PPL Faculty Fellow Elizabeth Adams (Criminal Justice) presents in our Colloquium Series.

Making Space for Healing: Clay, Access, and Community-Engaged Research with Justice-Involved Women and Mothers

Justice-involved women and mothers often face trauma, stigma, disrupted family relationships, and pressures to reconstruct their identities. Therapeutic arts provide embodied, nonverbal pathways to expression and healing, with research among forensic and correctional populations suggesting benefits for mental health, self-management, and social functioning. Studies with broader populations link hands-on clay work to reduced negative mood and depressive symptoms, improved emotional regulation, and well-being. Preliminary neuroscience research suggests that clay sculpting may simultaneously engage memory and spatial processing while encouraging the inwardly focused attention associated with meditative and emotional states. Clay may also be especially meaningful for identity and relational work because it allows experiences, relationships, and hopes for change to take tangible form in ceramic objects that can endure as reminders of what participants expressed, learned, or worked toward. Despite this potential, clay remains uncommon in therapeutic-arts work with justice-involved populations. Drawing on art therapy coursework, a mapping of more than 50 Philadelphia programs, and practitioner conversations, this talk examines that gap and the infrastructure barriers that may help explain it. A hands-on demonstration introduces a flexible approach to expanding access: portable equipment allows clay work to take place within existing community programs, while Hazel Moon Ceramics & Healing Arts studio provides the specialized space and infrastructure needed for drying, firing, and finishing the work. Together, these components lay the groundwork for future therapeutic-arts programming and research with justice-involved women and mothers.