Art therapy, led by the people who need it most:
chapter by chapter.
Brushwork Youth Network trains high schoolers across the U.S. to bring art-therapy programming into their own communities, whether that means running local sessions or building the curriculum and outreach that makes them possible.
Most art therapy programs depend on one adult, in one building.
That's the model I ran for years at MindWell: camps at a single special-needs school in Ahmedabad, a handful of Ohio sites, one weekly session at a time. It worked, but it didn't scale past me.
Brushwork Youth Network is the version that scales. Instead of one founder running more sessions, it's a toolkit and a training path that lets any high schooler, even with no art therapy background, launch programming for kids, peers, or seniors in their own town.
Four steps from applicant to chapter lead.
It's a real sequence, and each step unlocks the next.
Apply
Tell us your community and who you want to serve: a school, a senior center, a clinic.
Train
A short virtual onboarding covering session structure, safety guardrails, and facilitation basics.
Launch
Run your first session using the toolkit's ready-made plans. No art therapy background required.
Grow
Recruit co-leads, adapt the curriculum to your site, and report back to the network.
Pick your role.
Not everyone wants to run sessions in person, and the network needs both.
Chapter Lead
You run programming on the ground: at your school, a local nonprofit, or a care facility near you.
- Run 2+ sessions a semester at a partner site
- Adapt toolkit curriculum to your community
- Recruit 2-3 co-leads or volunteers locally
- Report outcomes back to the network
Virtual Team
You build what makes the network run, from wherever you are.
- Design session plans and curriculum materials
- Write grants or run outreach to new partner sites
- Lead social content and chapter storytelling
- Translate materials (Hindi, Gujarati, Spanish +)
Everything a chapter needs to launch, in one packet.
Built from the sessions run at JJCT School and across Ohio, then rewritten so any new lead can pick it up cold.
- Session plans by age & ability level12
- Supply & budget checklists04
- Facilitation & safety guardrails01
- Partner-site outreach scripts03
- Impact reporting template01
I started this because I kept hitting the same ceiling. At MindWell, growth meant me personally running more camps, more sites, more hours. Brushwork Youth Network is the structure that lets other students do what I've been doing, with a real toolkit instead of trial and error.
Prisha Shah, Founder. NAMI Central Ohio Youth Ambassador, Ohio HOSA VP, and founder of MindWell.
Bring this to your school.
Founding cohort applications open now. No experience required, just a community you want to serve. Fill out the form below to get started.