Health-building and the Expressive Arts: Trauma Informed Practice in Communities and Society
Fall 2026 (October 22 – 31); Valletta, Malta
The Expressive Arts and Global Health program provides didactic learning and practical skills training for artists, peacebuilders, humanitarian workers, health care providers, teachers, and change agents from all fields who work with individuals, groups, and communities experiencing traumatic stress and crisis.
In today’s world, how might we imagine new ways forward?
How do you build health in the midst of ruins?
How do we contribute to the conditions of possibility?
More than one billion people have been affected by violence and disaster throughout the world. Despite evidence of the individual and collective consequences of trauma, concrete actions to address these invisible wounds are still often inadequate, if not entirely missing in peacebuilding programs. This program offers a transformative training experience to create a network of global leaders who integrate the arts in community-based work. Amid ongoing pervasive systemic injustices such as racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and poverty, and escalation of international wars, it can be
argued that we, as a global community, are living in collective trauma (APA, 2023; Saul, 2022; Watson et. al., 2020). So what now? And how? These questions and so many more are before us as a global community. There are no promised answers, yet how might the frame found within the expressive arts create space for curiosity, for wandering, for justice, and for repair? What becomes possible in the midst of crisis, how can one find their way? The Expressive Arts and Global Health course in Malta is taking on a new shape, creating containers to hold some of these important questions.
As a global community, our social body at times feels fragmented with an increased reality of polarization, disruption in interpersonal relationships, solitude, and the inability to hold difference. In the midst of so much difference, there is a collective and global sense of dire straits. Arts-based interventions led by experienced facilitators have helped communities utilize the arts to realize their resilience to trauma caused by war, displacement, and systemic injustice, while also empowering them to take steps to create change in their own ways. Thus, fostering personal and communal agency and desire for change can reignite a group’s capacity to act in the face of conflict.
Efforts to cultivate global health and peace have never been more crucial – the overarching philosophy of salutogenesis is that health-building is peacebuilding. Psychosocial based interventions and well-being are essential for regaining a sense of dignity, self-worth, and continuity. Research supports body based practices and the arts as vital interventions that can promote healing and engage restorative capacities.
This course offers focused training and practices for global leaders to create spaces for health, connection, belonging and empathy, a way to return to the body and the senses through the arts – all essential capacities for anyone engaged in the work of change and justice in the midst of crisis and conflict.
There are many components that contribute to conflict, such as economics, geopolitics, religion, sociology, and history, to name a few. Many who enter into the fields of conflict transformation and peacebuilding go on to become humanitarian aid workers, activists, academics, community project leaders, and agents for diplomacy and policy change. When working with communities in crisis, it is essential to adopt trauma- informed approaches to ensure nuanced understanding of stress responses, ethical psychosocial intervention, and fostering community health through stabilization and
regulation methods that promote healing, recovery, and active engagement. For those working in the intersection of conflict and the arts, it is imperative that we acquire knowledge about how the arts can enhance identity, safety and resilience in communities. This course will explore the different schools within the fields of conflict, as well as highlight various arts-based peacebuilding methods and community engagement techniques. Ethical considerations of working with the arts and communities in crisis will be discussed in depth.
While this program features conflict transformation and peacebuilding, trauma-informed care is crucial knowledge that can be more broadly applied by those working in therapeutic fields. The group stabilization techniques used in this course not only apply to community work, but could also be applied to group therapy and dynamics. Additionally, the salutogenic model that promotes healthbuilding as peacebuilding can potentially offer new insights to those working in group therapeutic settings, as groups are responding to the world around them, including the political tensions and systemic issues that are present in many societies today. As art therapist Cliff Joseph noted in his practice:
“National and global issues impact therapists as well as patients and call for solidarity with all who are working for social justice and a world of peace. Our focus on failed interpersonal relations and personal stress should be framed within an awareness of the world’s larger pathology. The path to mental health requires creative alliance, and political purpose” (Journal of the American Art Therapy Association 23 (1), 2006, p. 33)
Some examples of how to apply the skills and knowledge featured in the Expressive Arts and Global Health program include building resilience in communities in crisis after a natural disaster, addressing PTSD symptoms after surviving a traumatic event such as war, and promoting arts projects that empower communities to become actively engaged in their societies to make political change or build peace for the future.
Topics that will be addressed include:
* Introduction to conflict transformation theories
* The role of poiesis and conflict transformation
* Health-building as peacebuilding: The salutogenic model as a theory to guide health promotion
* Stress and trauma: trauma informed care through an EXA lens
* From senseless to sensitivity
* The relationship between everyday ritual and ambiguous loss.
* Arts and social change: expanding the play range to get out of feeling stuck/dire straits with communities and groups.
* Introduction to the Expressive Arts in Transition (EXIT) program and methodology: an evidence based stress management program for people
suffering from traumatic stress.
Faculty Team
Shabrae Jackson, PhD Candidate
Chelsea Wilkinson, PhD
Professor Melinda Ashley Meyer, PhD
General Itinerary
This course is conducted over a 10-day period, with one day off built in and a welcome and closing session. As this is an intensive course, there will be two sessions per day consisting of a 3-hour morning session and a 4-hour evening session. There will be a break in between daily sessions so that students can eat lunch, rest, or walk around Valletta to sight-see.
This experience is a blend of didactic and experiential learning, including lectures, groups discussions, individual reflection, and arts-based practice. We will be working with a variety of arts-based methods, including movement, music, and visual art. There is also pre-work and post-work to be completed for those seeking full course credit. Additionally, there will be a student presentation required of all students, including auditors.
*Note: This course is required for EGS students in the MA Expressive Arts Program with a concentration in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding.
Fees
Please email administration@egs.edu
Registration Deadline is September 30, 2026.
(Fungus Rock, Gozo, Malta: Photo Source – Chelsea Wilkinson)
Travel in Malta
Our program takes place in Malta, a country rich with history and home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The city of Valletta houses over 300 historic monuments, making it “one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world” (UNESCO, 2024).
Learn more about traveling in Malta here: https://ahs.egs.edu/valletta-malta/
(Fort St. Elmo, Valletta, Malta: Photo Source: Chelsea Wilkinson)
Logistics of the Program:
Location
This 10-day intensive will take place at Fort St. Elmo in the Maltese capital of Valletta. Students are responsible for their own accommodation within the city. Once registered, students will be provided with access to more accommodation and travel information.
Testimonies by Previous Students
“Participating in the Malta EXIT program was a transformative experience that deeply nourished both my personal and professional approach to working with communities. I learned the power of giving voice to individuals, allowing them to express and connect with their own narratives and bodily experiences from week to week. The program provided tools and a framework for igniting imagination and psychoeducating through movement. In this sense, it was a gift to witness the growth of the group as a collective body. Along the way, I also gained valuable insights into using expressive arts in group settings, which was exactly what I needed to enrich my toolkit as an educator and movement practitioner. The program shifted the way I observe group dynamics, showing me how the energy of a collective can deeply influence individuals within the group, as well as myself as a facilitator. An important takeaway was the value of commitment and the need for ongoing reflection and discussion when facilitating group processes… This life-changing journey continues to shape how I create spaces for growth, connection, and collective healing within the communities I work with. Coming from the tiniest country in the EU, being part of a small group allowed me to better understand and have the space to listen to glimpses of each participant’s story/ background. Each story came from a different part of the world, far, far away from Malta. Yet, I could hear how each continent and country carries its own set of struggles, some still from centuries ago. Despite this, we also had the time to focus on the strengths that each person brings from their roots and their present. The smallness of the group helped me understand the vastness of the world in contrast to the comfort of being an islander. It allowed me to see what expressive arts can achieve not only in large, geographically diverse communities but also in the context of larger conflicts.”
Rochelle Gatt, Malta
Lecturer | Movement Director | Conscious Movement Facilitator | EXA Facilitator 2023
“I was on the first cohort in Malta [in 2016] and this was an invaluable learning experience. My overall practice has been directly shaped due to this programme. EXIT/ this training has given me a frame to present to others that is trauma-informed, uses arts techniques and wellbeing components to help people find “home”; wherever they are. I have used various components from the manual in different group environments and contexts. Additionally, due to an increasingly more diverse community in Northern Ireland, I’ve also ran the full project with groups seeking asylum in new and very different cultures. It always amazes me how well and intiutively participants respond to the content and how they find ease within it so that they leave the sessions behaving and feeling very different to when they started. The EXA content helps them to retune and find “life” again. The Malta learning experience was really quite special. The cohort was made up of people working in diverse contexts from right across the world, so in addition to learning about EXA, peer learning sessions allowed me to also hear about their practices. We had the best team of teachers and professionals in the field to teach us about EXIT…what a gift! Malta itself was an incredibly beautiful place to study. Incompletion, this was a super learning opportunity that I continue to be grateful for it.”
Carole Kane, Northern Ireland
Freelance Artist Facilitator | Project Co-ordinator | Peacebuilder
If you are not an EGS student, an admission interview is required to register for the seminar. You can connect with Lucia De Urioste, lucia.deurioste@egs.edu or Program Directors Campus Malta, Shabrae Jackson, shabrae.jackson@egs.edu, and Chelsea Wilkinson, chelsea.wilkinson@egs.edu, for an admission interview.
