From chaos to dreams: community-based art therapy with children on the move

Background Trinidad and Tobago experienced a significant increase in migrant arrivals between 2017 and 2019, particularly from neighbouring Venezuela, contributing to a growing population of children ‘on the move.’Context In response to this humanitarian landscape, the arts-based workshops described in this paper emerged as creative, community-based pathways to support integration, resilience, and communal healing among children and families on the move in Trinidad and Tobago.Approach The workshops integrated trauma-informed and community-based principles across their design, facilitation, and public exhibition phases. Workshops were collaboratively developed with grassroots organisations and humanitarian partners with contextual knowledge of children’s lived experiences, ensuring cultural relevance and responsiveness.Outcomes The community arts-based workshops served as relational bridges, enabling children to express emotions that may not have emerged in traditional talk-based settings. Partnerships with community-embedded organisations fostered trust and supported sustained participation. Through collective artmaking, children explored grief, frustration, uncertainty, and hope for the future, supporting the integration of protective and adverse experiences into more coherent personal narratives. These processes contributed to emotional recovery, identity development, advocacy, empathy, and shifts in public attitudes.Conclusions Arts-based, community-embedded interventions can foster meaning-making, narrative integration, and hope, key internal resources that support resilience in contexts of displacement.Implications for research Future research should further examine culturally grounded, arts-based approaches as mechanisms for narrative integration, psychosocial resilience, and community connection among children on the move.Plain-language summary Trinidad and Tobago, in the period 2017-2019, experienced a sharp increase in migration, particularly from neighbouring Venezuela. Many of those arriving were families with children who had experienced loss, uncertainty, and disruption to their sense of safety and belonging. This paper describes a series of arts-based workshops developed in response to the psychosocial needs of children and families ‘on the move.’ The workshops were designed in collaboration with grassroots organisations and humanitarian partners who had close relationships with migrant communities. Using a trauma-informed and community-based approach, children were invited to express their experiences through art rather than relying only on talking. This created a supportive space for children to explore difficult emotions such as grief, frustration, and fear, while also imagining hope and possibilities for the future. Findings suggest that arts-based approaches can help children communicate feelings that may be difficult to express verbally, particularly in contexts of displacement and trauma. Through creative processes, children were able to reflect on their past and present experiences and begin to integrate these into meaningful personal narratives. This process supports emotional regulation, identity development, and resilience. This paper highlights the importance of culturally responsive, arts-based interventions when working with displaced children in community and humanitarian settings. It offers practical insights for art therapists and related practitioners seeking to support children affected by migration, disruption, and loss through creative, relational, and strength-based approaches.