Above, a video about Snow City Arts’ Cam Busch NOAH Arts In Health Award-Winning program, Art Break, including impressive data on how this program impacts clinician wellness.

Snow City Arts’ mission is to inspire and educate youth in hospitals through the arts. Through this work, we have existed in close proximity to clinicians in Chicago-area hospitals for the past 25 years. This has provided us an intimate view of how working in healthcare can have an impact on one’s overall wellness. At the same time, Snow City Arts’ Teaching Artists have honed their skills in teaching the arts in healthcare settings. With this unique combination of proximity, perspective, and expertise, Snow City Arts is well-positioned to create a new, exciting art program focused on wellness for clinicians. And, thanks to funding from the RUSH Nursing Wellness Awards, we were able to pilot this program in 2023. Called Art Breaks, group workshops are designed for clinicians to be able to decompress, build community, engage with their creativity, and ultimately increase their overall wellness during their work day.

Now, we are thrilled to share that Snow City Arts has won first prize in the 2023 Cam Busch NOAH Arts in Health Awards in the Arts Building Resilience Category for our Art Break pilot program at Rush University Medical Center! We are humbled to receive this recognition for demonstrating the efficacy of the arts in combating burnout for healthcare providers to cultivate resilience.

At left, a participant poses with their art at the January 2023 Art Break. At right, a finished piece of art from the February 2023 Art Break.

IMPACT

Although Snow City Arts has provided arts programming in healthcare settings for 25 years, we have not measured artmaking’s impact on overall health and wellness. Now, through the Art Break program, we are able for the first time to begin to collect data and demonstrate impact in this realm.

The first year of Art Breaks engaged 43 nurses and clinicians. Pre- and post-session surveys were distributed to assess the effect of the workshops on wellness. The majority of participants reported a reduction of their stress levels after the program. In addition, 92.3% of participants reported that this program would impact their overall wellness at RUSH and 97.7% reported being “very likely” or “likely” to continue to engage with the materials and artwork they made during their session or talk to someone about the artwork they made.

Above, a chart demonstrating that after attending an Art Break, the majority of participants reported a reduction of their stress levels.

Snow City Arts is encouraged by the positive response to this pilot wellness program. The Rush Wellness Center is also excited and has moved us out of a short-term award and into their ongoing, system-wide offerings. In addition, we hope we might be able to fund and provide similar programs at our other core partner hospitals, including Cook County Health, Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and/or UI Health down the line. Although our core mission focuses on youth, we believe that this program for clinicians complements our work with youth, expands our Teaching Artists’ experience teaching art in healthcare settings, and strengthens our hospital partnerships, in addition to its promoting wellness and health for clinicians. In short, it’s a win-win-win.

Above, participants pose with their art at the April 2023 Art Break during Nurses Week.

RUSH clinicians and staff: visit our Art Break events page to take our interest survey and learn more about participating in upcoming Art Breaks.

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