LYNN, Massachusetts — In a red brick building in this small city 13 miles northeast of Boston on a Friday last November, several children sat closely around a paint-splattered table.
A woman in black clothing, with gray braids fastened into a low bun, told them to pick up a wooden ball and board, tiny wood pieces, glue guns and markers on the table.
Each child began to build a maze. Their goal? To learn about getting through the worst in life and not giving up.
“I hope all of you understand that giving up is a choice. It’s not an option,” Michelle Richardson, community engagement manager at Raw Art Works, told the children in a calm, warm voice. Pointing to a child, she asked: “Can you grab one of those wooden balls right there?”
“That right there is a representation of you so you can put your name on it,” Richardson said. “You can paint it in your favorite color. You can paint it in multiple colors, but it’s a representation of you, so make sure when you make your maze, you can get through it.”
The children’s gathering reflects the essence of Raw Art Works, a nonprofit youth development organization rooted in art therapy. RAW creates a space where youths aged 9 to 19 express themselves and heal through art. The organization serves 290 youths weekly.
RAW is not unique. Art therapists work in medical institutions, wellness centers, schools and community programs nationwide. Advocates of the practice say in such places, young people often find peace through the creative process.
That’s what Noah, who’s now 13, found. He rolled his wooden ball through his maze. The ball had a face that switched from happy to sad as it rolled over words like “New school = New bullies.” “You suck.” “Ignore it.” “Push through it.” “You’ll find happiness!! All in the end.”
Noah, who started with RAW at age 12, said the maze activity made him go back in time to when bullies left him struggling mentally and socially. Building that maze helped him realize he could move beyond all that.
“There’s going to be a roll of emotions,” Noah said. “But no matter what, you will always make it to happiness.”
The power of self-expression
Art therapy allows people to express their emotions through creative endeavors. Then, in either a one-on-one or group setting, art therapists help clients process the art and the emotions that produced it.
There are over 8,000 credentialed art therapists in the United States and over 3,000 art therapists with board certifications, a license required to practice art therapy in certain states, according to LeeAnn Mandrillo, executive director of the Art Therapy Credentials Board.
There’s some evidence this approach can help even the most troubled patients. A 2024 Journal of Mental Health study examined the behavior of 948 young people in the inpatient psychiatric unit of a public hospital in Sydney, Australia. The study found when those youths were involved in art therapy, staffers were less likely to have to restrain or sedate them — meaning they were experiencing less distress. The study also found the average length of stay and readmission rates were significantly lower when patients practiced art therapy.
Art therapy works because it can help people express feelings that may be too overwhelming to discuss, said Gioia Chilton, an art therapy researcher who has published over 25 peer-reviewed articles. Chilton, who teaches at the George Washington University graduate art therapy program, said art therapy can be helpful in addressing trauma.
“You don’t have to talk about it(difficult feelings) because it’s really hard to talk about, and in fact, it’s often impossible to talk about because trauma is stored in the brain in a section where it’s not the language portion of the brain. It’s more so the visual portion of the brain,” Chilton said.
Inside RAW Arts
RAW takes a slightly different approach than other art therapy organizations. RAW does not focus on or treat an individual’s diagnosis even though it serves youths who have anxiety, eating disorders, are suicidal or have trauma from witnessing shootings or losing family members.
Instead, RAW uses art therapy techniques and the power of community to promote healing. Children are placed in groups led by licensed art therapists and two trained co-leaders who are teens. Some groups are also led by staff who aren’t licensed art therapists, but they receive training at RAW.
RAW currently has 30 such groups, each with a different focus, ranging from visual arts to film to shared identity. Each group follows the same model. The day starts with check-in, where the children answer a simple question such as, “What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?” or a question related to the art they will create that day. They also rate their day from one to 10, with 10 meaning their day was “awesome.”
Children then receive a prompt centered on a theme or issue and make art in response to it. The youths have the option to share their art with the group, but sharing is not mandatory. The day ends with check-out, where they rate their day again from one to 10.
If the number drops or doesn’t improve, the group leader or co-leader thanks the child for being honest and speaks with the child.
And if their number improves just a little, “something good happened here,” said Jason Cruz, an art therapist and director of culture and experience at RAW. “They’re coming at a zero and you give them the opportunity for an hour to raise up their score even if it’s a two. That’s progression and that’s success.”
One of the groups, a group of boys called Men 2 Be, explored the prompt, “What’s beneath the surface?,” in which they made iceberg sculptures. Cruz said the children used the metaphor of an iceberg to show what’s beneath their own surface — the good and the bad — to show who they are.
In another group, called “Pulse,” children used embroidery to showcase their struggles. A child stitched the words: “You are more than just your diagnosis,” alongside a stitching of a self-portrait.
Using embroidery taught the children — who in many cases struggle with anxiety — to slow down, said Alison Miller, an art therapist and clinical director at RAW.
“If you rush, you’re going to get more frustrated, right?” Miller said. “Your thread is going to get tangled.”
If a child wants more one-on-one support, RAW will refer the child to an in-house clinician. Youths who show signs of suicide ideation are directed to RAW’s care worker, who connects the child and their parents to mental health services outside the program.
RAW’s model generally works, though, because the youths participate in the same routine and meet with the same group members once a week, Miller said.
Adults who went through the RAW program years ago said they found it to be life-changing.
Jonathan Rodriguez, who’s now 33, came to RAW when he was 13 and in a local gang.
“I was a troubled kid,” Rodriguez said. “To have a place where I could get that off my chest really helped me become a more understanding and patient person, especially now as a father. I’m reliving my second childhood right now. I get to be that person I didn’t have for my kids.”
Lissa Bautista, 25, first came to RAW at 14. She said her art helped her find herself. She’s now a makeup artist, model and graphic designer.
“[Art] helped me navigate through my life problems,” Bautista said.
Art therapy elsewhere
Art therapy takes different forms in different places. In Uvalde, Texas, survivors and community members developed a mural that helped them heal after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022.
The Uvalde Love Project, organized by art therapist Wanda Montemayor, brought students, teachers and families together to work on a 300-square-foot mural featuring clay tiles. The mural depicts a large green tree, blue skies, a stream, flowers, words of hope and messages to friends who were killed in the shooting.
For a year, Montemayor and a team of art therapists worked with young people in Uvalde to treat their trauma. The children participated in group counseling while assembling the mural.
Montemayor said the project helped participants heal.
“One child feared sleeping alone, and after they had been working with us, they were able to start sleeping on their own and were able to start going out in public,” Montemayor said.
Meanwhile in New York City, The Art Therapy Project provides group art therapy to youths and adults. The organization places youths in groups based on the problem they are facing, be it abuse, housing insecurity or drug use. Founded in 2011, the organization has provided group art therapy to over 4,000 youths.
While such an approach is beneficial to youth because they receive support from their peers, one-on-one art therapy is helpful if an individual is dealing with a specific diagnosis because art therapists can customize the treatment to the problem, said Lisa Pascal, an art therapist and art therapy manager of Create Arts Center.
Located in Silver Spring, Maryland, Create provides individual and group art therapy. Tamar Hendel, a Holocaust survivor who found healing through art, opened the center to help others heal.
Pascal added a community-centered approach has its benefits but “the only problem is trying to get a group that is a good fit because they have to be similar in age and diagnosis for the group to be effective.”
‘Now I’m happier’
RAW’s history dates to 1988. Two art therapists, Mary Flannery and Beau Diehl, founded the organization after providing art therapy to incarcerated youths.
They found youths who were not incarcerated could also benefit from art and community, said Rosario Ubiera-Minaya, executive director of RAW.
“They started to notice that the group dynamic was very positive to be able to learn from each other and relate to each other,” Ubiera-Minaya said.
RAW is based in downtown Lynn, a city of about 100,000 residents with a majority-minority population and a poverty rate 2.6 percentage points higher than the national average in 2023. RAW also has a program that has worked with 668 youth in Lynn Public Schools, but sessions tend to be rushed, Ubiera-Minaya said. Group sessions at RAW run for about two hours.
“The model works within the amount of time that we dedicate, but also not only per session, but for the continuum of our program,” Ubiera-Minaya said. “So ideally, a child starts in fourth grade and stays with us throughout the number of years and is able to tap into different resources and opportunities throughout all that time. … That’s why it’s impactful.”
However, youths have to wait about three to four years to attend sessions at RAW — and 249 young people were on the waitlist as of mid-March. There is a waitlist because there aren’t enough art therapists to provide for all youths, according to Cruz.
But the youths currently at RAW said it serves them well.
“I was in a bit of a sad place,” 13-year-old Zanna said, referring to when she first came to RAW. “But now I’m happier. I’m happier because I met people who like to do the same things as me.”
During the maze activity, 13-year-old Ahona, still new to RAW, looked proudly at her incomplete maze. It had a zig-zag with rough edges and a yin-yang sign. The zig-zag and its roughness represented the trials she faced growing up and the yin-yang showed the need for balance in her life.
“There’s still more to go, so I left my maze incomplete,” Ahona said. “I would really like to continue this journey and find a way out to knowing myself.”
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