LACC student uses art to help children with trauma

LACC’s Grace Lin is on the front lines in the demanding, difficult world that is helping young children maneuver trauma. Lin guides children — some of whom are only four years old — through arts and crafts projects to help them navigate their complicated emotional and physical landscapes.

She is a volunteer for the Free Arts program at Edmund D. Edelman Children’s Courthouse, which handles cases of juvenile dependency and parental neglect and abuse. Lin, who has a background in art, first started working with Free Arts as part of her Psychology 81 field work internship class at LACC. Free Arts gave her the opportunity to combine her passions for art and therapy while taking steps toward earning a certificate in the Psychology Department’s Human Services Generalist Mental Health Program.

“I feel like kids don’t have enough art in general. They’re so busy doing other things,” Lin says. “It’s nice to facilitate a space where the kids get to do this.”

Children with cases at the courthouse sometimes come in with traumatic pasts, and then have to spend their whole day at the stressful environment of a courthouse where other children and adults alike are also having some of the most difficult days of their lives.

“The children come in and they can be in the courthouse from 8:30 in the morning to around 3 in the afternoon. Our program keeps the students busy while they’re waiting for court,” says David Martinez, the Programs Coordinator of the Free Arts program in the courthouse. “Pretty much the core of everything that we do at Free Arts believes in the healing qualities of art.”

The projects, which range from watercolor painting to pasta necklaces to coffee filter butterflies, give children “a chance to be in the moment,” Lin says. The children get to have fun and be distracted while doing projects specifically chosen with their therapeutic value in mind. Lin gets some say in which projects children will work on in a given day. For example, in the lead-up to Thanksgiving, she pitched Martinez a project that allowed the students to talk about what they’re thankful for.

While the projects themselves are valuable, and getting to work on them is therapeutic in its own right, volunteers and interns help the children actually get what they want out of the projects. Utilizing an approach that centers both healing and an understanding of past trauma, Lin assists each child in a way that suits them best.

For some kids, Lin employs a hands-off approach replete with words of encouragement and meaningful compliments. For other children, Lin may sit with them and ask open-ended questions that allow children to talk about what they want to talk about, all while also guiding their projects in a more hands-on way. While the approach that best suits each individual child may differ, the primary goal is the same: boosting these children’s self-esteem.

“Sometimes the families get to work on common art goals, or children find creativities in themselves under stressful circumstances,” Lin says. “The majority of the time, children walk away with smiles.”

Doing this kind of work — helping young children who have gone through difficult circumstances — can be challenging on both an emotional and practical level. Lin, however, still finds it to be extremely rewarding. It has given her a chance to learn what it’s like to do therapy with kids, something Lin is considering doing as a career. It also lets her see tangible ways that she can be helpful.

“It’s been really good to see the interaction between how (children) are with their parents and how they are with each other and how they kind of get into the environment,” Lin says. “It’s a good place to make you really feel in the moment… It’s very therapeutic.”

The opportunity to get a similarly enlightening, meaningful experience is open to any student who chooses to take the field work internship classes at LACC. These classes, which put students on track to receive degrees and/or certificates in Human Services, can either be focused in Addiction Studies, or in Generalist Mental Health Studies. For students interested in generalist mental health studies (like Lin), the field work internship classes are Psychology 81, 82, and 83. Students more interested in the addiction-focused path of human services can take Psychology 84, 85, and 86. Each of these classes helps meaningfully move students down the path toward earning their degree and/or certificate.

For information about the Psychology program at LACC, go here: https://www.lacitycollege.edu/Departments/Psychology/Degrees-Certificates

And for more specific information on the requirements of each degree and certificate path in Human Services at LACC, go here: http://www.lacitycollege.edu/Academics/Classes/documents/Current-Catalog/CatalogPagesHeader#nameddest=PSY

Visit the Free Arts website here: http://www.freearts.org/

Visit LACC’s Psychology Department here: https://www.lacitycollege.edu/Academic-Departments/Psychology/Department-Home