(NEWARK, NJ) -- The Newark Arts Education Roundtable (“NAER”) has received a grant in the amount of $10,000 from The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey. The grant will fund new arts-based trauma informed trainings, helping to develop best practices and evaluation tools for the purpose of addressing the social and emotional needs of Newark’s most trauma-impacted students.

"This grant enables NAER to fully embody the model of collective impact because it will bring together leadership across the school, healthcare, and arts education communities. A better understanding of trauma informed arts education across these sectors will ultimately enhance all our causes as well as support other Newark initiatives serving Newark youth,” says Lauren Meehan, Director of the Newark Arts Education Roundtable.

Planning has begun for the 2019 shared professional development series, which will guide a cohort of arts and healthcare professionals in workshops and learning exercises that are specific to trauma-informed care. In 2020, the series will follow the successful model of NAER’s Art of Evaluation Series and will work with these participants to develop shared criteria for assessing quality arts programming to improve trauma-informed care and create a user guide of integrated best practices to empower arts and healthcare professionals.

“We are pleased to support NAER,” said Jonathan R. Pearson, Executive Director of The Horizon Founda-tion for New Jersey. “The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey works closely with grantees who share our commitment to improving the health and communities we serve throughout New Jersey." 

The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey is committed to working alongside those who can help us im-prove our neighbors’ health, inform their health decisions and inspire them to lead healthier, more ful-filling lives. The Foundation’s mission is to support organizations that make New Jersey healthier. The Foundation has three funding pillars, Caring, Connecting and Creating. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is the sole member of The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, both of which are independ-ent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.  

The Newark Arts Education Roundtable (NAER) is a cross sector collaborative whose mission is to ensure that all Newark children in grades PreK – 12 have equitable access to and participation in high-quality sequential arts education, both in and out of school. The NAER partnership network includes individuals and organizations of all sizes whose staff members participate in both full membership meetings and targeted committee meetings. NAER is under the umbrella of Newark Arts, which serves as a fiscal spon-sor.