Outcome Report 2024-2025

Telling It runs successful expressive artssocial-emotional mental health programsites with community partners. We usefun, laughter, play, games, visual arts,theater, music, and creative writing toprocess emotional challenges and learnabout ourselves.

We are trauma-informed, and healing-centered. We use expressive arts therapeutically (not expressive artstherapy) focusing on the process ratherthan the product.

Mental Health Goals:
Emotional Regulation
Coping Strategies
Joy
Self-Esteem
Empathy
Social Connection
Pride in Creative Expression
Support Awareness

Bottom Up Approach
We take a bottom up approach to healing and emotional regulation. Starting with physical sensations and movement, we build towards a deeper understanding of emotions and thoughts.

This is effective with processing trauma, anxiety, and other mental health challenges.

What are Expressive Arts?
Expressive arts encompass a range of creative methods used for personal growth, healing, and self-discovery. These include visual arts (painting, drawing, sculpting), movement (dance, body-based expression), sound (music, vocalizations), drama (role-playing, storytelling), and writing (poetry, journaling). Expressive arts are all about the doing. Everyone is an artist.

Check In
Participants are welcomed into the space and complete a Mood Meter. We introduce ourselves with a check-in question, set the stage for what Telling It is, and what to expect.

Get Into Our Bodies!
We start with what we call “Big Body Games” which are physical movement-based activities to help with grounding, mindfulness, rapport-building, connection, play and fun!

Transitional Activity
Transitional activities start to focus our energy and deepen the subject matter.

Protein & Potatoes
The “Protein & Potatoes” is the main activity of our session. This is an exploration of a topic or theme meaningful to the youth through an expressive art: such as art, role play, creative writing, dance, sound, movement, etc...

Share & Reflect

Setting the Stage: Norms of Telling It

For the Youth:

• Have fun!
• Vegas Rule - what happens in Telling It, stays in Telling It.
• Voluntary participation - if the youth doesn't want to participate, they don't have to.
• No weaponizing bodies or language - can swear but not at anyone.
• Zero censorship or externalized judgment.

For the Staff:

• All adults in the room participate to the best of their abilities. This helps normalize vulnerability, and has led to strengthened relationships!
• Strengths or Assets-Based Approach - reframe negative self-talk into positive.
• Be mindful of physical touch - within Telling It, touch is allowed with consent while playing games and doing activities. However, this may be limited due to the setting.

Our Impact on Mood
At the start and end of each Telling It session, we invite youth to check in with their emotions using our mood meter, a colorful, emoji-filled chart that helps them identify how they're feeling based on both energy levels, and pleasantness. By marking one or two emotions before and after each session, youth can see a physical representation of their mood.

We are proud to create a space where young people can express themselves and experience emotional identification, one session at a time.

Telling it is a program that allows youth to express themselves in a judgment-free zone. It’s a safe place where they are heard and engage with different people, different faces. The youth look up to you guys.
- Supervisor of Washtenaw County Children’s Services

I love Telling It, you guys are amazing!
- Youth Participant

I look forward to Telling It each week. You guys give me so much hope. Life can be so much more than these walls...
- Youth Participant

Telling It taught me that I can be the bigger person. I had a big growth emotionally (with Telling It). I let it out!
- Youth Participant

Telling It brought me calmness, and less anger.
- Youth Participant

I am incredibly grateful for finding your class and Telling It during my final year of undergrad. I cannot express how formative and enlightening my time in Telling It was in shaping the type of physician that I want to become. In all my interviews, I have told countless stories and anecdotes about Telling It and the wonderful team that has been built there.
- Jacob Stein, Student Intern 2023-2024

Telling It helped the kids with better communication with their parents. It really helped the whole family. One of our kids used to always give up on activities when things got hard. Telling It helped with her confidence and now she’s part of 3 different after school groups without quitting!
- SOS Community Services Social Worker

Continued Success...

*All photographs are for illustrative purposes only and do not contain identifiable images of justice-involved youth.

Who we work with is determined by our community partners. We open sites with folks who have identified a need for quality mental health programming. All of our activities, session topics, and themes are driven by the interests of the youth we serve.

Open Dialogue
We want to ensure that we are offering quality programming and services. In order to do so, we want to make sure communication with everyone involved is open, frequent, and honest!