NEA/YO Arts Partnership Denver Training Institute
The National Guild facilitated a two-day Training Institute in October 2003 for the NEA/YO Arts Partnership pilot sites. The workshop provided attendees with an interactive learning experience that shared best practices and lessons learned as well as providing a forum for them to ask questions, share challenges and strategize for the future together. Training topics were selected based on the input of participants via a registration survey sent in advance of the institute to ensure that the topics would be of value to the participants. In Denver, representatives from each site received a binder full of valuable materials that included arts advocacy articles, program implementation strategies, funding guides and program descriptions with contact information for almost twenty model arts/ employment programs. For one activity, all the participants created a collaborative mural together about community. This exercise was so valuable (and fun!) that many repeated it at their home sites.

Stella Yu, Director of ArtStreet, a job-training through the arts program for youth in Denver, conducted a lively, inspiring session that included performances by young dancers from the program. ArtStreet provides job training and mentoring through the arts for Denver youth in order to develop a disciplined, creative, and culturally competent workforce for the 21st Century.

The ArtStreet Program is an asset-based youth employment program that nurtures adolescents by showing youth how to turn "doing what they love" into a successful career. Arts Street is based on results seen in other cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Racine, St. Louis, Tucson, Cambridge, London, etc. These cities have proven that the "youth employment through the arts" concept successfully prepares youth to be productive adults.

Her presentation was a refreshing and invigorating experience that clearly showed the possibilities for success.

Training facilitator Jean Horstman led a two day interactive workshop with a focus on creating a structural approach to developing and sustaining an arts program. Jean has worked with young ex-offenders utilizing the arts and has spent her life involved in community development and cultural efforts. As a consultant, her clients have ranged from national government bodies in Europe to community based arts organizations in the US and UK. Her detailed curriculum and personal one-on-one contact with representatives from the sites in Denver proved to be a most valuable component of the training.

Click here to check out more photos from the Training Institute!