OceanCares Gets Creative with Art & Soul at OceanMHS

Ocean Mental Health Services (OceanMHS) gets creative with the OceanCares Foundation’s Art & Soul Brunch. This first-time event is being held at The Jay and Linda Grunin Center for the Arts Gallery at Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ on Sunday, February 19th at 11am.

The unique exhibit will showcase the tremendous talent OceanMHS has discovered from individuals suffering with mental illness. This is an opportunity to eliminate barriers and misconceptions surrounding mental health, encourage positive conversations to reduce stigma, and shed light on the changing climate of mental health treatment in New Jersey. The event will contain paintings and drawings, mixed media, and several forms of creative expression including: poetry, music, and dance, provided by children and adults seeking services at OceanMHS.

The buffet brunch is $60 per person and includes a delicious and varied menu from the Ocean County College catering services. The event will also give attendees the chance to meet with the artists and discuss their work as well as consider purchasing a piece or two.

During this celebration of creativity, the OceanMHS, CREST Program Art Therapy Group, led by Justine LaBatch, MA, LMFT, will be actively composing a large piece centered on the tagline of the OceanCares Foundation Ocean Cares I Care.

“In the CREST Program art therapy group, the solution-focused brief therapy model is used with art therapy directives. The solution-focused model respectfully believes the consumer is the expert and helps people to look at their strengths, what is working in one’s life and preferred outcomes for they need to be different. The use of therapeutic techniques such as scaling paired with the engagement in creating with art materials allows one to physically DO something about how they feel, what they want and where they want to be with things in their lives,” explained LaBatch, MA, LMFT.

Art also plays an important role in the curriculum at OceanMHS’s Ocean Academy. Integrating the arts into a class not only has the easily observed and undisputed benefit of increasing student engagement and motivation, but it’s also been shown to increase student achievement. “Art Infusion has become a big piece of the Ocean Academy curriculum. Instead of students demonstrating understanding through mere fact recall, learning takes place through student “performances” through the art forms of music, visual arts, dance, theater arts and creative writing. Using these creative processes learning becomes exciting, engaging, hands on and long lasting,” stated Eileen Catalano, Ocean Academy English/Social Studies Teacher.

Space is limited. So don’t miss your opportunity to attend one of the OceanCares Foundation’s most inspirational events of the year. For reservations or additional information, please call 732-269-4849 x612 or register online OceanMHS.org under the events heading, online registration closes on 2/13/17.