Creative Approaches to Healing: Blending Social Work with Art & Play
A loved one once shared to IWES staff member Mary Okoth their secret to healthy long-term relationships: maintain your own hobbies and interests, as there is infinite wonder in practicing what you love and exchanging your unique joys with others. It's crucial to have your own, independent sense of self — your interests, your likes, your emotions. As a social worker, Mary sees the benefits of this idea; not only in community partnerships, but also in one’s relationship with self and building a healthy identity. Since joining IWES’ social work team in January 2021, she has had the incredible opportunity to share her interests as an artist and herbalist across different community settings. Expanding IWES’ programming to include therapeutic art and nature-based activities has provided participants with unique avenues for healing and meaningful relationship-building with self, others, and the Earth.
Using Art in group sessions
Every week, IWES social workers facilitate the Women’s Recovery Group at Grace House, a residential treatment facility for women recovering from substance use disorders. In the group sessions, they explore the many ways in which “Recovery Means Taking Care of Yourself," the central theme of the Women’s Recovery Group Manual by psychiatrist Dr. Shelly Greenfield, which we use as a basis for our groups. We also provide group sessions at Hotel Hope, a space where women and their children have temporary safe housing, a loving atmosphere, and comprehensive case management services. At IWES’ twice monthly Women’s Empowerment Hour group at Hotel Hope, we create a supportive group setting grounded in psychoeducational practices to promote mental, physical, and emotional well-being as residents prepare to transition into long-term housing.
The women at Grace House and Hotel Hope come from diverse backgrounds and with a common goal: to achieve the serenity that comes with ongoing healing, whether related to sobriety or housing security.
Those who are in early recovery or those experiencing housing insecurity can find it hard to tap into a sense of serenity. When we include elements of art and creativity into group sessions, this helps our clients to explore creative and artistic outlets where they can experience the vibrancy and spectrum of their emotions, and, ultimately, find a sense of serenity. Because of the power that creativity has, we have adapted our existing sessions to include therapeutic art activities. This addition has created more spaces for mindfulness and self-expression for the women and families we serve. Actions as simple as gliding a marker across smooth paper, stringing beads, or creating a collage, help our clients to build that relationship with self and learn new approaches to self-soothing.
This past spring, we were invited to participate in Prospect New Orleans’ first-ever Young Artist Exchange (YAE). Held at the Contemporary Arts Center, the YAE brought together young artists ages 16-21 and community partners for a day of art-making, mentorship, and professional development. For the event, the social work team created a workshop that explored the intersections between art and mental health. Mary was excited to be one of the co-facilitators of the session, as it was a reminder of the powerful relationship between creative self-expression and healing.
Through drawing, painting, and movement, the young artists addressed the question: “What does healing mean to you?”
As a group, we considered the ways art can be a catalyst for healing, change, revolution, and transformation. Additionally, we acknowledged that through art, artists have the power to tell stories about the past, reflect on the present, and create change for the future. For these reasons (and so many more!), it is essential for communities to support and uplift artists' mental health, well-being, and resilience. Through this workshop, it was our goal to provide the artists with this very support. Together, we engaged in mindfulness, connected with one another, reflected on the meaning of healing, and received resources and information about mental health support available to young people in the New Orleans community.
The importance of play
The element of play, inherent to artistic practice and creative expression, is one of the things that makes art such a powerful tool for healing. Yes, this includes adults, too. In a safe environment, play invites our inner child to exist in its authentic energy, unleash creativity, make mistakes without shame, and release expectations. One of the most quintessential environments for play is the outdoors, where we can access a peaceful sense of belonging and groundedness rooted in the Earth.
At Grace House and Hotel Hope, Mary developed a session entitled The Healing Power of Plants, where clients discuss their connection to nature while learning about different ways that plants are used in healing practices. Information about nature-based healing is presented within a decolonial framework rooted in the sacred knowledge and ancestral wisdom of Black and Indigenous peoples and people of color. Following the discussion, we transition to the outdoors, where clients are given a succulent plant and ceramic pot handmade by a local artist. By lovingly filling the pot with dirt and placing their plant in its new home, they seed intentions for their now and future selves. This activity helps to ground them in the Earth and takes them back to childhood, as they plant, play, explore and envision all the possibilities. Following group sessions at both Grace House and Hotel Hope, Mary always gains new insight and is inspired by our clients' feedback requesting continued art and nature-based activities.
Challenges in the journey
Of course, it is simplistic to describe these activities as solely providing comfort and soothing. While art and horticulture may seem like easy means of finding comfort, in reality, journeys in both fields require (and demand) that you step outside your comfort zone to a place where growth is uncertain and not assured. During her time as an undergraduate art major, Mary found that the demands of production and group critique created physical and emotional challenges for her that, ironically, only the creative process could resolve. And through her love of horticulture, she was able to grapple with complex and oppressive systems of injustice that she saw and experienced from her involvement in community initiatives at the intersection of social justice, gardening, prison abolition, and art. Yet, we do not need to start with such adversity and challenge. Rather, introducing these activities in a therapeutic setting can be healing and exploratory, while leaving a challenging trail for future expansion.
Our earliest organized human endeavors involved both creative mark-making and interaction with nature. These essential practices celebrate and sustain our humanity. Many of us, well beyond childhood, find quiet peace—as well as personal growth—in the creative process. It is no wonder that it can also be a tool for healing, hope, and awareness within a therapeutic practice, as our work at Grace House, Hotel Hope, Prospect New Orleans, and other communities and spaces has shown!
To learn more about the Collective for Healthy Communities (CHC) initiative, please contact Mary Okoth, LCSW, CHC Program Manager