Given their capacity to communicate human experience, educate, provoke critical reflection, evoke empathy and facilitate intercultural dialogue, the arts are now being utilized as a primary strategy for advancing the goals of health and social services. In the field of prevention, interventions are designed to target risk factors leading to health and social problems. Arts organizations have an opportunity to utilize the arts to reduce health and social problems in communities because of what arts managers produce (the arts) and have access to (artists). However, evidence of effective arts-based methods, and formal training in intervention design and development has not been widely offered. In this pre-conference workshop, arts managers will learn how to design a program logic model, develop an assessment plan, and test an arts-based intervention in a community. Additionally, participants will collectively consider what a department of arts-based intervention might look like in an arts organization.
