Partners for Livable Communities (Partners) releases, “Arts Organizations and Public Health,” a guide to creating partnerships between art and health organizations. This primer was designed for the arts organization that wishes to initiate programming focused on local health issues, or create partnerships with health groups in order to best meet the needs of the community. Arts Organizations and Public Health identifies best practices of diverse arts organizations from around the United States to inform this work. The best practices can be used as references, and are cited throughout the publication to correlate with text.
Organization Type: Service Organizations
Art Therapy: Enhancing the Lives of Older Adults
From the toolkit:
Art can be a powerful activity for older adults. For many seniors art is a lifelong passion, for others, art is a hobby that they never had the time to pursue. No matter the situation, having an art program in your community can contribute substantially to the overall quality of life of your residents.
Age-Friendly New York City
From the Age-Friendly NYC Site:
Started as a public-private partnership in 2007, NYAM’s Age-friendly NYC initiative has catalyzed hundreds of changes throughout the city. We have successfully created Age-friendly Neighborhoods, increased pedestrian safety, showed thousands of businesses how to become age-friendly, and improved transportation and access to recreational and cultural resources for the city’s older adults. Age-friendly NYC was awarded “Best Existing Age-Friendly Initiative in the World” by the International Federation on Aging in 2013 and has provided strategic assistance to more than 70 cities worldwide.
Finding an “Oasis in the Abyss”
Teaching Artist, Susan Willerman, has been teaching “Writing From Life” at Morningside Retirement and Health Services in the Washington Heights neighborhood of NYC for 26 consecutive years. The class started as a program of Elders Share the Arts in 1994, and now continues as part of the Teachers & Writers Collaborative. When COVID-19 forced members to shelter at home, Susan and Tiana, one of the members, worked together to develop the most effective ways to continue the program online.