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A Community’s Response to Suicide Through Public Art: Stakeholder Perspectives from the Finding the Light Within Project

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American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

Suicide is a preventable public health problem and a leading cause of death in the United States. Despite recognized need for community-based strategies for suicide prevention, most suicide prevention programs focus on individual-level change. This article presents seven first person accounts of Finding the Light Within, a community mobilization initiative to reduce the stigma associated with suicide through public arts participation that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 2011 through 2012. The stigma associated with suicide is a major challenge to suicide prevention, erecting social barriers to effective prevention and treatment and enhancing risk factors for people struggling with suicidal ideation and recovery after losing a loved one to suicide. This project engaged a large and diverse audience and built a new community around suicide prevention through participatory public art, including community design and production of a large public mural about suicide, storytelling and art workshops, and a storytelling website. We present this project as a model for how arts participation can address suicide on multiple fronts—from raising awareness and reducing stigma, to promoting community recovery, to providing healing for people and communities in need.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Thomas B. Scattergood Foundation, and a National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) research training grant (T32 DA 019426) to Jacob Kraemer Tebes.

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Correspondence to Nathaniel V. Mohatt.

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Completed Finding the Light Within mural (JPG 8169 KB)

Close-up of the center image in the Finding the Light Within mural (JPG 640 KB)

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Close-up of the left side of the Finding the Light Within mural showing the quilt and community of people carrying the quilt (JPG 851 KB)

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Close-up of the right side of the Finding the Light Within mural showing the quilt and community of people carrying the quilt (JPG 1360 KB)

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Photograph of firefighters painting at a community paint day in remembrance of firefighters lost to suicide (JPG 3600 KB)

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Mohatt, N.V., Singer, J.B., Evans, A.C. et al. A Community’s Response to Suicide Through Public Art: Stakeholder Perspectives from the Finding the Light Within Project. Am J Community Psychol 52, 197–209 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-013-9581-7

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