This workshop gives arts practitioners firsthand experience with story circles, practical facilitation training, and tools to use the methodology responsibly in disaster recovery and community healing contexts.
The arts are increasingly recognized for their role in disaster readiness, response, and recovery. Beyond economic recovery and tourism, arts and cultural programming can support social and emotional wellbeing by bringing people together and offering ways to express experiences that are difficult to put into words. They can also create space to share stories, honor loss, and reconnect with cultural identity and community strengths. In recent years, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has expanded its disaster work through community-based projects, cross-sector partnerships, and the development of a practical toolkit. Created with Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network, the toolkit draws on over a decade of trauma-informed work with military-connected populations and the experience of community leaders across the field.
This hands-on workshop introduces core concepts from the toolkit, including the role of the arts across different phases of disaster, principles for offering arts experiences in ways that support wellbeing, and approaches to building partnerships across sectors. Participants will explore how the purpose and structure of arts engagement can shift over time and how to align activities with the needs and realities of different stages of disaster. They will also explore how to create supportive environments, recognize different responses to stress, and maintain boundaries while continuing to attend to their own needs and capacity.
The workshop will also address how to communicate the value of this work to partners outside the arts sector and how to position arts and cultural efforts within broader community systems. Participants will consider how to work alongside existing services, contribute to shared goals, and build relationships that support coordinated and sustainable efforts. Through discussion, examples, and applied reflection, participants will explore how to apply the toolkit’s concepts in their own communities. Case examples will show how arts and cultural approaches can be adapted across contexts and integrated into coordinated, community-centered disaster efforts, with attention to both immediate needs and longer-term community wellbeing.
