Free Arts For Abused Children Of Arizona

Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona uses a wide variety of arts as therapeutic tools to help heal abused and homeless children. Free Arts is the only nonprofit organization in Maricopa County, indeed all of Arizona, delivering creative and therapeutic arts programs, at no charge to participants or partner social service agencies, to vulnerable children, ages 3 to 21 years. Through a unique combination of arts, a therapy-based curriculum and evidence-based mentoring, the Free Arts staff and trained adult volunteer mentors help kids channel emotions, release anger and express themselves creatively to build self-confidence and develop trusting relationships with adults. Each year, Free Arts and its 800 dedicated volunteers serve more than 8,000 children at 100+ sites run by our network of 40+ agency partners. Since our inception, we have proudly served more than 120,000 boys and girls in Maricopa County. Free Arts currently offers four signature programs: (1) Weekly Mentor Program; (2) Free Arts Days; (3) Professional Artists Series and (4) Camp Series. Artistic self-expression can be a particularly useful and therapeutic tool for children to express their emotions, thoughts and feelings. For instance, a child who has limited language skills can draw or paint to express what is what is happening in their life in a way that may be hard or impossible to verbalize.