Support our mission to disrupt the pipeline to prison through Restorative Theatre by making your Colorado Gives Day gift today! Your generosity will help ensure that every young person we serve, no matter what their circumstance, can restore all that has been lost because of punitive systems, can reimagine a bright future that they shape for themselves, and reintegrate back into a community where they are fully seen and heard.
Through Restorative Theatre, we create safe spaces for youth to express emotions, explore identity, and rehearse real-life scenarios, while building trusting relationships with supportive adults. Our restorative programs foster self-awareness, empathy, communication skills, and belonging, which are essential for personal growth and breaking cycles of harm.
Youth Participant Testimonials
Mirror Image Arts is a Youth Advocacy organization disrupting the Pipeline to Prison through Restorative Theatre. Our work is the collective liberation of all. We bring Restorative Theatre to youth and youth serving adults in schools, community organizations, and detention centers. We create spaces of healing and belonging while deepening social emotional wellbeing.
2020 and Beyond: As needs change, so too does our programming. In early 2020, strategic planning identified and added a new focus to our work: to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. The pipeline is a charged and complicated issue, but we found it affecting youth everywhere we operated. That is, not just in the juvenile detention centers but also in the schools and communities we serve.
In short, ensuring “safe” schools through 1. Zero Tolerance Policies, and 2. increased police presence in public schools have led to minor infractions being treated as criminal offenses. The result is drastic, exclusionary punishment ranging from detention to incarceration. Once students have been affected, they are often trapped.
Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse, or neglect and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished, and pushed out.
Through studies of the issue and consultation with lead researchers in the field, we have learned that Mirror Image Arts can have a real impact. SEL and theatre can create safe, honest spaces where youth can build and maintain positive relationships with adults and their peers. They can process their challenges and trauma and work toward healing.
Organization name
Mirror Image Arts
other names
Mirror Image Arts
2008
Tax id (EIN)
71-1050517
Category
Youth Development, Arts, Culture & Humanities, Education, Civil Rights, Social Action & Advocacy
Organization Size
Medium Organization
Address
6470 Carr StDenver County, CO, US
Jefferson County, CO, US
Adams County, CO, US
Boulder County, CO, US
Broomfield County, CO, US