The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund has announced grants to fourteen New York City-based organizations working to expand access to mental health services.

Awarded through the fund’s new Arts & Mental Health program—an expansion of its Arts in Health initiative—the grants will fund small and midsize nonprofits with annual budgets of under $5 million working in communities with longstanding health disparities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Grant recipients will use the arts as a vehicle to address mental health challenges and fight stigmas that are a barrier to seeking help.

Recipients include the Common Threads Project, Dances for a Variable Population, DE-CRUIT Veterans Program, Kundiman, and Redhawk Native American Arts Council. Their strategies include facilitating group-based narrative development and storytelling; development of music, dance, and theater-based programs with targeted mental health facets; the sewing of story-cloths by refugees and survivors of gender-based violence; partnerships with mental health organizations or licensed providers; embedding mental health counselors to serve program participants and staff; providing training in trauma-informed practices; increasing access to therapy for performing artists and arts workers; and developing public performances as a vehicle to destigmatize mental health challenges and bring awareness to resources.

“After two long years, with so much tragic illness and death, data show that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a mental health pandemic in its wake, especially evident among communities already struggling to overcome other challenges,” said Laurie Tisch, the fund’s founder and president. “More people than ever are in need of mental health services and we want to make sure that our most vulnerable communities have access to programs that can help alleviate their suffering and build resilience.”

For a complete list of Arts & Mental Health grant recipients, see the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund website.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/MaxCab)