BACKGROUND

Creative Identity is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit therapeutic and expressive arts program in Anaheim and Laguna Beach, California that serves adults, 18 years of age and older, with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Established in 1996 by music therapist and professional jazz guitarist George Gilliam, Creative Identity continues to successfully assist individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in achieving a higher degree of independence through therapeutic interventions, individualized instruction, education, and mentoring in music and the expressive arts, and prevocational skills training, onsite and in the community.

Creative Identity plays a unique role in the landscape of services available to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Orange County, California. Unlike the traditional day program model, our therapeutic and expressive arts program fosters skill development within individuals by providing an enriching and stimulating environment where participants are presented with novel situations and activities through music and expressive arts core classes, and through additional program components such as prevocational skill building, and related life skills and wellness classes. Our interdisciplinary team comprised of music therapists, expressive arts instructors, and program aides, use a "just right" challenge approach by using person-centered thinking, individualized instruction, and therapeutic interventions in order to facilitate participation, foster skill development, and assist individuals served in achieving new levels of independence and mastery. Through these positive experiences, participants become empowered, develop self-confidence, and are able assume new responsibilities and roles. Participants further develop skills through community experiences, which include community service concerts, art exhibitions, and craft fairs. These experiences not only provide opportunities to earn a "real world" commission through the selling of their art and ceramic ware, but also provide participants opportunities to apply the skills they learned onsite in new settings and situations within their communities.

Our goal is to help adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities become as independent as possible through innovative and therapeutic person-centered approaches that primarily utilize music and the expressive arts. By offering opportunities to meaningfully participate in music, the expressive arts, prevocational skills training, and wellness classes, Creative Identity utilizing person-centered thinking and planning to assist individuals build upon their existing strengths and talents to develop the underlying skills, including cognitive, social, communication, adaptive, and gross/fine motor skills, necessary for social participation, everyday functioning, and living a quality of life.