Expressive Arts Therapy
The expressive arts therapy program at Hospice Toronto provides expressive arts-based group programs for children, youths, and adults at a wide range of agencies throughout the city.
Hospice Toronto works collaboratively with agencies such as Dixon Hall Neighbourhood Services, People with AIDS Foundation, Sherbourne Health, The AIDS Committee of Toronto, St James Town Community Corner, among others.
Our expressive arts therapy groups are offered to people who are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, as well as to their family and friends. Participants can include children, adults, or families who are:
- Newly bereaved
- Living with a life-threatening illness
- In remission from a life-threatening illness
- A family member or close friend of a person with a life-threatening illness
The groups take place in a safe and meaningful environment where warmth, trust, and non-judgment abounds.
The purpose of these groups is to provide children, adults, and families who share a common experience with a safe place where they can express themselves through a variety of art modalities, share their stories, express their grief, and explore their feelings in a non-threatening way by:
- Remembering the past
- Redefining the present
- Re-creating the future
Our goals for expressive arts are to:
- Enable the expression of fear, anger, anxiety, and sadness through the arts
- Encourage the expression of deep inner feelings and thoughts
- Discover and tell the untold stories
- Provide an opening for both present and unresolved losses
- Find ways to say goodbye, speak unspoken words
- Provide opportunities for sharing memories and experiences of loss
- Provide support in a non-judgmental environment
For more information please email expressive.arts@hospicetoronto.ca