Highlighting Art Therapy in DV programs: The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services

The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services

provides a comprehensive network of mental health and social service to promote well-being, resilience and self-sufficiency for individuals and families in need in the New York metropolitan area.

Their domestic violence program:

Child abuse, family violence, family dislocation and community violence have enormous behavioral and psychological consequences. We run four domestic violence shelters, providing an enhanced trauma-sensitive care environment where healing and community rebuilding can occur. New York City children and families exposed to poverty and racism experience trauma at disproportionately high rates.

Our Preventive Services focus on strengthening families so they can stay intact through intervention, counseling and treatment. The core mission is to work with families where they are, in order to prevent further fractures in the family structure.

They incorporate art therapy into their programs and have focused internships as described from their website below:

There are a number of Art Therapy Internships available through different JBFCS programs.

A.R.T.I.S.T.S PROGRAM

Our A.R.T.I.S.T.S Art Therapy Internship Program accepts first and second year Art Therapy interns for an academic semester, year or summer commitment.

Second Year interns have the creative space to initiate their own groups or projects based on their academic interests. Research in trauma evidence based proposals strongly encouraged.

Interested Applicants please call:
Deborah Mondello, MS, ATR-BC, LCAT
Clinical Supervisor, Goldsmith
A.R.T.I.S.T.S. Program Coordinator
Phone: (914) 773-7434

ITTLESON ART THERAPY PROGRAM

The Art Therapy Program at the Henry Ittleson Center offers an Internship Program to two qualified candidates from accredited master’s degree programs in the New York City area.

Objectives of the Ittleson Art Therapy internship program are to provide students with specialized supervision where students integrate art therapy theory and practice into long term clinical experience in the treatment of children with psychiatric disorders and trauma histories within our residential treatment facility.

The Ittleson Art Therapy Program offers individual art therapy for school age children in residential care seen once weekly as part of clinical services. Students will be exposed to working within the residential and day treatment settings. Students attend an interdisciplinary student seminar where in the first semester relevant training topics are offered. In the second semester students will present their work to the clinical staff. At the internship year’s end the art therapy students will mount and host the Annual Art Therapy Show which serves as a celebration and provides closure to the work done by the children in art therapy.

Elsa Pelier MA, ATR-BC, LCAT

Supervisor, Art Therapy Department
epelier@jbfcs.org

The Art Therapy Program
Henry Ittleson Center
50 50 Iselin Avenue
Riverdale New York 10471
Phone: 718 549.6700 Ext. 203

LINDEN HILL ART THERAPY PROGRAM

The Linden Hill Art Therapy Program accepts first and second year Art Therapy intern applicants for a full-year commitment

Rebecca Beers Miller, MA, ATR-BC, LCAT, CCLS

Art Therapist
Phone: (914) 773-7560
Fax: (914) 773-7535
rbeers@jbfcs.org

J.M GOLDSMITH CENTER FOR ADOLESCENT TREATMENT PROGRAM

Adolescents at the Goldsmith Center have often had difficult life experiences which now make it hard to cope with the daily experiences of life. Our residential treatment program provides a therapeutic community in which residents can heal from life circumstances and move towards a more promising future.  The Goldsmith Center follows a trauma informed model of treatment, where the core values include non-violence, hope, and community shared actions.  This model is called the Sanctuary model, which also utilizes the concept of S.E.L.F. (Safety, Emotions, Loss, Future.)

Art therapy at the Goldsmith Center is available in both individual and group sessions.  The expressive therapies, such as art therapy, are especially important in helping traumatized adolescents work through their issues in a non-verbal venue. This is particularly important with trauma where pre-verbal experiences are more difficult to access in verbal based therapies. The art room has been created as a safe and nonjudgmental space in which residents can feel comfortable in expressing their thoughts, dreams, desires, feelings, and emotions.

Kim Wisniewski, MA, ATR-BC, LCAT, Art Therapy Supervisor

Erin Viola, MA, ATR-BC, LCAT, Art Therapist