Keeping the Arts Alive: Creating and Sustaining Youth Programs That Matter

Based on compelling research and the author’s personal experience running programs that support arts in education, this collection of practical advice not only explains why arts education is vital but also provides tools and resources to help develop and maintain sustainable arts programs for young people. This helpful guide provides arts educators and youth workers with solutions to withstand budget shortfalls, ways to create or maintain arts programs, and methods to enrich the lives of all participants. The book covers topics including developing a program, fund-raising and “friend-raising,” and integrating the arts into other school curricula and the community at large. Other concepts discussed include art therapy, art as a tool for social change, and arts-integrated education as a means to cultivate necessary creative skills for the global economy of the future.

Kristin A. Rapp is the founder and executive director of ArtPeace, Inc. with more than 20 years of experience as a social worker, therapist, and teaching artist. She has worked with children, teens, and families with challenges in mental health, chemical dependency, and developmental disabilities, as well as those in the juvenile justice or foster care systems. She lives in Rochester, New York.