About
A Philadelphia arts education nonprofit that uses trauma-informed art-making to foster resilience, self-efficacy, and hope.
Mission
Hope and healing through art-making
BuildaBridge International engages creative people and the transformative power of art-making to bring hope and healing to children in need and their communities. Through trauma-informed art-making workshops, BuildaBridge provides safe, creative spaces away from violence, poverty, drugs and trauma, fostering resilience, self-efficacy and hopeful visions for the future.
Vision
The world we work toward
BuildaBridge envisions a world where all are resilient, experience self-efficacy, and have a vision for their future.
Three goals
Resilience. Self-Efficacy. Hopefulness.
In every class and every interaction, our artist-teachers, therapists, and volunteers work toward three outcomes.
1
Resilience
Surmount adversity and not be inhibited by it.
2
Self-Efficacy
Advocate for oneself through positive agency.
3
Hopefulness
Use waypower and willpower to build the future.
Method
How we work
Our approach is person-centered, hope-infused, trauma-informed, strength-based, and arts-integrated.
Person-centered
Meeting participants where they are and placing their needs before artistic ideals.
Hope-infused
Cultivating will-power and way-power so people can imagine—and pursue—a future vision.
Trauma-informed
Sensitive to the neurological, biological, psychological, and social effects of psychological trauma.
Strength-based
Discovering and raising up participants' strengths, not deficiencies.
Arts-integrated
Using art-making as a method to teach life skills and non-art subjects.
Safe Spaces Model
The foundation of every program
The BuildaBridge Safe Spaces Model (SSM): The BaB SSM is the foundation of all BuildaBridge programming. Its pedagogical structure contains elements of Hope Theory (Snyder), Polyvagal Theory (Porges), the Sanctuary Model (Bloom), and the Capabilities Approach (Nussbaum). The SSM treats art-making as a mechanism for nervous system regulation, emotional processing, and rebuilding agency. BuildaBridge Teaching Artists use the SSM to create a person-centered, strength-based, and hope-infused environment for participants to thrive in. Within each workshop, an arts-based metaphor provides the connective tissue to relate the art-making to 21st-century life skills, such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, technology literacy, flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, and social skills. The SSM's ultimate goal is to strengthen youth resilience, self-efficacy, and hopefulness.
Hope Theory
Charles R. Snyder (1991)
Polyvagal Theory
Dr. Stephen Porges (1994)
Sanctuary Model
Dr. Sandra Bloom (2007)
Capabilities Approach
Martha Nussbaum (2000)
- Critical thinking
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Technology literacy
- Flexibility
- Leadership
- Initiative
- Productivity
- Social skills
Core values
What guides every project
Person-focused & arts-integrated
Teaching and healing centered on the child, not the artist’s ideals.
Restorative purposes
Art that restores awe, purpose, and a clearer sense of self and world.
Contextual
The arts are most effective when communities help create them.
Holistic transformation
Peace, justice, well-being, and renewed vision across spiritual, social, emotional, and physical life.
Collaborative
Change happens in relationship—art made together bridges barriers and builds trust.
Purposeful & intentional
Every curriculum and project is outcomes-focused and thoughtfully assessed.
People
Who makes this happen
Start with the founding story, then meet the people who carry the work forward.