Creative arts therapy uses the arts to help children express, create and heal in an open and supportive environment. Art, music, dance, movement and yoga become tools for communication, emotional release and ultimately, healing. As quoted by an adolescent recovering from an eating disorder, “I believe in all sincerity that art saved my life, or at least my soul. In art, I find a safe place to be my true self.”

The Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program has provided services to children since 2005, when Craig Ponzio made a generous donation. His contribution allowed Children's Hospital Colorado to establish this comprehensive creative arts therapy program, with eight masters and doctoral level creative arts therapists, three dedicated studio spaces and two exhibition galleries.

About the Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program

The Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program at Children's Hospital Colorado offers art, dance/movement, music and yoga therapies. The program helps children to identify, explore and transform emotional and psychological difficulties. By giving kids an outlet for creative expression, creative arts therapy can help kids get better, faster.

The Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program works directly with your child's clinical team to find the best approaches to healing. Whether your child needs individual, group or family therapy, our therapists customize a program designed to improve psychological, physical, cognitive and social functioning.

Why choose Children’s Hospital Colorado?

The Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program offers children and families a broad creative palette for the healing of the body, mind and spirit. No other children's hospital in the country offers the breadth of expertise in clinically creative interventions, substantiated by ongoing research. Through this unique program, kids are recovering and finding their passions and their strengths. The program can benefit any child, at any age, with any diagnosis or physical ability.

Plus, Children's Colorado’s state-of-the-art hospital has facilities specially dedicated to the Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program, including an art therapy studio, a recording studio for music and video recording, and a studio for yoga/dance/music therapy. Patients and their families can view original artwork by participating patients and families in two exhibition galleries as part of the Ponzio program. 

Specific conditions treated

Creative arts therapy can help children with the following needs:

• Social stimulation
• Cognitive stimulation
• Relaxation training
• Psycho-emotional-spiritual support
• Stress and pain management
• Physical stimulation
• Sensory-environment stimulation
• Family conflict resolution
• Medical compliance

Creative arts therapy offers complementary approaches to your child's traditional medical or psychiatric treatment, which can:

• Promote self-expression, communication and emotional well-being
• Develop coping skills for stress, trauma and loss
• Enhance family communication
• Provide a means for nonverbal communication and emotional release
• Normalize a child's experience and hospital stay
• Build physical and mental strength, flexibility and awareness
• Support pain management
• Stimulate and organize thought processes

How do our creative arts therapists work with kids?

When children are hospitalized, they often experience a great deal of stress and the need for an emotional outlet or release. Our therapists use the creative arts to help children work through their problems, deal with pain, and express themselves.

Our master's level creative arts therapists are experts in their fields. They are an integral component of your child's treatment team, working in tandem with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses and counselors toward your child's individualized treatment goals.

Learn more about the creative arts therapies we offer:

• Art therapy
• Dance and movement therapy
• Music therapy
• Yoga therapy

Contact us

Creative arts therapy could be an essential part of your child's visit to Children's Colorado. To get started, please call the Ponzio Creative Arts Therapy Program at 720-777-4360.