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In 2021, over a quarter of U.S. parents reported their adolescent had seen a mental health specialist, according to a survey published this April by a University of Michigan children’s hospital (Mott, 2022). The CDC reported in 2019 that suicide was the second leading cause of death among children 10 to 14 - before the pandemic. The data has spurred the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association to declare a national adolescent and child mental health emergency (AAP, 2021).
School counseling resources are strained (Barshay, 2020). Although more states and schools have been designated to receive federal relief funds to address the problem, creating programs on “mental health first aid” and other interventions, the scale of the problem demands additional resources from schools, families, and communities.
Some of the most effective tools already exist in almost every school - the art, music, drama, and media classrooms. Brains run on art! It’s time we recognized that the protective effects of the arts on mental health are a necessity, rather than a luxury.
Students at a mental-health night sponsored by Kutztown University’s Health & Wellness department and a grant from S.A.M.S.H.A. in 2021.
Kids were already struggling, and the pandemic exacerbated the issues
The Center for Disease Control published the first national survey of pandemic mental well-being of high school students in March, 2022. It illuminates issues that have made the headlines and spotlights specific populations at greater risk.
The 2019 report already indicated that, “Mental health and suicide ideation or actions among young people is a severe and growing problem in the United States. Poor mental health is associated with a host of health risks, both during adolescence and into adulthood. It can lead to risky sexual behavior, illicit substance use, unintended pregnancy, school absence and dropout, and other potentially life-long health problems.”
The 2022 study showed that the pandemic has “created additional traumatic stressors that have the potential to further erode students’ mental wellbeing.” More than half of the students in the post-pandemic study (55%) reported they experienced emotional abuse by a parent or other adult in the home, including swearing, insults, or put-downs, and 11% experienced actual physical abuse. Over a quarter (29%) reported job loss by an adult in their home.
A question left in the “Q and A” section of a 2022 exhibit at the Richmond Art Museum.
Girls and LGBTQ youth reported greater levels of poor mental health; emotional abuse by a parent or caregiver; and having attempted suicide than their counterparts. A large proportion of Asian students (64%) and Black or mixed-race students (both 55%) reported experiencing instances of racism, which is linked to poor mental health, academic performance, and lifelong health risk behaviors. It is shocking that the number of black students who reported a suicide attempt in 2019 increased by almost 50% - even before the pandemic.
On the protective factor side, students with a sense of being cared for and supported at school were significantly less likely to report feelings of sadness, thoughts of attempting suicide, or actually attempting suicide, than those who did not feel connected to school. Unfortunately, less than half (47%) of youth reported feeling close to people at school during the pandemic.
Students talking face-to-face in the “hangout” area of our interactive exhibit at the Goggleworks Center for the Arts.
Schools lack the resources to address mental health
In the 2018-19 school year, there were roughly 425 students for every school counselor, which exceeds the American School Counselor Association’s recommended ratio of 250 to 1. Twenty-three percent of students attended schools with no psychologists and 53% attended schools with no social workers. (Barshay). Data also shows that the situation worsened over the pandemic and the “great resignation” as more education workers left the system, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting a 3% drop in the school workforce between February 2020 and May 2022.
To pick up the slack, classroom teachers have been urged to incorporate aspects of Social-Emotional-Learning (SEL) into their curriculum (Durlak, 2011). But crowded class sizes and mandated content defined by state testing standards don’t make it easy to focus holistically on students’ emotional wellbeing. During pandemic lockdowns, teachers struggled mightily to create personal connections to students learning online. Delivering hands-on lessons in art and music were especially challenging. On the positive side, parents thrown into home-schooling created a huge surge in art supply sales, as everyone recognized the value in “non-screen time” and people gravitated to what brought some peace and happiness (McCann, 2021).
Efficacy of arts programs as a protective factor
In the realm of social and emotional health, there are protective factors that contribute to a child’s well-being, and risk factors that interfere with health. Protective factors help insulate kids from poor choices and make them more resilient, or better able to withstand internal and environmental stressors (Palmer eta l, 2022). Of course, trying to intervene before a crisis is preferable (and more cost-effective) than repairing one afterward.
A review of studies exploring the effects of creative activities on the health and wellbeing of children and young people identified benefits like “increased self-esteem, a sense of achievement and empowerment, improved social skills and promotion of social engagement” (Zarobe, 2017). The analysis found additional positive protective factors including greater happiness, increased self-confidence, closer relationships, and appreciation for working in a team.
A 2018 review of twenty separate studies on the arts and mental health reports “non-clinical engagement in arts, culture and creative activities can increase mental health wellbeing of individuals who are experiencing mental health problems” (Jensen, 2018). The activities measured ranged from hands-on arts or crafts, to singing, dancing, hearing stories or listening to music, and included patients suffering from chronic pain, cancer, and other diseases, as well as health care workers and patients reporting other stressors.
The review reported health impacts including, “Subjective feelings of increased self-confidence and wellbeing, being part of a community, building new social relationships, participating in meaningful activities, creating a connection between body and mind, promoting relaxation, fostering a sense of hope and developing new coping mechanisms and experiencing increased sense of self-worth, motivation and aspiration and decreased levels of depression.”
Middle School student creating a work about “Stressors and Strengths”at an in-school workshop in May 2022.
An additional study compared the use and non-use of an art intervention in different units of the hospital (Staricoff 68). The groups experiencing art programs had a measurable improvement in clinical outcomes, including better vital signs, diminished stress-associated cortisol, and needed less sleep medication.
These studies were conducted among hospital patients – but what about kids? A randomized, controlled study of over 10,000 third- through-eight-graders in Houston showed arts programs had significant positive impacts on student academic and social success. Specific data included a 3.6 percentage point reduction in students receiving disciplinary infractions, and a slight increase in students’ standardized writing test scores. Three subgroups showed even more pronounced effects: Elementary age students, those with limited English proficiency, and those designated as gifted or talented showed significant improvement in school engagement, empathy and college aspiration (Bowen, 2019)
A middle school group reflecting on the ways creativity, addiction, and mental illness have touched their lives.
Trauma-informed approaches, including those that integrate the arts, recognize the signs of trauma, incorporate understandings of trauma into practices
and seek to prevent re-traumatization (SAMSHA, 2014). Art experiences build resiliency by giving students a way to process their emotions from disaster and trauma and begin to heal (Dev Services Group, 2016).
The arts include nonverbal, individualized SEL skills such as developing emotional regulation, and improving personal aspirations and compassion for others. The more traumatized the student is, the more healing the effects can be.
Longitudinal research of student outcomes has consistently suggested that both at-risk and not-at-risk students involved in arts education outperform their non-arts peers on a host of educational, social, and behavioral outcomes, even when controlling for other demographics. (Catterall et al, 2012),
And the results of school-based arts education experiences in childhood are lasting. Having even one formal arts class in school is associated with later adult arts engagement as creator, performer, patron, or donor/financial supporter (Elpus, 2015).
A burning need for wrap-around programs
Arts programs are historically “on the chopping block” when budgets shrink. Although about 82% of all high schools in the nation offered at least one course in one or more of the four major arts disciplines, a 2019 survey reports that only about 37% of eight graders reported taking an arts class. “Academic track” college-bound students often find arts electives are squeezed out of their schedules, whereas students in technical programs may not have any electives at all, and under-performing students may be steered to test-preparation or remedial courses to pass state standards. In short, it can’t be assumed that every student gets to enjoy the mental-health boost of an art, music or theater class during school hours (Von Zastrow, 2019).
Parents, volunteers, community nonprofits and grant-making organizations are resources that can collaborate with schools to provide cost-effective programs. Many schools already have artists-in-residence or other programs that only reach students in art classes, but creating or finding arts-related programming to support mental health can energize not only students, but frazzled faculty and staff. Imagine harnessing the same community spirit that rallies around physical health programs like sports teams and physical fitness programs, and devoting a fraction of it to mental health.
This simple recommendation from the CDC could apply to arts-based programs: “Schools, families, and communities can work together to provide more intentional messages, skills, and mental health support for adolescents so that encouraging trends can continue and troubling trends can be reversed.” Using the arts to deliver these messages can lead not only to fun and memorable experiences for “arty” kids, but to overall well-being for the entire school community.
Jonathan Mermin, M.D., director of the CDC’s Center for monitoring and addressing school-based health, says it well, “The data tells us what works. So, what will it take for our schools and communities to help youth withstand the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond?” Let’s paint a brighter picture for kids.
References
AAP News, (2021). “AAP, AACAP, CHA declare national emergency in children’s mental health,”
American Academy of Pediatrics News, October 19, 2021. https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/17718
Barshay, J. (2020) “Lowest student-to-school-counselor ratio since 1986.” The Hechinger Report. https://hechingerreport.org/lowest-student-to-school-counselor-ratio-since-1986/ April 27, 2020
Bowen, D.H, and Kisida, B. “Investigating Causal Effect of Arts Education Experiences: Experimental Evidence From Houston’s Arts Access Initiative,” Houston Education Research Consortium 7, no. 4 (2019): 1-28.
Catterall, J. S. (2012) The arts and achievement in at-risk youth: findings from four longitudinal studies / NEA Research Report #5
Center for Disease Control. (2019) The Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2009–2019. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH).
Development Services Group, Inc. 2016. “Arts-Based Programs and Arts Therapies for At-Risk, Justice-Involved, and Traumatized Youths.” Literature review. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. https://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/litreviews/Arts-Based-Programs-for-Youth.pdf
Durlak, J.A., Weissberg, R.P., Dymnicki, A.B., Taylor, R.D., & Schellinger, K.B. (2011). “The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions.” Child Development, 82, pp.405-432.
Elpus, K. (2015) “Arts Education as an Investment in Lifelong Arts Participation”, N.E.A. Arts.gov working paper. https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Research-Art-Works-Maryland3.pdf
Jensen A, and Bonde, L.O. (2018) “The use of arts interventions for mental health and wellbeing in health settings.” Perspectives in Public Health. 2018 Jul;138(4):209-214. doi: 10.1177/1757913918772602. Epub 2018 Apr 30. Erratum in: Perspectives in Public Health. 2018 Sep;138(5):288. PMID: 29708025.
McCann, M. (2021) “Retailers are betting on the crafting boom to continue into 2021.” Modern Retail.com, May 10, 2021
Mott Poll Reports (2022) C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Parent views on addressing mental health concerns in adolescents. Mott Poll Reports March 21, 2022. Volume 40, Issue 4. https://mottpoll.org/reports/parent-views-addressing-mental-health-concerns-adolescents
Palmer, C., Wisniewski, S and Danforth, J. “Prevention and Social-Emotional Learning”. The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Prevention Solutions, Webinar, June 22, 2022.
Stuckey, H.L. and Nobel, J. (2010) The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health: A Review of Current Literature. American Journal of Public Health.
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Staricoff, R.L. Arts in health: a review of the medical literature. Available at: www.thesah.org/doc/music%20and%20science.pdf. Accessed July 5, 2022.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. HHS Publication No. (SMA) 14-4884. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2014.
Von Zastrow, C. (2019) “New Data on Who is Taking Arts Classes.” EdNotes.org (blog). Education Consortium of the States. November 11, 2019. https://ednote.ecs.org/new-data-who-is-taking-art-classes/
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