April 16, 2012

Arts Advocacy Day: A Message from Deb Pierce, Government Affairs Chair, NADT

Arts Advocacy Day Information and Highlights.

April 16-17, 2012 in Washington DC

Please consider attending Arts Advocacy Day (AAD) this year, which is on April 16th and 17th in Washington, DC.  NADTA is a National co-sponsor of this event. 

Many of you may be familiar with what AAD is, but for those of you who are not-- it is a two day arts event organized by Americans for the Arts. On the first day participants attend a training to learn how to lobby for the arts, or arts in healthcare, with their Congressional Representatives.  Artists, Creative Arts Therapists, performers, and arts activists from all over the country come together to talk about lobbying for the arts, and to network with each other about their work.  In the evening, most of us attend the Nancy Hanks lecture at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  Last year the lecturer was Kevin Spacey. This year the guest lecturer is Alec Baldwin.

On the second day we visit our Legislator's offices, and spend time talking to staffers about the work that we do, what we offer to their constituents, and we ask them for what we want.  The "ask" is drafted by the Arts in Healthcare subcommittee, made up of representatives from different Creative Arts Therapies. 

This year we are asking Legislators to direct federal agencies involved in the National Endowment for the Arts Interagency Task Force (including the NIH), to allocate a percentage of their annual budget to fund research on the Arts and Human Development; and to designate funding (through the DOD, TRICARE, and the VA) for Demonstration Projects for veterans and active military to access cost-effective arts in healthcare treatment and programming; and to seek clarification from Medicare and Medicaid regarding the inclusion of creative arts therapies interventions within existing Prospective Payment Systems. 

In other words, we are lobbying for research money, and for projects which demonstrate the effectiveness of our work with veterans, AND we are encouraging our Legislators to make sure that creative arts therapies will be covered by Medicaid.  This is important work.

This is a brilliant opportunity for us to represent drama therapy, to educate Legislators and other attendees about the powerful work we do, and to ask Legislators to support our work.  Last year we had a delegation of six drama therapists making visits to Capital Hill, more delegates than any of the other Creative Arts Therapies.  Let's keep it growing!  The summit training is held at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington DC. The cost for registration is $110, which includes tickets to the Nancy Hanks lecture.

If you would like to participate in AAD this year, please contact Deb Pierce McCabe, Government Affairs Chair, at governmentaffairs@NADT.org

Here is a link to the schedule.  Note that this year there is an additional session in the morning on Veteran's Arts Advocacy.
http://artsusa.org/events/2012/aad/schedule.asp

Here is a link to Kevin Spacey's speech in 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVel03Xz_Y4

and here is the main link to the AAD summit
http://www.artsusa.org/events/2012/aad/default.asp