Member Highlight: Children’s Hospital

By By Shari Regenbogen Ross

Ponzio Art Therapy Program

Being a positive part of the community is important to Children’s Hospital Colorado. They have a long history of advocating to improve the health and safety of kids and forging partnerships across the community to keep kids out of the hospital. This community outreach includes classes, events, advocacy and fundraising. The list of partners they have worked with include: the Denver Art Museum, the Children’s Museum, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Butterfly Pavilion & the Denver Zoo.

The Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado offers children and families a broad creative palette for the healing of the body, mind and spirit since 2005. Creative arts therapy uses the arts to help children express, create and heal in an open and supportive environment. Art, music, dance, movement and yoga become tools for communication, emotional release and ultimately, healing.

No other children’s hospital in the country offers the breadth of expertise in clinically creative interventions, substantiated by ongoing research, with three dedicated studio spaces, including a new state-of-the-art, 1,000- sq.-ft. multimedia broadcast studio and two curated exhibition galleries.

Here’s a quote by a 16 year old patient with whom Katherine Reed, ATR, LPC Manager, Outpatient Psychiatric Services & Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program worked. She was struggling with an eating disorder, and art therapy became her primary means of expressing herself.

“I believe in all sincerity that art saved my life, or at least my soul. In art, I find a safe place to be my true self. It gives me a powerful voice, yet allows me to stay silent. It gives me a direct channel to my emotions, but protects me from the viciousness of them. It is my clunky submarine through stormy waters, and because of it, I am able to float.” Through this unique program, kids are recovering and finding their passions and their strengths.

Children’s Hospital Colorado has been an active member of CBCA since 2006. Over those years they have given expertise, donated space for our Leadership Arts program, invited their employees to attend CBCA art events, and contributed generous dollars.

We greatly acknowledge the positive role in the arts and greater community that Children’s Hospital Colorado plays, and are pleased that they continue to be CBCA supporters as well, promoting art & healing across our state.