Education Addresses the Question of Character

Pilot Study in Santa Barbara

The Special EDge Newsletter, Autumn, 2005

The Academy of Healing Arts (AHA!) of Santa Barbara is pilot testing an innovative program dedicated to the development of character, imagination, emotional intelligence, and social conscience of teens. AHA! originated some seven years ago as the brainchild of veteran family therapists and educators Jennifer Freed and Rendy Freedman and operates as an offshoot of the Family Therapy Institute of Santa Barbara.

Last year AHA! obtained funding from the California Department of Education through a CalSTAT (California Services for Technical Assistance and Training) grant for the purpose of expanding its reach to area youth and their families. From a previous level of about 50 teens and families served per year, the number rose to 80 last year, and an estimated 150 teens and their families will be served in the current year.

In addition to helping hire a bilingual (Spanish-English) program outreach person, the funds are being used to maintain a website (www.ahasb. com), develop and duplicate training materials, and gather and evaluate project data. The faculty has grown in number to twelve talented and enthusiastic professionals. The teen-to-adult ratio is just four-to-one, thanks to the participation of volunteer interns as well as paid staff, which creates the desired climate of mentorship.

The Program. Some teens come into the program with suicidal feelings, learning disabilities such as attention deficit disorder, or suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome. Others have been in trouble with the law or school authorities, or are having difficulty grappling with home and peer pressures or abuse.

AHA! delivers classes in an actionoriented style where youth and adults are sharing equally and each participant may explore topics through specially designed awareness games, verbal dialogue, written work, crafts, creative expression, and team-building exercises. Topics include: compassionate communication, character development, self-expression, prejudice reduction, substance abuse and healthy choices, and anger management.

Each class contains a creative arts component to help teens discover outlets for personal expression. For example, participants may choose to write plays, which are then produced at the Academy for Healing Arts.

The curriculum is delivered through a multi-cultural lens, with a focus on honoring and celebrating commonalities and differences among people. AHA! is offered both as a summer program and as a year-round after school program. Teens arrive at the program by court order, by school referral, or on their own initiative. Family involvement is encouraged, and family therapy is provided on a donation basis as a part of program enrollment.

School credit is offered to continuation high school students and boys’ prison camp inmates who attend AHA! classes at lest twice a week. The local public high schools offer community service credit instead for student participation.

“We are seeing some amazing benefits,” says Dr. Freed. Teens are learning to set goals, stop bullying and hatred, support their peers, and serve their community. “We find that mastery of these emotional skills is the best predictor of success later in life,” Freed adds.

Since program facilitators participate with the teens in lessons and exercises, it has been observed that group trust and cross-generational alliances grow and even flourish.

As one teen participant testified, “[AHA!] adds fun and originality to the classroom which helped me stay in school.” Others have called the experience “life changing.” One teen stated, “If I hadn’t come to this program I wouldn’t know who I am and now I believe in myself.”

Freed is particularly proud of the program’s “Breakthrough Performance” component, whereby teens overcome their fears and gain self-confi dence by expressing themselves musically and artistically in a nightclub-style public performance. “It’s very moving to see them blossom onstage,” says Freed. “We all cry!”

Future Spinoffs. Interest in expanding AHA! services and replicating its model has come from service agencies and school districts not only in California but from ten other states so far. A training manual and video are available for sale through the project website (see above), and additional activity workbooks are currently being developed. New grant proposals are also in the works.

Can schools incorporate this type of class or individual lesson plans and activities into their curricula? “It will depend upon the resources and forwardthinking spirit of the particular school and district,” says CALSTAT specialist Anne Davin. While some schools are simply struggling to meet current local and state testing requirements, others have the funds and motivated teachers and administrators to explore the great promise of character education.