University of Florida receives $200,000 Kresge Foundation award

July 15, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Center for Arts in Healthcare Research and Education at the University of Florida was awarded $200,000 to expand the Arts in Healthcare for Rural Communities program.

Director Jill Sonke said the center, a program of the College of Fine Arts, will use the two-year grant from the Kresge Foundation to continue and expand Shands Arts in Medicine projects in rural Florida communities.

“This is another example of how our students benefit from the synergies developed between the fine arts and health care, as well as other sciences,” said College of Fine Arts Dean Lucinda Lavelli. “The future of our communities relies on the abilities of our future leaders to think creatively and collaboratively while making strides toward a healthier society. This is a distinctive opportunity to share the goodwill of the Gator Nation.”

Kresge invited 15 U.S. colleges and universities with established community-arts programs to apply. Only seven grants were awarded. These awards are part of Kresge Arts and Culture Team’s two-year national initiative to support such arts programs at colleges and universities across the country.

The funding received by UF’s CAHRE program will support the Arts in Healthcare for Rural Communities, a collaborative initiative developed by the Shands Arts in Medicine program in partnership with CAHRE. This initiative began in 2008 through support from the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts for a pilot program in Franklin County, titled AIM for the Panhandle. The original project was designed to create a model for arts in health care programs for rural communities, which suffer from significant health and economic disparities and lack of access to both health care and the arts.

Through funding from the Kresge Foundation and partnership with the Florida Office of Rural Health and DCA, UF plans to expand the AIM for the Panhandle project to the Arts in Healthcare for Rural Communities, with a statewide dissemination plan.

The success and local impact of Aim for the Panhandle attracted the attention of the Florida Rural Economic Development Board and the Florida Office of Rural Health and led to FORH’s development of a strategic plan for working with Shands AIM and CAHRE to implement arts programs in as many of Florida’s 26 rural hospitals as possible by 2012. With support from the Kresge Foundation, the initiative will be disseminated through the following primary activities: development and implementation of arts in health care programs based at three rural community hospitals, including Shands Live Oak, in the first year and at five others in the second year; implementation of two annual regional Arts in Healthcare for Rural Communities training programs; and outcomes studies in Franklin County, at Shands Live Oak, and at one additional new site.

It is anticipated that this initiative will measurably improve the well-being of rural populations by increasing access to the arts, use of health care services, health literacy and positive health behaviors and community engagement. It is further expected that the new programs will spur economic development through arts-based vocational skills development, new community revenue streams, creation of new jobs for artists, and greater employability among healthier individuals.