Breaking Down the Walls of Silence: An Expressive Arts Approach to Youth
Empowerment by Lois Saperstein
As Executive Director of Center for the ARTS and the ARTROADS program, I have been
weaving the expressive arts throughout communities, partnering with schools, community
centers, treatment facilities, private schools, Municipal Alliances for the Prevention of Substance
Abuse, and the affiliate organizations of The National Councils on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
in each New Jersey County.
The goal of the ARTROADS program is to use the expressive arts as a platform to transform the
lives of ‘youth-at-risk’ and thereby enhance the protective factors within themselves. The arts can be
used to buttress the emotional, behavioral, cognitive and cultural competencies as resiliency factors.
The arts provide options, challenges, and an effective means for promoting change.
Giving Artistic Expression to the Adolescent’s Inner Turmoil
The arts have the power to reach our young people with positive messages. As they discover the
arts, self-esteem and self-confidence grow. The arts serve as vehicles to deliver strong enduring
messages, giving youth in our communities the tools needed to improve their lives and in turn the life
of our communities.
Adolescence is a time of change and turmoil. It is a period that demands coming to terms with
new challenges, often a time of crisis. Given the tensions on all levels- physical, emotional, social,
sexual, psychological, and cognitively, it is no surprise that many adolescents are on the brink of
explosion. Although their need to express and communicate their internal world is great, they have
not yet acquired the capacity to verbally articulate what they think and feel. They are not at a level of
awareness, in which they can reflect with perspective and distance on their thoughts and feelings. A
form of expression is desperately needed, one in which matches the intensity and complexity of their
experiences. This form of expression needs to be direct but non-threatening. The creative arts
provides a constructive means of expressing the inner explosiveness of adolescence. ( Emanuh,1990).
All arts can be engaged on an individual or group basis and all possess multidimensional and
complex characteristics. The art specialist or the trained counselor, who not only perceives the
adolescent’s handiwork as a work of art but more importantly acknowledges the expression of self it
encompasses, can serve as a witness and guide to the adolescent.
At the same time that the arts provide a means of expressing the pain of this life passage, they also
engage the adolescent’s strengths, idealism and healthful inner resources. According to Liza
Nussbaum, a certified alcohol and drug counselor and licensed clinical social worker:
“Using creative arts therapy techniques in the prevention and treatment of alcohol and other
drug use has been both positive both in group and individual counseling with clients. Creative arts
such as art therapy and psychodrama assist clients in developing insight and awareness into both
their thoughts and feelings which provides a deeper sense of knowing for themselves regarding their
choices. In groups for high risk adolescents growing up in alcoholic and drug affected families,
creative arts techniques helps clients to become more aware both intellectually and emotionally of
their choices, and opens up avenues for healing and healthy living. ( Liza has consulted for an
alternative high school and provided outpatient counseling in New Jersey, 1997).
It is important to remember that although expression is in itself healthful, it is only a first step.
ARTROADS: EMPOWERING YOUTH THROUGH CREATIVE EXPERIENCES
Art in the ARTROADS program is defined as the synthesis of sensory experiences and their
representations. Thus described, art is one means by which human beings organize their experiences
in order to understand and communicate. The use of art activities provides the methodological
framework for the program. Arts activities are viewed by most students as the most socializing
activity in school. For these activities academic standards and properties are not the norm. Arts
activities provides a hands on, creative and relaxed environment in which the student tends to
interact freely and can choose either verbal or non-verbal methods of participation. There is no
‘failing' in the use of art for groups like that of ARTROADS. That is, the acceptance of everyone’s
Perceptions as real though not necessarily the only viewpoint clearly represents a self-esteem builder.
The arts can channel energy into positive quests for better education, stronger family life and a
richer community experience. The arts play a powerful and effective role in developing prevention
skills. By participating in the creation of art, new skills are learned. These skills often apply not only
to the arts, but to life in general.
This is the rationale for ARTROADS. The arts provide for active participation. It is learning by
experiencing, by doing. The arts use an integrative approach. Art uses abilities that include the
intuitive, image oriented, timeless, creative, open and holistic behaviors of the human being as well as
functions that are more analytical, logical, linear, verbal and time-oriented. This brings a balanced
approach to learning.
Prevention education has generally used an ‘outside in’ (didactic) approach to learning. The arts
use an ‘inside out’ approach. The arts offer options, challenges and behavioral competencies as
resiliency factors. “Art is a way to see what is inside of oneself instead of looking outside of oneself
for answers” (Chickerno,1993, p13).
The creative arts focus on what is and what can be, not on what is missing. This critical distinction
sets the stage for young people to discover new ways of learning, communicating, working and
behaving. Multiple objectives are infused into the overall program incorporating information into
the projects as they proceed. Art develops life skills internally, thus reducing adolescents resistance
to change. This is unlike the typical prevention program that imposes external change and
encounters resistance.
ARTROADS provides an expanded view of what is possible. Working in the arts provides
opportunities for self-directed expression that is not wholly dependent on adults and their
institutions. The arts help develop self-sufficiency and increase self-esteem in small imperceptible
Steps. In the words of one young student, “ I am building my own way of seeing and talking about
my world, and own the patent.”
This is an abridged version, the full article appears in, Empowering Youth-At-Risk with skills for
school and life, edited by Dan Rea and Robert Warkin, McGraw-Hill,1999