Partners in Arts Participation

Our first outcome was to develop a partnership between social service organizations, artists and arts organizations to better serve underserved communities. Terese Haggerty Lueck, OTR/L Child Development Specialist and Unified Therapy Director of The Family Partnership collaborated with Magic Lantern Puppet Theater Artist Anne Sawyer-Aitch throughout the project. As this was the first time the two organizations had worked together, we needed to communicate daily about scheduling, adjustments to curriculum, and suggestions from Teachers. There was a learning curve for all of us, but on the whole we felt we created a good rapport. We also have written and verbal evaluations from Terese, Teachers, and participating Artists. This has provided a wealth of information that we can use to deepen and improve our arts access program with Magic Lantern at The Family Partnership. 2: The Family Partnership children saw a puppet show first. According to the evaluations, overall the children displayed a higher than average level of engagement during these performances. They remembered the story and showed increased interest in storytelling and playing with the center’s hand puppets. They also enjoyed the puppet-making and created their own imaginary creatures, like the heroine in the show. The Director said that this showed a greater use of executive functions. The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child describes executive functions in this way: Being able to focus, hold, and work with information in mind, filter distractions, and switch gears… We seek to develop these executive functions in our students to prepare them for kindergarten.