“If I didn’t define myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” – Audre Lorde

What is self expression? It is the expression of one's feelings, thoughts, or ideas, often in writing, art, dance, music and other cultural practices. It allows us to feel and communicate our emotions in healthy ways. It can be an incredible source of joy. And when intentionally designed, self expression can be an important part of healing. 

"Battery Powered has invested in the past in the arts as a tool for healing.  Past grantee Imagine Bus Project, featured in the video above, used art to help incarcerated youth with healing and well-being. 

Connection to one’s culture is key to self expression, identity, and healing. One of the nation’s leading voices on youth development and healing, Shawn Ginwright, PhD, says: “Healing centered engagement is culturally grounded and views healing as the restoration of identity. The pathway to restoring well-being among young people who experience trauma can be found in culture and identity. Healing centered engagement uses culture as a way to ground young people in a solid sense of meaning, self-perception, and purpose.”

There are numerous benefits to culturally relevant experiences and creative youth development that create space for self expression.  

• Social, Emotional Development: There is a strong body of research demonstrating that arts education, for example, has a positive impact on social and emotional development of young people when “educators intentionally and consciously help students take advantage of the opportunities to practice social-emotional components of an art practice.” Intentionality is key. A class for the purpose of teaching the technical skills of painting, music, spoken word, or another art form is valuable in and of itself, but it doesn’t necessarily help youth cultivate and unleash self expression. Social-emotional development must be an intentional part of the framing of the work and embedded in the practice.
• Healing: The pandemic shined a light on the need to support young people in processing trauma. Art can play a critical role in helping students recover from “the dual traumas of systemic racism and a global pandemic,” according to Julie Baker, executive director of California Arts Advocates. And many studies have shown a connection between different art forms playing a role in reducing anxiety and depression.
• Academics. Access to a range of visual and performing arts has been demonstrated to prepare students for the modern workforce across any number of industries while also encouraging engagement in civic and community activities. Students who have access to arts education are five times less likely to drop out of school and four times more likely to be recognized for their achievements in academics. 

Zoe Dorado was the Inaugural Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate and is on Youth Speaks’ SPOKES youth advisory board. Youth Speaks’ The Bigger Picture campaign uses the power of art to address health disparities.

Creative self expression not only benefits young people, but  can have a transformative impact on their audience as well. While not all all forms of self expression are meant for viewing by others, those that are can powerfully shift others' attitudes and understanding.

All young people can benefit from programs that create space for self expression and healing, but some youth have far less access to these opportunities. Youth access to enrichment activities like the arts is highly dependent on family income, and schools with a greater proportion of low-income students are much less likely to offer arts education or meet state standards for arts education.

Battery Powered is interested in supporting culturally relevant creative youth development that is situated within a healing framework. While we recognize the intrinsic value of programs that focus on teaching the technical skills of various art forms, our focus is explicitly on healing and social emotional development for youth.

We take a wide lens on the forms of self expression that we can support, including visual arts, performing arts (e.g., dance, hip hop, spoken word), media arts, and arts that connect youth to their culture and heritage. We are interested in work that puts youth in the driver's seat when it comes to ideation, experimentation, creation and execution, where adults serve as trusted facilitators.

We recognize that this work does not necessarily sit separately from other areas of work, like organizing and advocacy (discussed in the next section of this Issue Brief). Indeed, many arts programs that take a youth development and healing framework also grapple with and take action on social issues that young people are struggling with today.