Arts for Healing is now ready for Social Prescribing

Cherie Kephart, sound therapy

Adrienne Hundley from Art Pharmacy recently held a webinar about a new pilot program
in San Diego for San Ysidro Health .  They have partnered with the funder Catalyst  to provide a brand new art prescription program. This is a game changer and we all know research has proven how the arts are good for the mind and then the body. She pointed out that, “We are hard wired for art.” It  now only lowers our blood pressure,  it connects us to community

There are lots of outside creative arts therapist. Some are actually located in hospitals and clinical health care centers.  But patients don’t always know about them. Social prescribing with the arts is a way for the care provider to prescribe the arts knowing that Art Pharmacy will be able to match the right choice of art to the patient. .

For the pilot, the patience’s care provider writes the prescription. San Ysidro Health will send a request to Catalyst to validate the funding and then it will be sent to Art Pharmacy who will make recommendations for a selection of activities. A care navigator will book and monitor the patient through a year’s activities on average one a month. Funding is for 2 people for the patient can be accompanied. There is an end survey and statistic are looking extremely good with high rates of participation and improved well-being and social connectedness i.e. less loneliness.

The choice of mediums and type of experiences is very wide for in person or virtual or even telephone sessions.  Some sessions are for groups, other for individuals and some are participatory other as a viewer. It is a very customized services to make sure the health goals are met.

The pilot with San Ysidro Health will begin in September so they are asking for creative art therapist of all kinds to enroll with Art Pharmacy. Fill out a form showing interest, then contact will be made to fill out the enrollment form,  All sizes of non-profit, commercial and community-based organization which are already serving the public are eligible. The is no pricing structure as they recognize different types of session have different fees attached. Art Pharmacy will arrange payment.

Enrollment is ongoing and more dates can be added to the offerings. Remember San Ysidro Health has patients throughout the county and needs venue and sessions county wide. Because of their emphasis on youth and depression, extra training is available for mental health  response training August 21 online from noon to 1 pm.

During the questions part of the webinar, we also learned that the most successful sessions are the once a of month or drop in events. For youth, they like participatory events that are very hands-on. For those practitioners that work from home, it was suggested that libraries and communities center can often be the venue for those individuals with no public venue available.

Based in Atlanta, GA, Art Pharmacy, which only started in 2022, is currently working with partners in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, and New York. It is based on the knowledge that mental health services often leave gaps in care, particularly for populations experiencing barriers to access, cultural stigma, or a preference for non-clinical interventions.

Although there is no insurance payment yet, that means no insurance forms to fill out. But it is to be hoped in the future that insurance will pay for this essential service.

Here is just one example of a healing art provider. We are lucky to have hundreds in the region.  The California Center for Creative Renewal is a healing garden retreat center located in Encinitas founded by Ellen Speert.  It provides an environment of creativity, stimulation, safety and professionalism, balancing hands-on art experiences with goal-driven outcomes and so the perfect candidate for a listing on Art Pharmacy. I attended a workshop Art, Sound, and Words: Exploring Your Inner World. This three-component workshop  started with sound therapy with Diane Mandle where we each got our own sound bath, then a relatively unstructured hands-on clay project led by Ellen Speert and then a lesson on automatic writing by Cherie Kephart. The combined sound and word prompts were the culmination of the workshop with a shared learn session which was emotional and life confirming.

My interpretation of the sound of a drop of water hitting a pond. 

Communing with the abundant nature of this garden.

Diane Mandle, Intuitive writing with no judgement