce you to some of the creative well being artists and collaborators who can really share more about how this work is taking place and taking form. We'll begin with something experiential so that you can experience your own moment of creative well being. So I'm really excited to introduce you to Holly Johnston from Contra Tiempo. So Holly, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your work and what's one way you cultivate your own well being through the art.
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Thank you.
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It's so good to be here and just like wanting to just acknowledge what a privilege and how exciting it is to just sit with artists and human beings who are dedicated to health and healing and creativity. So just like, thank you. It just feels like an antidote to so much that's happening in the world right now. I'm Holly Johnston. I get to work as a somatic ecologist for Contortiempo Activist Dance Theater, located and committed to Los Angeles communities. Founding artistic director is Ana Maria Alvarez. We're using dance movement, the movement of revolution and protest, as well as creative art and dance making, as a way to be with people, as a way to move people towards their own sense of justice. A way at which power is felt and embodied and not theoretical. And so doing it through the native languages of our body, but in particularly sharing the Afro Latin diaspora and working through the ancestral technologies that Ana Maria brings and that members of the company bring. And today what I get to do is to actually maybe share with you how in movement and thematically how I might use art as a way to kind of feel my own well being. So I'm just going to guide us maybe through a little movement, meditation or a place at which for just like a moment, you get to do nothing. You just get to be. And to just invite you to respond in any way you feel, to allow for your body to move in any way it feels. And for you to be the agent of saying no and doing nothing and resting, that all of these options are open. Open and available to you. But if you feel welcomed to it, you can just begin by just being exactly where you are, which is my favorite. You don't have to do anything. You just get to be. So maybe if you feel like you can close your eyes, great. If not, you are already dancing. Because we are breathing and that breath is a dance and we have rhythm and we are born of rhythm in that heartbeat. And so we are already this kind of perfect dance.
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Change
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rhythm and to just be with your breathing and to be with the beat of your heart. And we might feel that while we are Being and doing nothing, that what is holding us is gravity, this extraordinary force that you don't have to earn, that as you are born, this is your birthright to be held. And just breathe into that agreement, good place if you feel comfortable, a hand on the heart on the belly, a place to kind of seal this bond and to feel both the hands on body, but to also feel the inside of your body breathe into your hands to feel from the inside to the outside. The breath can feel as easy or as full and as active as you would like. But to feel here that you can both initiate of your own volition of breathing and you can just receive it and rest in full peace with it. And as we're breathing and feeling rhythm, we might take our mind's eye and just scan around the edge of our body like the membrane of our skin. And in this scanning around our body, if you feel like it's available, maybe you would move your hands along the edges of your skin like a little bit of like a sensation shower where if you feel like it, you would just rub your hands along your own body, giving yourself a little squeeze. And you might feel again a sense of like pressure or activity or maybe even a little bit more speed and heat, but just a place where you could just begin to feel the outside of your body. And then maybe just those hands rubbing a little bit of speed again. And then it's just reaching up, I'm breathing into the fingertips. And maybe a sense of reaching out and again of just reaching up. And if you could shift your eyeballs from maybe casting down or into just one gaze up beyond your own fingertips. And then you can just bring your gaze back down, just bring your fingertips back down. And again you can put your hand on your heart and again on your belly, just one more feeling that connectivity. If you feel like you can maybe you would just sort of wiggle, jiggle from the bottom of your seat, sort of like your tail, like a happy puppy. There's a little wiggle, nice spine. And then just big inhale like a shoulder shrug while you got that little wiggle jiggle and an exhale drop that little, little happy puppy wag. And one more shoulder shrug, puppy pet, happy puppy. And then exhale drop. And then you're just going to bring that to a little slower shimmy. And as your body is just stilling, you might just take your gaze gently over your right shoulder and just letting your body just certainly come to its own sense of stilling as your face turns back center. And then you might turn your head to the left and back center. Then you might cast your gaze down like a bow into your own heart. And in this bow you might either fall all the way forward just so you can give up your back for a moment, however that feels like you can. And to gently rise up, maybe a hand on your forehead, one on the back of the head just kind of make you feel like you got a whole brain. And for a moment can hold up that head. And then as you just release, you can just sit and again just come back to that. Receiving a breathing and the union with rhythm. And that no matter what it is that you feel, no matter what it is that you think, your body is the dance. And in the stillness, our beingness can be amplified. Is it just being body is for a moment in that pure perfection, Deep gratitude. And you can just blink your eyes open. Welcome back. So good to be with you.
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B
Thank you so much, Holly.
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D
You're so welcome.
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It was amazing how just a few minutes of that practice can really be nourishing. We'll be excited to welcome you back towards the end, Holly. You can share a bit more and join our conversation. Thank you for leading us in that. All right, well, I'm excited now to move into some storytelling and to invite some collaborators to join me. I want to start with a partner who has been with creative well being from the very start. In fact, this Department of Mental Health clinician supervisor was with us in the original writing team who sat around the table, artists and social workers coming together to explore ideas and learn from one another and build a shared understanding that really has guided this approach. So I'd like to welcome Franklin Romero again. He is from the Department of Mental Health and he's the co chair of the LA Suicide Prevention Network. Hello Franklin.
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E
Thank you, Elizabeth. Hello everyone.
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B
Could you introduce yourself to us and tell us briefly about your work? And also would you mind sharing one way you cultivate your own well being through creativity.
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E
So my name is Franklin Romero. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. So I'm a social worker by training. My focus is suicidology. So what I do at the Department of Mental Health is I supervise our suicide prevention training, education. Suicide post prevention. After an unexpected death in the community, we go out and we support communities. I really, really, truly believe as a supervisor to nine other social workers that we cannot do our work because the topic is heavy. The trauma and the emotions and the feelings that loss represents to the community, to the family. We need to find a balance in our work and so we definitely I definitely incorporate a lot of art into what I do, whether it's movement, whether it's anything that can help us find that light, sometimes in places of darkness. And I think that is extremely important for the work that we do trying to help communities heal. So whether it's music, whether it's visual art, whether it's. Yeah, so many different mediums and ways to do it. So that's how we incorporate art into what we do.
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B
Thank you so much internally.
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E
And then, you know, with creative well being, we partner a lot as well.
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B
Yeah, it's been amazing. And thank you for the work you do and all that you're holding. You and your team. It's so amazing to see how you're able to weave this work into the things you're doing with the community. I wanted to focus a little bit about the LA Suicide Prevention Network because I know it's. It's something that maybe folks don't always know what it is or what it, what its purpose is. Do you mind sharing a bit more about laspn?
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E
Yes. I forgot to mention, I'm one of the coaches for the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Network. And the LASPN is a public private partnership. So we have representation from a lot of different departments here in LA County. Mental Health, Arts and Culture, Public Health Services, as well as some of our contracted agencies. Dee Hirsch, Care for la. Just name a few. And truly what we do is we try to make sure that people have access to resources. People also lending a hand in destigmatizing access to mental health and access to when we're not feeling good. Like connecting with someone doesn't always necessarily mean, you know, that somebody's going to be hospitalized. Sometimes people need to connect with another human for whatever it is that they're going through. And so really promoting connection, you know, and that there is another option sometimes that folks forget about. We're in the middle of our crisis, besides suicide, that there is connection, that there is tomorrow.
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D
Thank you, Franklin.
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B
From your perspective, why do you think it's important to reduce stigma surrounding mental health and suicide?
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E
So one of the things that we're learning, continuously learning, is that there is no one size fits all in LA County. Very diverse in terms of language, culture, religion, orientation. And so we really need to take this approach of looking at how communities are communicating about suicide, about mental health, about substance use, domestic violence, perinatal mental health. Right. And how we grieve our losses. And so really destigmatizing mental health is extremely important in order for us to Learn how to better help the community and not just come in as subject matter experts trying to, like, you know, make people fit into a mold that unfortunately is not working all the time. So really slowing things down and taking in, like, what are some of the barriers? Why are folks afraid to ask for help? What are some of the perceptions or, you know, of saying, I live with a mental health condition. Absolutely.
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B
And I imagine the arts and cultural practices can play a role in really opening up conversations about stigma. And even without using that word, that word may not even be a familiar word to a lot of folks. So how does integrating arts and culture into mental health work? Does that look like. And why does it matter?
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E
It matters because it helps create connection between people and between communities. Sometimes our community members, as an outsider, it may look like they are living in isolation because of various things. But there's also art connects people. And many times when people come here from different diasporas around the world, there is this fear of, you'll be judged, you'll be criticized, and maybe it doesn't fit the norm or the mold of what American culture should or maybe look like. But really, arts helps heal so many things. The traumas that, you know, we carry from one generation to the next, but then also some of the anxiety, some of the. Some of the depressive symptoms can be addressed through movement, through expression, and tapping into parts of sometimes the brain that we normally don't tap into. And we may have a difficult time tapping into that because, yeah, we've been conditioned to not go that deep. But through art, we can. We definitely can.
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B
That's amazing. Franklin, have you always felt this way kind of instinctively for you, or was there a certain moment in your path as a mental health professional where you kind of saw an aha?
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E
Yes. So when I started my career with the county, I was with the Department of Children Family Services. I was doing child abuse investigations, conducting child abuse investigations. And, you know, sometimes it's very forensic and very different than what it should be. And so I grew up dancing folklorico, being really connected to the culture, that I belong to my parents as well. And so really incorporating even in my investigations and asking questions, you know, bringing in a notebook and some crayons and, like, stickers and talking about some of the not so good things that were going on in these children, youth's lives and trying to connect them to mental health services. And then I flip over, cue over to the Department of Mental Health and incorporating that into our treatment plans, into, like, working with community members, creating narratives, which is Like a book almost. Right when we're doing trauma focused cbt. That's how I am incorporated. Because I grew up around art. I grew up around going to the library, to the museums here in LA county, to the beach. So it was never really foreign for me.
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B
Thank you so much for sharing about just the journey and how you've been finding spaces in your career as you are moving through different chapters. There's so much I've had the privilege to collaborate with Franklin on the LA Suicide Prevention Network Annual Summit. Okay, let's hear from another story and another way that this work is taking place. I'd like to bring up center for Empowerment Families, Renee Curry, who's the executive director, and Adesen Cooper, who's a ceramicist and a teaching artist. And welcome you two. Can you both introduce yourselves, share a little bit about your work and what's one way you cultivate your own health through art?
- [24:25]
F
So again, my name's Renee Curry and I'm the executive director for center for the Empowerment of Family. I also practice, I have a private practice in Los Angeles. I work with families, youth, couples, and also quite a few art professionals and tech professionals. Our organization was founded in 2006 by Dr. Sharon Rabb, who happened to be my mom, and she was also a licensed therapist in Los Angeles. It's such a small world because Project Fatherhood, Dr. Swinger, we shared offices for 30 years on Robertson, his private practice. We shared the same office, so he was my mentor. Just really adore him. As far as what we do is we provide therapeutic arts and like resilience programming through the scope of arts to different communities and individuals, which I really, really enjoy. With the sites that are provided through creative well being, it's really offered opportunity to learn more and work with some really phenomenal people. How do we apply? Okay, I'm a little nervous.
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D
Okay.
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I have been the way I've been using art to kind of for my healing process has been more so in my home. I've been sort of transforming my home a little more to make it more of a healing centered space. So I'm like, you know, why am I going to other places for that? You know, why can't I just. So I've been doing that. I've been, you know, changing some colors and painting and that sort of thing. That's been really fun. More plants.
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B
Yeah. Speaking of plants, how about you, Edessine?
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C
Hi, everyone.
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B
You're planting?
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C
Yeah, I'm big on gardening. Hi everyone. I'm glad to be here. My name is Edessen. I'm a ceramicist. I've been working with clay for over 15 years now. I also have a background in psychology. I primarily work with the kids in guiding them to create sculptures that are rooted in storytelling. So my goal is just to help them express their experiences and help build those narratives through clay. In my personal daily habits, I really enjoy sharing my work with people. I think it allows me to be vulnerable in ways that I'm normally not. But I am also huge on listening to stories and hearing stories. So I just really enjoy being able to share space with people. I think we all need people.
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B
Absolutely. Thank you for that. We get to partner with center for Empowerment of Families and Creative well Being on many different kinds of sites. But one I really want to uplift today is some work we've been doing in South LA in school settings, especially around grief and loss. As everybody knows and can imagine through the pandemic and way before and after traumatic exposure, grief and loss continues for communities in south la. And Renee, could you describe a bit about how this specific Creative well being implementation has emerged and what it looks like?
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F
Absolutely. I can tell you that this has been so helpful. It's just very interesting. How everything really connects is because grief, I will say, was something that I avoided. I lost my mom in 2014, so that was some work that I wasn't looking forward to. I was like, oh, I'll avoid all of those people. Well, I ended up working at a school in south la and I said, I'm going to form this group, Girls, and we're just going to do some adultification bias work. And oh boy, that's not what I got. I sat in the room and through my guidance, the stories that kept coming up were related to loss. So loss of people, places, safety, opportunities, relationships, dreams, loss, loss, loss. So I said, okay, I have to step in, I have to dive in. And so part of this work with Creative well Being, being a sponsor of that, of this group that began to evolve was also something that was healing for me. And so we discovered that we had eight kids in the school that lost a significant caregiver. And so we began to create projects for them to work around their loss and also to pay forward to younger kids. And so ceramics was just awesome because of the sensory and the. Just the benefits you get through working with clay. Really, really became a huge success in the kids healing process. So I'm just grateful that Creative well Being has been able to really continue that support because we're still doing that today and that's it's been what, a couple years now where we've had different groups of kids.
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C
I think working with clay really offers a unique advantage to the body. It's a tactile material, so when you touch it, it's cold, it's moist, it has that resistance. So you can really like push and pull the clay. Like Renee said, those sensory experiences really help to calm the nervous system down and ground the students. I work with students ages 7 to 11, and a lot of them come into the space a little overwhelmed or carrying feelings that they're not really sure not have the words for just yet. And clay really helps them to stabilize their mood but also move into a more intuitive flow. I like to think of clay as a super intuitive medium compared to other art forms. I work with the kids on a five week basis. In the beginning, I often see children making food. So I've had students come and make pizza, ice cream, chocolate, anything you can think of. And sometimes that's related to a need of food insecurity, but other times that's just related to something that feels comfortable or safe. So the kids are really able to control their own narrative. But as the classes develop in the beginning, like I said, they're making a lot of food. But as the classes develop, I really tried to encourage the students to build characters, build narratives for their characters so they can start telling stories. And I think that shift is important because it gives them more of a sense of control to be able to have control over their narrative. And they can shape their story, recreate it or imagine it however they like. I had a student who, she was dealing with a lot of grief. She was. She had a lot of things happening at home and she started to create these creatures, these animals, and she would come in and tell me stories about them. And she would make a lot of cats and she would morph them into different creatures. But she would come in and she'd be. It was almost like they were her emotional support buddies. She would come in and make like five different creatures and tell me stories about them. And they were just so cool. She would really design them according to her own ideas and she would tell me stories about who they're saving. Are they a superhero? Do they have a name? What do they eat? Where do they live? And I just think that's really important in helping them to build a narrative but also find their voice. So ultimately I feel like it really helps to build confidence. So my job is really just to create that safe space for them to express themselves in A way that feels natural and letting that come out. And I really enjoy working with them.
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B
Thank you so much. It's amazing to see the photographs and you can really see in the young people how they look like they feel seen, like they are feeling so connected and finding that sense of self expression. It's really powerful. I want to move on in a moment to make sure we can get to our third and final storyteller. But I want to ask you before we do, Renee and Adessen, also, please feel free to add, what does meeting folks where they're at mean to you? What does it actually look like in your practice?
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C
This is a great question. This is something that I have to practice every, every time I work with the students, every time I come into class. But for me, it means letting go of the mindset that you can fix them or change them, really just meeting them where they are. So I tell my students all the time, I'll offer you an assignment, but if that assignment doesn't fit where you are today, feel free to do what makes sense for you today. So I have some students that come in and I'll give them a ball of clay and they'll just rip the clay up, put it into pieces. They'll just kind of mess with it and that's enough. They're still regulating, they're still participating, they're still expressing themselves. And eventually they'll open up and they'll start to build their own narrative. But I think a big part of it is just showing up and allowing them to be and just witnessing them.
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F
Yeah, I think there's a reflection piece for every, an opportunity for every facilitator to kind of think about this. First this question. Because when you come in with expectations, right. You can have issues, right. With treatment. But I think of this as more so. You know, it's not where you want people to be and it's not like where they should be, but it's where they actually are and connecting with them. And so that's kind of my check in before a group process. Where they are is where I am. And that's where we start.
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B
Thank you so much for sharing some examples of your amazing work and the, the wisdom that you're bringing into these settings. Really appreciate you both.
- [34:19]
F
Thank you. We appreciate you too.
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B
Thank you. Oh, well, I'd love to bring out our third storyteller, a newer collaborator to creative well being we, Dr. Devin Ivy, through partnership with Families Uniting Families and love to introduce Dr. Devin Ivy. Can you tell us a bit about who you are and the work you do. And if you'd like, what's one way you cultivate your own well being through arts.
- [34:51]
G
Thank you, Elizabeth. I'm so happy to be here. This is so hard to talk about yourself. So where do I start? Right, so families, United States families. I'll start there. It's a foster family agency, adoption agency. And then thanks to Dr. Herschel Swinger, whom Renee mentioned earlier, we have a Project Fatherhood program. So I wrote the seed grant for this back in 2011. And Project Fatherhood was Dr. Swinger's brainchild and it came from the war on poverty. So the idea that Dr. Swinger had was we can actually eliminate poverty in certain communities by increasing father engagement. And if we have fathers that are more positively engaged with their families, then the whole family system benefits. And since the family unit is the basic unit of a community, then the whole community will benefit as well. And that vision is spot on. And he thought that it would be great to have a Project Fatherhood program on every corner. So he created the seed grant that was funded by Washington D.C. the White House. And unfortunately, when Dr. Swinger passed past that program initiative and funding ended. And the funding landscape for Project Fatherhood just keeps getting more and more difficult to navigate as different administrations have different focuses. And I'm tempted to get on my soapbox now, but I will spare you all and say that we are under a lot of stress. And when we were introduced to creative well being, it was because creative well being provides art based healing and stress reduction for the individuals that are providing the services. And all of our social workers here are under a lot of stress because they're supporting families that are under a lot of stress. And then our families themselves are going through a lot of the same stressing factors that the families are supposed to help are going through. So to be able to have a moment where you can lower your own somatic symptoms so that way you can start to heal and release and build relationships here in an agency and then go out and do the work and then repeat that work for the families that you support. It's just been transformational. So thank you, Elizabeth. And from that we were able to kind of problem solve some of the different challenges that we were facing as an agency and in our Project Fatherhood program. There's so much more to share there. But I will say I think the other question was how do I cultivate my own health well being? Through art, Definitely. With music. And I mentioned earlier to Elizabeth, when you all weren't here yet how do I answer that question? Briefly, because there's so much. But I think with music, whether it be gospel, praise, classical, jazz, or opera. Thank you, La Opera. I will belt out Turandot, Nesing, Dorma by myself when no one is listening. And that alone just totally brings me down. So the. That's definitely how I would use it through music. I hope I answered your question.
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B
Absolutely. I love it and I'd love to experience some of that. Doctor Ivy, Creative well being is really designed to nurture shared understanding and networks of aligned partners. In addition to providing services, we're also about attending to these other parts of the ecosystem. And what's your experience with this in creative well being? And how did it lead to what's now a special project of creative well being called Connected Roots?
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G
Yeah. So with Project Fatherhood, there's two aspects to it. One is a prevention. So if we can work with families before they get involved with the systems, right, Whether it be the child welfare system or the criminal justice system, then we can keep them of buffered from all of the exponentially compounding negative impacts of that involvement would have. And then we're an intervention. So when families are involved and we work really hard and quickly to get them out of that involvement. So one of the ways we do that is we go out into the community and we provide Project Fatherhood workshops. And we had a community partner that was working with young adults that were recently released from prison and Jeff jail. And we were having these groups in particular because the young men were becoming dads within nine months of being released. So what do we do with this? A lot of the dads, when we would have conversations, we would naturally hit on unhealed traumas. And the traumas they experienced were when they were incarcerated and especially traumatic experiences they had before that led to the incarceration in the first place. And that gets into all of the different systems of oppression and at the end, the of individual level, the family level, and then even at the systems level. So when those unhealed traumatic experiences start to bubble up, then those participants would feel uncomfortable and they would often find ways and excuses to leave the group conversations. And I had this idea that if we had a professional artist that could come in and give them something to do with their hands and even redirect their gaze so that they're not looking directly at each other and putting each other on the spot when they're perhaps sharing something that's. That's traumatizing, they might be able to stay in. And it worked. And, and I have to just give a shout outs because Adesin is one of those artists that was there with us and she and I worked on the project together previously and I just think the world of her. Renee, you have a real gem there. Yes, please give her a raise. But by doing that work, suddenly we had great, great attendance and engagement and it just made sense. The greatest thing about creative well being, we have the ability as individual organizations to pitch new ideas. So without a creative grant writing process, I just emailed you as well. I said, hey, what do you think? Can we do this as a pilot program and see what happens when we intentionally bring a Project Fatherhood therapist and a creative well being artist and bring them into a group together and see what happens? So Elizabeth said, yeah, figure it out.
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B
Out.
- [40:38]
G
So LA county actually funded this idea and we've been refining it, trying to make sense of it, see how it fits really well in the community and with the groups that we're working with. And we've come out with this fantastic project called Creative Collective Roots, Creative Healing. And the whole concept there is how do we increase family engagement on a school campus specifically with dads involved, because there's this, this often cultural barrier that dads are not involved in education and only moms are. But instead we'll have both mom and dad or significant other on campus with their children doing artwork together with art therapists and social workers that are present to help facilitate that artwork and then to be able to follow up with those families afterwards to meet any of their needs, to, as Elizabeth said earlier, meet them where they're at and meet, make sure that their basic needs are taken care of, their safety needs are taken care of, that their housing is fine, that they're employed, that they have their food and shelter, that even mom and dad are getting, employment advancement and all of those things. So that way everyone can grow together. Then it seems to be work that seems to be the solution. And so far we've been running since February. We've had fantastic, fantastic outcomes. So much so that I think we're going to be filmed and, and videotaped and all this is going to be written up into several articles. And the hope is that this gets replicated in other places.
- [42:04]
B
Absolutely. And just so folks understand the structure of it, there are sessions with families that center around art making, followed by a family dinner where families have a facilitated dinner conversation and they can talk and share about the art they've been creating together. And a lot of things come out of that conversation. Wouldn't you say a lot.
- [42:26]
G
So I do have to just add that this particular community where the pilot program is occurring, it's in a neighborhood in East LA that is heavily impacted by the new immigration enforcement. And our families talk about not just passive feelings of racism and oppression, but of active hunting. And to be able to be in a space where they feel. Feel safe as a whole family unit with individuals that are present to provide them with the resources they need to be safe when they leave has been transformational for them. And additionally, because of the experience that they're having at home, just that level of stress and the need to find other ways to work, they're not able to have opportunities to spend time together as a family. So this is an opportunity to do just that. So we're filling a lot of needs and we're role modeling what that looks like, while we're also lowering somatic symptoms and giving solutions to their challenges.
- [43:21]
B
It's been really exciting. Also, want to give the panelists a chance to reflect on what you've been hearing today. What's resonating with you? Is there some connection you'd like to uplift or something you heard? So I'll just open it up to all of you.
- [43:37]
G
I would like to just jump in. There were two things that I heard both from. One was from Franklin and one was from Holly. So, Franklin, you. You talked about the weight of this work, and when you described it, it felt like a physical weight. And I think that's accurate. When we think about concepts of chronic stress, even generational stress and trauma, all of those things, there is a real physiological impact to that. And being able to do what Holly led us through, which is just a little wiggle jiggle, it's so important because as goofy and silly as it may sound, just any opportunity, opportunity to get some relief and respite from that, that seemingly constant amount of stress is absolutely healing in and of itself. And then to do that in a group where you're with other people and create those social connections, then that's what real healing looks like. And to do that with each other rather than just a clinician somewhere else coming in, I think is absolutely transformational.
- [44:32]
E
Yeah, definitely. And that's why I am a big believer. And I think when it's a. The first meetings that I attended for creative well being, I was part of, like, dance movement, and I had a couple of my staff in the same group as me. So I was like, you know what? It's. It's okay. It's okay to be human. It's okay to be goofy and have fun and, you know, it's, it's just, it helps for, for us doing the work and hearing all, you know, that we hear working with our medical examiner in the county as well as public health. But yeah, no, it really does help break up our day. That is heavy.
- [45:14]
B
So wonderful. Holly, do you mind sharing a bit more about somatic ecology? And I think that's a new word definitely for me. I'm learning about what it is. Could you share a bit more about this aspect of the work?
- [45:28]
D
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we sort of just, you
- [45:31]
B
know, when it comes with.
- [45:32]
D
Tiempo and I were sort of talking about ways that I could serve the company, how I could serve our communities. It really was like, like all of us have been describing is there's an impact that's real to our bodies. And there's never a line item budget for somebody to care about our bodies. We care about our, our jobs, we care about our benefits, we care about so many other things, but just body is. Body is so often just ignored and it is the most crucial element. Without our bodies, we can do nothing. I often joke, like, what discovery, what thing has happened for humans where body was not there, like we were there. Body is always there. So it always confuses me. But body is not first primary. Why all this other doing sits before being our bodies when this is most primary? So working with and the three directors, it was like, well then that means to be a line item that's real, that works, to be immovable, where somebody is just there to care about our bodies integrated into the work we do do. So I have the specialty and the information to work in embodiment in relationship to movement and dance and somatics and healing and rehabilitation. But I also have the experience therapeutically, also somatically trauma informed, so that we can look at kind of the field of epigenetics. And that is all of the things surrounding us, they become a part of us, us. And so the work we do, the work we are, impacts our bodies. And so if we choose to do work that's toxic, so is our bodies. If we have toxic relationships in our business practices, so do our bodies. So we look at ways at which we can be in the world and understand the impact to our bodies and not be proud, precious, like rugged. Like you're trying to be tough, you're not trying to be like fragile. So you're like trying to get out there so we know our bodies are going to feel things. So when we come back, there's a shelter, there's a place that cares that when you went out there, work was hard. So when you come back, just like family, we got you. So it's about that ecological point of view that nothing is in isolation, nothing. Just like nature, nothing can exist isolated, particularly body. So the ecological part is that reference. We are all interconnected. And then the somatic body, our inside feeling part, the ways that we feel, not just about our bodies, the way we feel vibrationally, this does something, I mean I think we can can feel when it's all askew, it does something weird. But when it's in alignment, I think we can feel it also does something so powerful. So it's to value our bodies at that most essential level, body before it does something, just as it be. And so that's the work I get to do. I feel really lucky that that that's an actual job. Like it's an actual job to love people. That's what I get to do. So I feel, yeah, I feel really lucky that the area that you get to really focus on is just that is like how do we love each other and how can we be doing that better? And what are those practices?
- [49:16]
B
Thank you so much for sharing more about your work, Holly. And this is why I appreciate collaborating with artists and community so much. Because these innovative practices that folks are leading are really profound and fascinating and I feel like there's ways to connect them into our greater systems of care. I do believe that we can think out of the box. We need to think out of the box because clearly the world needs a lot of healing and a lot of support. I really want to thank each and every one of you for being with us today and sharing a bit more about your work. If you'd like to find out more about creative well being, we have a page on the LA county website. Thank you so much. Look forward to more arts and health. And many thanks to LA Opera for hosting this conversation.
- [50:08]
A
Join us for our upcoming Arts and Health week summit this June 12th. You can learn more and RSVP now at la opera.org summit. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to behind the Curtain wherever you listen to podcasts and share this episode with your friends on your favorite social media. Did you know that as a nonprofit, LA Opera relies on charitable donations from arts lovers just like you? Learn more about how your support brings our stage to life@laopera.org donate we can't
- [50:41]
D
wait to see you at the Opera, Sam.