•  A Pilot Evaluation of an Art Therapy Program for Refugee Youth From Burma.
    Sarah Dorothy Kowitt, Dane Emmerling, Diane Gavarkavich, Claire-Helene Mershon, Kristin Linton, Hillary Rubesin, Christine Agnew-Brune & Eugenia Eng (2016).
    Taylor & Francis, vol. 33, issue 1, pp. 13-20.« Art therapy is a promising form of therapy to address mental health concerns for refugee youth. This article describes the development and implementation of a pilot evaluation of an art therapy program for refugee adolescents from Burma currently living in the United States. Evaluation activities were based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s evaluation framework and implemented through a partnership of art therapists and public health researchers in North Carolina. Findings indicate that evaluation activities were feasible, acceptable, and provided baseline measures of mental health for the adolescents sampled. Through a discussion of evaluation components and results, this pilot evaluation offers an example of how art therapy organizations can integrate program evaluation using existing evaluation frameworks, while engaging stakeholders and building organizational capacity. »


  • Widening participation creatively: creative arts education for social inclusion.
    Emma Felton, Krystle Vichie & Eloise Moore (2015). Taylor & Francis
    « University participation among students from low socio-economic backgrounds in Australia is low and nationwide strategies are in place to help bridge the gap. This article presents a preliminary evaluation of a creative arts-based outreach program to raise awareness and aspiration for university study among students from low-income backgrounds. The program is part of a national Australian federally funded initiative, the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program. It reviews an outreach advertising program facilitated by a Brisbane university. We argue that arts education has a particular role in provoking attitudinal change, due to the self-reflective, meaning-making and expressive characteristics of arts-based disciplines. In evaluating the advertising program, the value of creativity and trust as techniques of student engagement is considered. Evaluation occurred in two outer suburban high schools in Brisbane (a State capital city), using surveys and ethnographic fieldwork. The findings support an engagement model that employs creativity and uses student facilitators (undergraduate and postgraduate) to deliver the program, to meet the program’s aims. »