Grant Spotlight: Project Harmony

Mission:

The mission of Project Harmony is to protect and support children, collaborate with professionals, and engage the community to end child abuse and neglect.

Funded Program Description:

Project Harmony is a co-located Child Advocacy Center (CAC) in Omaha, Nebraska serving youth (18 and under) and families in Douglas and Sarpy Counties, and 16 counties in southwest Iowa. Our collaborative campus houses more than 390 first responders and prevention professionals in a child-friendly facility, providing forensic interviews, medical exams, advocacy services, case reviews, mental health therapy, training, and prevention services.

Connections is an early intervention and prevention initiative, matching Omaha Metro Area school children needing mental health services with therapists from a local provider network that is 100+ strong. The program emphasizes working with children and their families until the perfect therapist fit is found, and then provides free therapy sessions in schools.

We are grateful for generous funding from The Kim Foundation that let Project Harmony offer free expressive arts therapy training and continuing case consultations for 47 therapists in the provider network serving Connections. Expressive arts therapy is an evidence-based multimodal approach that focuses on the creative process to help people access and share their feelings. It is particularly effective in serving children by harnessing their natural creativity and love of participatory art, incorporating that expression into therapeutic treatment.

The expressive arts therapy training made possible by the Kim Foundation helped nearly 300 students in 2023 and set Connections up for greater success going forward.

Successes of Program or Inspirational Stories:

Kim Foundation funding also allowed the newly-trained therapists to apply their expressive arts training beyond one-on-one therapy. They led 57 group therapy sessions in Omaha Public Schools, Bellevue Public Schools, Ralston Public Schools, Papillion La Vista Community Schools, and Millard Public Schools.

The caregiver of a student who benefited from expressive arts therapy told us “The group was great and helped my daughter channel her emotions. It was a great way to express herself in a positive way, and I’m grateful that her school recommended her to be a participant.”

Other Comments:

Project Harmony is grateful to have The Kim Foundation as a co-located partner on our campus since 2020. The organizations’ missions are strongly aligned, and we greatly value this partnership that has let us advocate for better access to and understanding of mental health in the community we collectively serve. Thank you!

Contact Information:

Kodjovi Dogbevi, Director of Connections
kdogbevi@projectharmony.com
projectharmony.com