Community arts participation benefits youth long-term, report finds

Candid, November 21, 2025

Community arts participation benefits youth long-term, report finds

Participation in community arts programs promotes a broad range of long-term positive outcomes—from youth well-being to future trajectories—a report commissioned by the Wallace Foundation finds.

Released by University of California, Irvine, the report, Creative Expression, Caring Relationships, and Career Pathways: A Guide to Youth Outcomes in Community Arts Programs (24 pages, PDF), introduces a taxonomic tool to classify how community arts programs shape youth participants and points to specific program features that contribute to these outcomes. Based on surveys of 247 alumni from 32 arts programs serving low-income communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and in-depth interviews with 102 alumni, the report identified how opportunity outcomes (how programs open pathways), and relational outcomes (how participants understand themselves and connect with others) can be used to assess program effectiveness.

According to the authors, the taxonomy can help guide program design; compare programs across different organizations; demonstrate value to funders and policymakers; and broaden the types of outcomes that arts organizations and funders track beyond attendance or skill gains.

“What’s exciting about this study is that it captures how participating in community-based youth arts programs reverberates through people’s lives,” said Wallace Foundation vice president of research Bronwyn Bevan. “We hope [the new tool] can help youth arts programs better design for and document their important contributions to young people’s life trajectories.”

"Creative Expression, Caring Relationships, and Career Pathways: A Guide to Youth Outcomes in Community Arts Programs." Wallace Foundation report 11/18/2025.

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