Please join the California Poets in the Schools' First Friday Community Meeting on February 3rd, 12:00pm-1:30pm. This professional development session will mark the first of a year-long, four-part professional development series, in collaboration with UCLArts & Healing.   At this session, Jessica Bianchi EdD, ATR-BC, LMFT (full bio below) will provide an overview of social emotional arts (SEA) and social emotional learning (SEL) as well as trauma-informed tools and tactics for working with kids.  

We thought it would be a good idea to start at the beginning!  What is SEL?  What is SEA?  These acronymns are batted around frequently these days, but what do they really mean, in practice?   In a nutshell, social and emotional learning  is an educational concept that helps kids gain skills in important areas beyond math, reading, and other core school subjects. SEL helps kids identify their feelings, understand and communicate with others, build strong relationships, and make good, empathetic decisions.  Please join us to learn more, and gain practical tools for the arts education classroom.

This event is free and open to the public, geared towards all youth-workers with an interest and emphasis in arts education.

Jessica Bianchi EdD, ATR-BC, LMFT 

Jessica is an art therapist who completed her doctoral work at Loyola Marymount University, studying Educational Leadership and Social Justice. A master’s graduate in Marital and Family Therapy/Art Therapy from Loyola Marymount University (LMU), Jessica has served as art therapist at Aviva Family and Children’s Services working with emotionally disturbed teens. Jessica is also part-time faculty at LMU teaching on the importance of providing visual arts in all classrooms for holistic learning, and also co-teaches a class focused on art therapy with children in LMU’s graduate Marital and Family Therapy/Art Therapy Department. Jessica teaches a class for the Visual and Performing Arts Education Program within the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture that is focused on creating empathetic communities by way of creative expression with defended youth. In addition, Jessica directs an annual weeklong summer arts camp in collaboration with LMU’s Marital and Family Therapy/Art Therapy Department at Dolores Mission Middle School in East Los Angeles.