Creative activities are often very popular for children and youth, but the Creative Activities asset tends to be among the least common, with fewer than one in five teenagers reporting that they’re involved in creative activities at least three hours per week.
Art, theater, and music programs can build many Developmental Assets. Enrich the lives of young people not only through the arts but also by integrating the asset approach in your programming. Consider these ideas:
- Unleash young people’s creativity while also setting high standards for mastering skills. Young people often have innovative ideas for creating a stage set or choosing a piece of favorite music, poem, or a subject to artistically portray.
- Create visual, musical, literary, and theatrical symbols of asset building.
- Use the asset framework to design and adapt your program content.
- Encourage your leaders (both adults and young people) to build relationships with program participants.
- Involve young people in promoting your program so that people come to your performances and exhibits.
- Empower young people to tell their stories via written, visual, musical, or theatrical ways.
- Create intergenerational activities so young people can get to know people of other ages. Invite senior citizen musicians to practice with you one day or have a group of college students mentor your participants.
- Develop periodic one-time activities for any young person who wants to participate. Many artistic groups form through auditions and competitions. Sometimes other young people (who may not have the artistic skills of your program participants) would enjoy trying a different activity—and you may discover a new talent.
- Post creations (and promotions) from your group throughout the community or your school.
- Celebrate achievement by individuals and as a group.
- Create a small library for your program so young people can check out books about technique, individuals who have mastered your art, and other perspectives that would broaden their knowledge and skills.
- Develop ways for participants to provide leadership for your program. (And if your program has participants of different ages, create a leadership aspect where older participants mentor younger participants in leadership skills.)
- Set high standards for how participants are to act and interact in your program.
- Create a sense of community within your program. Have young people design T-shirts or have some other types of visual symbols (such as a flag or mascot) for your program.
- Give each young person a copy of the list of assets for their age group. Teach them about asset building. Encourage program participants to build assets for each other.
