Program Solicitation: Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network (Capacity)
Application Deadline: January 18, 2022
Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network (Creative Forces) is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA or Agency) in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) and state and local arts agencies. The mission of Creative Forces is to improve the health, well-being, and quality of life for military and veteran populations exposed to trauma, as well as their families and caregivers, by increasing knowledge of and access to clinical creative arts therapies and community arts engagement.
The program has three components:
- CLINICAL: Creative Forces places creative arts therapies at the core of patient-centered care in military and Veterans Health Administration medical facilities and through telehealth programs designed to meet the needs of patients in rural and/or remote areas. Clinical activities for Creative Forces, including clinical research activities, are supported through a separate cooperative agreement.
- COMMUNITY: Creative Forces provides community-based arts opportunities for targeted military and veteran populations. Community engagement activities are supported via a national subgranting program for arts engagement activities for targeted military and veteran populations in community settings, which is administered through a separate cooperative agreement.
- CAPACITY: Creative Forces invests in capacity-building efforts, including the development of clinical and community-based program training materials; dissemination of research evidence and information about the impacts and benefits of the treatment methods and community programs; and the continued development, administration of, and implementation of an online National Resource Center (NRC), an online platform owned by the NEA.
The purpose of this Program Solicitation is to select an organization (Cooperator) to manage and provide administrative support for Creative Forces’ CAPACITY component, particularly through providing content and knowledge management services and additional stakeholder support for the initiative’s clinical and community partners via the NRC.
The NEA expects to award one Cooperative Agreement of up to $1,625,000, contingent upon the availability of funds. There is no cost share/matching requirement.