Arts Incentives Program

Taking a Positive Risk
 An Interview with Founding Director, Lisa Fliegel
On June 20th an article entitled "Violence raging among teen girls" (by Suzanne Smalley and Ric Kahn) appeared in the Boston Globe.  One of the most distressing statistics cited in the article is "The number of girls in custody of the state Department of Youth Services increased from 169 in January 1995 to 442 on May 1." 

As an art therapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Lisa Fliegel, founding director of the Arts Incentives Program (AIP) at United South End Settlements, understands the issues teenage girls face in Boston's urban neighborhoods.  For the past nine years she has been running AIP working with over 50 young women annually.

How did this program start?  

The Arts Incentives Program emerged at the Acute Adolescent Residential and Partial Hospitalization Program@McLean Hospital  in 1996. The young people in treatment there, made it clear, that it wasn't enough for everyone to try to get them to stop doing the things they were doing that had negative consequences, they needed to find positive ways to take risks. What better ways to take risks then through art-making? Every time you get on stage, or exhibit a painting you're taking a positive risk. You're saying "Look this is me, this is who I am."

Also what was so healing about the hospital experience was the sense of community, belonging, of people watching out for each other. These young artists didn't have the positive community support outside the hospital, that was part of what got them there to begin with-when I asked myself where they could find such a community-the answer was clearly-Arts-based youth development programs!

So we developed this partnership with many Mass Cultural Council Youth Reach Initiative Programs, and then became one ourselves. A young person would get a treatment plan for therapy, medication, school and an arts-based youth development program. We wouldn't just refer them, we'd provide clinical guidance so that they could succeed in those programs and those successes impact their whole lives.


Can you share a story about one of your participants?  
We live for the transcendent moments- every time a young person or their families are able to overcome the slightest or the biggest obstacles to their health and well being. Everyday we see the young people being blamed for the very problems they are seeking help for, being unheard, misunderstood. One of the most transcendent moments occurred just yesterday:

Jenise (Pseudonym) is a 16 year old who has been in our program since she was 12. She had survived on-going abuse and neglect on multiple levels. She is beautiful, talented and magnetic. Her life in our program has been a tug of war between: Us, her talents in singing and painting and the street, the gangs and drugs, the crime. For three years Art won the tug of war- by the time she was fifteen she had two exhibits at Harvard University, cut a CD, performed in front of hundreds of people, won awards, published articles. But the pressures became too great, and in the fourth year the street began to win. She became gang involved, abused substances...got into all sorts of trouble.

She ran away three times and every time we went out on the street and brought her back. Folks tried to send her to DYS but we insisted: "This kid needs treatment, she needs help, she wants to do well." We got her treatment and she got herself back on track. Yesterday she took the Youth Leadership Position: she went out with us to get a younger girl off the street and into the hospital. She told her story and became her friend. She mediated the Spanish/English translation for the emergency workers and helped this younger girl accept treatment. A year ago we weren't sure if she was going to make it off the street alive-yesterday she used her talents to save another life. Who would have thought that we would make it to that day? But the potential is there and those transcendent moments come time and time again.


What makes the Arts Incentive Program different from other programs?  
First, the population we serve: we work with young people on the cusp of trauma and disregard. We work only with young people who have fallen through the cracks-who wouldn't be served in any other ways.

Second, we follow the thread of the young person's life through all the agencies, individuals, systems, school and family courts, that encounter them. We don't fit them into a program- we create a program based on their areas of interests and the obstacles they face. We allow each person to function at their highest possible level. We are tenacious-we never give up on a young person. We always look for a new way to connect.

Third, we go anywhere-hospital, courts, police station, emergency room, schools, homes, we will do our programming anywhere the young person is.

Fourth, we don't reinvent the wheel.  We have partnerships with over a hundred programs and individuals. We don't repeat what others do but link our youth and families to existing programs and services-we don't just give them a phone number to call, we go with them if needed, we follow up- we make sure it sticks.


What's one of the best things about your program? 
Our sense of humor! That we respond to what young people communicate with their behavior instead of reacting, judging or punishing. We respect young people as artists. We are clinically informed, arts-based, youth development- basing our work on best practices in girl's programming and mental health treatment. We are not about us- we are about being a bridge between the people who need services, who need art- who wouldn't access it otherwise. We believe that individual health is linked to community health and we go forth with courage!

The Arts Incentives Program@
The United South End Settlements
566 Columbus Ave.
Boston, MA 02118