Creative Forces
Arts Therapies in Military Healing Arts
Sunday, October 29, 10:00am – 11:30am
Organized by Marete Wester, Senior Director of Arts Policy, Americans for the Arts.
Presented by General Nolen Bivens, President, Leader Six, Inc.; and Margaret Vanderhye, Executive Director, Virginia Commission for the Arts.
Since 2011, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has supported creative arts therapies for service members with traumatic brain injury and associated psychological health issues at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and the NICoE at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Recognizing the program’s success, in FY2016 Congress appropriated a $1.928 million budget increase for the NEA specifically allocated to expand this military healing-arts program to eleven sites, reaching all branches of military service. A core component of the expansion of NEA Creative Forces: Military Healing Arts Network has focused on the development of community networks located around the eleven clinical sites to increase arts opportunities for military and veteran families and extend support for current and former patients and their families as they transition from treatment in a clinical setting to arts programming in their community. This session will focus on how the process of engaging state and local arts agencies, local funders, and practitioners in partnership with military and clinical providers is successfully breaking down the military/civilian divide, and enabling military and veteran populations to become part of the integrated and resilient creative communities in which they live, work, and thrive.