LOS ORÍGENES DEL MOVIMIENTO EVITA EN AVELLANEDA

~Arts Infusion JTDC teaching artist (2015)

Along the same line, the Arts Infusion teaching artists and program directors who were able to engage youth in the community after release had some alternative ways of finding information about their release and interest in the arts beyond that available formally, given that privacy laws restrict others from such knowledge. Several Arts Infusion program directors have longstanding ties to the detention facility and communities to which youth return; their names and faces are familiar to youth and in many cases to youths’ families as well. One former Arts Infusion program director regularly attended informational parent sessions held monthly at JTDC to establish these connections (though others found these less helpful due to poor parent attendance). Another provider—mentioned above—functioned as the chaplain within the detention facility, lived in one of the targeted Arts Infusion communities, and had operated a non-profit program in the community for many years (within which he incorporated Arts Infusion programming, a digital media lab, and more).

One JTDC based Arts Infusion program, Storycatchers Theatre, developed two community based aftercare programs to which about 40 or more of its participants connected after release. The first program, Changing Voices, provides older teens and young adults with employment opportunities and jobs training. The second program, Teens Together, helps youth who are in school earn service learning hours and college credits at Columbia College.

Storycatchers’ program director noted that the Teens Together program manager helped forge

connections to some youth by staying in contact with their parents, which helped monitor youths’ choices and facilitate their desire to stay in the program.

Beyond the value of human connections, youth who engaged with arts programs after detention release had been inspired by the arts programming itself and the information available to them before their release. Successful connections, therefore, involved the

provision of information to youth while still detained. In this regard, an extensive new effort by the initiative should prove promising: Members of the Arts Infusion Steering Committee worked in collaboration with youth participants for more than a year to develop a visually stimulating, interactive digital source of information regarding the opportunities in arts education available to youth in their communities. Called the DRIVE, this resource is now available on the Internet at www.getdrive.org, and has also been used by JTDC and mental health staff as a hub for information on school reenrollment and juvenile records

expungement. Although each JTDC youth is supposed to receive a copy of the DRIVE as a flash drive upon release, it appears more likely that the effort’s success will depend upon its incorporation into a youth-friendly social media platform, either through a cell phone app or creative dissemination on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Relatedly, when Arts Infusion teens successfully connect with programs after release or within other communities, they usually do so in pairs and quickly spread information about their new experiences via social media.

Finally, it is notable that Arts Infusion programs had a wide range of experience in working with youth who had formerly been involved with the justice system. One community based program served a population of youth who almost universally had prior justice involvement, while another nearby community program struggled to retain the one justice-involved youth it had two years ago. Programs used a variety of mechanisms for engaging and retaining such youth, the most successful of which appear to have been stipends for arts apprenticeships and, similarly, employment in arts-focused summer jobs.

The inspirational experiences that many Arts Infusion youth had at some point during their program exposure, however, was the primary reason for their continued engagement in such programming. As mentioned above, several former participants returned to work as teaching artists or interns for the same or different Arts Infusion programs as their interest in the arts developed. Another former Arts Infusion JTDC participant created his own musical group and continued his interest in the arts independently “to take responsibility for [my] own future!”

Two other examples of successful engagement are provided in boxes 3 and 4.

BOX 3

Example of Success: Arts Infusion Youth Participant “Diego” (pseudonym)

Arts Infusion youth participant, Diego, was introduced to the arts by teaching artists at the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation/Peace and Education Coalition. His writing and music production flourished, and he has since helped create murals, theater productions, and multimedia programs.

Through the Arts Infusion network, Diego was given the opportunity to participate in professional media programming at Street-Level Youth Media. He recorded a number of songs, using his music to give voice to the needs of other youth like himself.

BOX 4

Example of Success: Arts Infusion Youth Participant “Adam” (pseudonym)

After several incarcerations, Adam came across the ABJ-Ray of Hope Center of the Arts program in his community. Within two years, he “began to do things I’ve never done before such as perform poetry, dance, act, etc.” Through these positive, life skills building activities Adam was able to avoid future criminal involvement and even begin teaching other youth in his community about the arts activities he had learned. Adam said, “Working with the Arts Infusion is one of the programs among others that changed my life around.”