Burma Art Therapy Project: Designing an Outcome Evaluation of an Art Therapy Program for Refugee Students from Burma in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools
Creators: name: Kowitt, Sarah
name: Emmerling, Dane
name: DeTrizio, Diane
name: Mershon, Claire-Helene
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2013

description: For the past fifty years, Burma has been in a state of civil strife. Since 2007, the United States has provided refuge to at least 14,000 people from Burma annually; since 1990, more than 450 of these individuals have been relocated to the Triangle area through North Carolina Social Services. Research has consistently linked the experience of trauma from the refugee experience to mental health issues. Refugee children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to this trauma and experience insomnia, anxiety and depressive symptoms, academic difficulties, relationship and behavioral problems, and somatic concerns. It is estimated that up to 40% of young refugees may have psychiatric disorders, mainly post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and other anxiety-related impediments. Art therapy is a psychotherapy modality that uses art and the creative process to help clients explore their emotions. Preliminary research indicates that art therapy provides an "effective tool for refugees to begin to explore some of the experiences associated with war, oppression, exile and resettlement". To address the mental health issues for refugee students and adults in the Triangle community, the Art Therapy Institute (ATI) began the Burma Art Therapy Project in 2009. The Burma Art Therapy Project provides art therapy to refugee students from Burma in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School District, as well as to adults at the Carrboro Community Health Center. In order to enhance and evaluate their work in schools, the Art Therapy Institute formed a relationship with the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a result, four second-year Master of Public Health students (the Capstone team) in the Department of Health Behavior partnered with the Art Therapy Institute to work together on a Capstone project. The goals of this Capstone project were to design an evaluation of, and pursue funding for, the Burma Art Therapy Project. To reach these goals, the Capstone team completed five deliverables, in conjunction with and under the supervision of mentors from the Art Therapy Institute and the Department of Health Behavior. Two of the deliverables, the funding guide and funding application, sought to increase and support the sustainability of the funding structure for the Burma Art Therapy Project. The funding guide provided much of the necessary language for the funding application and helped organize the documents which are often requested in funding applications. The other deliverables - the outcome evaluation plan, outcome evaluation assessment tools, and evaluation report - established a structure for a consistent and sustainable evaluation that can be carried out by ATI in the future. Sustainable evaluations will strengthen AT's financial position in two ways. First, ATI will be able to implement the evaluation with limited need for additional outside funding. Second, showing effectiveness of the program on mental health outcomes will strengthen ATI in its future applications for funding.