Photo by Becca Dilley
As we hit our 20-year mark and prepare to close our doors, Upstream Arts is reflecting on the last two decades of incredible work. Today’s highlight: Professional Development
From the very beginning, professional development has been a core value and embedded in all of our residencies. Our Teaching Artists have always modeled our creative strategies, offering partners new ways to practice and approach their teaching and support. As early as 2008, we began offering more concentrated professional development focusing on disability and access. As our residencies grew to include the Art of Relationships and the Art of Voice and Choice, which in turn became Self-Advocacy classes, our professional development kept pace, with specific trainings for Direct Support Professionals (DSPs), educators, and other support personnel around consent and healthy relationships; informed choice and person-centered planning; and prevention work. We continued to hone our Art of Access training, which empowered organization leaders, staff, educators and artists to integrate inclusion, access and creativity into classrooms and organizational culture. Executive Director Julie Guidry developed the Universal Design framework SMILE – Sensory, Movement, Identity & Intersectionality, Language, and Experience – which she shared in the training as a tool to cultivate and expand how people think about access.
Throughout the years, we have worked with school districts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee; local colleges; theaters, libraries, other cultural institutions, and arts organizations; health organizations; community centers, including our long-time partner in Milwaukee, the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center and the Levine Jewish Community Center in Charlotte, North Carolina; adult day programs; government agencies and advocacy groups, including the state of Minnesota’s DEED department, The Minnesota Department of Education, the MN Governor’s Council for Developmental Disabilities, and Partners in Policymaking; and more.
In this year alone, we have led trainings with zAmya Theater Project; Columbia Heights school district; Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL), the Minnesota Center for Book Arts; numerous Art of Prevention trainings with our adult day program leadership partners and DSPs; and a virtual Art of Access with Odyssey through the Minnesota Department of Human Services and Minnesota Board on Aging for over 550 people.
In addition to the many in-person and online live presentations, we have developed two more training tools. As part of the Art of Prevention, we created a training video for Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) and support persons, offering tools and space for reflection on how to cultivate a culture of consent and bodily autonomy while centering the voice and choice of the individuals we support. We were honored to create the video in collaboration with MSS and the individuals with disabilities with whom we work alongside. We’re excited for this video to live on, along with our Art of Consent card deck of companion curriculum. These cards feature Upstream Arts activities designed to deepen the Art of Prevention work and help support staff practice and embody the concepts introduced in the video.
It’s an honor to share our learning with our community for two decades, and a powerful testament to our practice, our partners, and our entire community that the power of this professional development will live on.
Screenshot from The Art of Prevention training video.
Front box cover of The Art of Consent cards.