Art After School

Art After School: A successful way to reach youth in your neighborhood is a guide, training and reference book about after-school art programming for children and teenagers. This book is based on years of real life experiences seeing the positive influence the arts can have on young people, particularly in high crime areas. Art after-school programming can offer a new dimension to intervention and prevention for at-risk youth. Art After School is a blueprint on how to go beyond walls to build partnerships with schools (elementary through college level), public and private agencies and businesses to form a network of support and growth that can strengthen an entire community. Although at-risk children are often referred to the Art After School concept works with all children and in a variety of settings from urban neighborhoods to rural outposts.

Art After School is a complete guide for the reader who wants to integrate arts programming into an on-going program or initiate an art program at a stand alone site. The authors discuss and advise on all aspects of such ventures including: selecting a site, financial plans and budgets, staffing, using artists as teachers, planning projects, area school, business and community collaborations, community or public art, fundraising,writing and administering grants and how to initiate and conduct a publicity campaign for your program. In addition the authors include sample art projects and an extensive resource list. The focus of Art After School is the visual arts, but music, poetry, theater as well as any combination of art forms can benefit from this program blueprint.

Art After School offers communities one more way to reach their young people and encourage them in the creative process that can have life-long enrichment possiblities. For children learning English as a second language, the arts can serve as a neutral vehicle of expression. For young people filled with internal rage the arts can offer a safe way to dispel and vent teenage angst.

The arts can open windows to the world for children and teenagers who do not have the opportunities to see beyond their immediate existence. Art After School offers these young people a positive, funfilled and creative endeavor that is an alternative to inactivity, boredom or the negative influences of the streets.