Arts Education for At-Risk Youth
ArtsConnect is one of Arts Council Silicon Valley’s most popular and influential programs. ArtsConnect is an arts education program that provides year-round arts instruction through comprehensive artist residencies for at-risk youth between the ages of 13 and 18. Now the largest provider of arts education for at-risk youth in the region, on average the program affects more than 1,300 individuals each year, nearly 15,000 throughout its history.

The ArtsConnect program continues to impact at-risk youth in classrooms, children’s shelters and juvenile halls, as well as expand to organizations serving special needs populations such as the homeless, battered women, Alzheimer's victims, and persons with disabilities that can be influenced in a positive way through arts education and exposure.

ArtsConnect engages at-risk youth and special needs populations through a number of different types of arts disciplines. Included are music, drama, visual arts (painting, drawing, writing, mosaic, and sculpture), and dance. Eachdiscipline has its own significant and unique affect on those who participate and are all important for students in California public schools because it promotes learning, creativity, skills, and knowledge in the visual and performing arts.

The program continues to successfully help teens and challenged adults access their creativity and transform it into a positive outlet for healing and expression, reduce truancy and improve academic performance, divert youth from gangs, drugs and the juvenile justice system, employ individual artists, and open the doors for potential future employment in the arts (In California, 1 in 5 students works in the creative industry).

For more information:
You can contact the program manager by email or phone to receive guidelines (contact information below).

Mitsu Kumagai
Youth & Arts Program Manager
mkumagai@artscouncil.org
408-998-2787 ext. 201