Lava Heights Academy Art Program for Teens
At Lava Heights Academy, we use integrated art programs as a powerful strength-based therapeutic approach to help teens build self-confidence and an authentic self-identity. Through creative art expression guided by art professionals, our students are able to build on their artistic talents and strengths. Our goal is to match our students’ artistic interests with their therapeutic needs in order to motivate them to engage in the healing process. We refer to this 
as an integrated therapeutic approach to overcoming harmful self-identity issues.
Through art programs, we are honored to witness an amazing transformation. The teenager transforms into a confident young person with a renewed vision and a promising future. Through art instruction and practice, our students experience a wide variety of emotions (disappointments, frustrations, triumphs, and victories) and learn to overcome hurdles and improve their talent and skills. With each artistic advancement, our students are able to transfer their new skills to help them in other areas of their lives.
Creative Art Programs
Our teachers and residential staff use our integrated arts program to reduce the student’s resistance to psychotherapy, thus opening new creative possibilities for therapeutic intervention. Art programs, as a therapeutic modality, involves visual and verbal processing that gives unique insight and amazing tools to reach the core issues. Our students and specialists are able to explore the student’s negative patterns and set forth a new way to approach difficult situations.
Therapeutically informed art consists of creating many different kinds of art and then processing the total experience through individual and group therapy. Students are able to creatively communicate in a safe manner, sharing their inner thoughts and fears in an emotionally safe zone. The use of art expression allows our students to safely reflect how they see the world through their art. In addition, students are able to explain the way they see themselves, and how they think others see them; safely conveying the tough issues that have derailed their emotional growth. Therapeutically informed art allows teens to share and understand things about themselves that they might otherwise find difficult to express.