Art as Therapy: Emotional and Social Development in Schools

Name: Art as Therapy: Emotional and Social Development in Schools
Price: 400 EUR

Why this is Erasmus+ eligible

Structured, multi-day programme (5 days) with a pre-defined schedule and learning outcomes — not a passive lecture format.

Built around interaction: participants engage directly with the trainer and with peers from other countries throughout the course.

Transnational by design — open to participants travelling from outside the host country, a core requirement of Erasmus+ mobility funding.

Among the objectives of Key Action 1 mobility in school education, the Erasmus+ Programme Guide lists “supporting professional development of teachers, school leaders and other school staff” (Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Part B – Key Action 1, Mobility for pupils and staff in school education, Objectives of the action, p. 103). The Guide's school-education priority “Promoting wellbeing at school” — set out for cooperation partnerships under Key Action 2, and a useful reference for the aim — covers “promotion of well-being (both in terms of mental and physical health) for learners and teachers” and “cooperation with the wider community, in particular with health and welfare professionals as well as parents” (Part B – Key Action 2, Partnerships for cooperation, Sector specific priorities, school education, p. 230). This week gives school staff a bounded, non-clinical way to use art-making for pupils' emotional and social wellbeing: participants leave with an eight-session sequence for one named group in their own school, an observation sheet that records what a child did rather than interpreting it, and two referral lines — the school's safeguarding route and the therapy route in their own country — so that the teacher's part stays on the teacher's side of the line and hands over to health professionals where it should.

Overview

Most teachers already reach for paper and paint when a class is going through something difficult. This week keeps the benefit in the making itself, not in an adult deciding what a drawing means, and shows you clearly where a teacher’s part ends.

Monday — you learn where the line between a teacher’s art session and a therapist’s work sits, and draft the first line of your referral route.
Tuesday — you work pencil, paint and clay yourself and practise helping a child without taking the work over.
Wednesday — you run structured drawing, mask-making, collage and guided storytelling, then write two sessions ready to use.
Thursday — you plan how the group runs, from its size and boundaries to consent and what to do if a child discloses something, and build an observation sheet.
Friday — you present your sequence in small groups, check it against shared questions, and revise it before taking it home.

You go home with an eight-session sequence for one named group in your own school, an observation sheet that records what a child did rather than what it supposedly meant, and two referral lines: your school’s safeguarding route (its child-protection procedure) and the therapy route in your own country. No art background and no drawing ability are needed.

Description

Most teachers already use art for emotional reasons. A difficult week, a bereavement, a class that has stopped speaking to one another — and out come the paper and the paints. The activity is rarely the problem. What tends to follow it is: an adult looking at a child’s picture and deciding what it says about them. That step is not something this course teaches you to do, and reading a drawing that way is where a well-meant art lesson can do real harm.

The line between the two was drawn early and it still holds. Edith Kramer named her approach *art as therapy*: the healing sits in the making, in what happens between a child and a material. She set it against Margaret Naumburg’s *art psychotherapy*, where the image is a route into an interpretation and the work belongs to a clinician. Only one side of that line is available to a teacher, and it happens to be the productive one. Kramer described five ways children use art materials — from first exploring what a material physically does, through discharge and copied stereotype, to what she called formed expression. She described the adult’s part as a *third hand*: the least intrusive help that still leaves the piece belonging to the child. Those five ways and that one gesture are the working equipment of this week.

The school evidence is a pilot trial by Zoe Moula, Joanne Powell and Vicky Karkou at Edge Hill University. Sixty-two children aged seven to ten in four primary schools worked in small groups with registered therapists, an hour a week for eight weeks. Sleep and teacher-rated difficulties improved; the wellbeing gains were consistent but, in a sample this size, not statistically significant.

Afterwards the children were interviewed one by one, and what they said is the more useful half. They named self-expression, a safe space, stress relief, empowerment and coping as what helped. They were just as clear about what did not: too little time, a group that never became a group, and too many of them in it. Their own figure was no more than six, and several said eight weeks felt short — worth knowing before you fix the length of your own sequence.

Larger reviews since then cover clinical populations rather than ordinary classrooms. This week works from the school study for a different reason: it is the one where the children were asked.

By Friday each participant has an eight-session sequence written for one named group in their own school. It is built from formats run and taken apart during the week, at a length you set — the research group found eight weeks short, so ten sessions is worth considering where the timetable allows it. It comes with an observation sheet that records what a child did rather than what it supposedly meant, and two referral lines: your school’s own safeguarding route for anything a child discloses, and who takes over in their own country’s therapy system when a sequence is no longer the right answer.

Methodology

Making Before Meaning

Every format is practised as a maker first. You work the material yourself before asking a child to, because the response you can give depends on knowing what that material does in the hand.

A Line You Can Defend

The week is organised around what a teacher may do and what belongs to a qualified therapist, so that every activity you take home sits on the safe side of it and you can say why.

Observation Instead of Interpretation

You practise recording what a child did with the material, in what order, and what they said about it — a record a colleague or a professional can actually use — rather than deciding what an image means.

What you'll take home

Run art-based sessions in which the therapeutic work is in the making, and explain to a colleague or a parent why that is the claim you are making and not a larger one.

Recognise the five ways children use art materials — exploring the material, discharge, copied stereotype, picture-in-place-of-words, and formed expression — and respond differently to each.

Intervene as a “third hand”: help a child reach the piece they were trying to make without taking the work over.

Design an eight-session sequence — or ten, where the timetable allows — for a named group in your own school, structured against what the children in the research said helped.

State where your own competence ends, and name both referral routes — safeguarding and therapy — in your own country’s system.

Daily programme

Icebreaker: “One Thing I Made” — in pairs, describe one thing you made recently (a meal, a repair, a drawing) using only what you did, no feelings; your partner reflects back only what they heard you do
Two traditions behind one phrase: Kramer’s art as therapy against Naumburg’s art psychotherapy — what each one claims, and why only one of them is available to a teacher
What the school evidence actually found: the Edge Hill pilot trial — 62 children aged seven to ten, four primary schools, one arts therapy per school, groups of eight, an hour a week for eight weeks, delivered by registered therapists — and which of its results reached significance and which did not
One pilot against the wider picture: what systematic reviews of art therapy with children now report, what “the quality of evidence varied” means in practice, and what all of it does and does not license a teacher to claim
Why interpreting a child’s drawing is not a skill this course teaches: what the research on figure-drawing interpretation found, and what a drawing can and cannot tell you
Working session: each participant opens the European Federation of Art Therapy’s country entry for their own country, records the national association and what it says about recognition, names their school’s safeguarding lead as the first line for a disclosure, and drafts the first line of the therapy referral route

Warm-up: “Creative Connections” — ten minutes with an unfamiliar material, no brief and no talking, then comparing what the material did to each person
Kramer’s first two ways of working: exploring what a material physically does — scribbling, smearing, pushing it around — and the point at which it tips into discharge: spilling, pounding, destroying. Telling them apart in a real room, and why the response differs
Materials rotation in three stations: pencil, paint and clay — three media commonly used in this kind of work — what each one invites, what each one shuts down, and which children each one tends to lose
The third hand: Kramer’s name for the adult’s help, practised in pairs and in both roles — finding the smallest intervention that still leaves the work the child’s
The generated image: what happens to this whole argument when a picture is produced instead of made, and how to answer a class with image generators on their phones
Output: your own materials list for one group — what to stock, what it costs, and what to keep away from whom

Kramer’s remaining three: art in the service of defence — the traced outline, the copied cartoon, the same safe drawing every time; the picture that stands in for what cannot be said aloud; and formed expression, art in the full sense
Why a table of near-identical work is usually a verdict on the task rather than on the children
Four structured formats run in full and then taken apart: structured drawing, mask-making, collage, and a guided storytelling sequence — what each asks of a child, and which of Kramer’s five it tends to produce
Adapting the age: this research was done with seven- to ten-year-olds. What changes with younger children, what changes with adolescents, and which formats stop working
Output: two sessions written to a shared template, ready to run

What the children in the study said helped: engagement with the arts and self-expression, a safe space, stress relief, empowerment, and coping — the five themes from their own interviews
And what did not: too little time, a group that never became a group, and too few sessions with too many children in them. Their number was no more than six
Building the group specification from that: size, number of sessions, the opening and closing ritual, the boundaries said out loud, and telling the group each week how many sessions are left; and what you do, the same day, if a child tells you something — your school’s safeguarding lead, recorded without interpretation
Consent, storage and display: whose work it is, who may see it, what goes on the wall and what does not, and what happens to all of it when the sequence ends
Observation practice: building a record sheet — what the child did with the material, in what order, and what they said about it — and using it on the work this group made on Days 2 and 3
Writing time: the remaining six sessions of your eight-session sequence, on the Day 3 template and the group specification above — so that Friday is for reading and revising the plan, not for writing it

Endings first: some children were upset when the sessions stopped, and one said she cried. How to close a sequence so it lands as a completion rather than as one more thing taken away, and what the last session has to contain
Each participant’s eight-session sequence is presented and read in small groups, so that every plan is actually read rather than heard
Critique against four questions: is the group small enough, are both referral routes (safeguarding and therapy) written down, is there a session in here that only a therapist should run, and does the plan still use Kramer's five ways and the third hand rather than reading meaning into the work
Revision time: participants amend their sequence and their referral lines before taking them home
Course evaluation and reflection on learning
Certification ceremony

Please note: sessions run from 09:30 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, with a break for lunch. Timings can shift a little to suit the venue and the group. If you'd like a specific topic covered, let us know when you apply — the confirmed day-by-day schedule is sent to registered participants ahead of the course.

Certificate: we issue the Certificate of Attendance to everyone who's present for at least 80% of the course — tracked with the daily sign-in sheet (see Certificate & assessment).

Equipment: a few of our courses ask participants to bring a laptop — check the day-by-day programme above, or ask us if you're not sure.

Need a formal invoice or proforma for your school's records? Ask us — we issue official invoices with the participant's name and course details.

Materials & tools

Moula, Powell and Karkou’s pilot trial and the companion paper reporting the children’s own accounts of it — both published open access, and worked with directly on Day 1 and Day 4

Versitano and colleagues’ 2025 systematic review of art therapy with children and adolescents (Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry) — read alongside the school pilot on Day 1, as the wider picture a single study cannot give

Kramer’s five ways of using art materials, used as the observation framework from Day 2 onwards and turned into a record sheet on Day 4

The European Federation of Art Therapy’s country entry for your own country — the basis of the referral route you write

Pencil, paint and clay, and the mask, collage and storytelling materials used in the room across the week

Certificate & assessment

This is a Certificate of Attendance, not an exam-based qualification — recognition comes from completing the structured programme, not from passing a test. The real, lasting value is in the competencies listed above under What you'll take home.

Erasmus Mobility Academy

Certificate of Attendance

Art as Therapy: Emotional and Social Development in Schools · 5 days · 25 hrs

+ Europass Mobility document

Type your name above — clearly marked "SAMPLE" in the PDF, not an official document.

The real certificate is signed by your trainer and EMA's authorised signatory. Your own signature isn't on this document — it's captured separately, on the Europass Mobility document.

Need to verify a real certificate? Check it online using the serial number and participant's full name, or contact us directly — [email protected], OID E10304561.

Attendance

Tracked using a sign-in sheet with one signature per participant per day (paper or digital). This record is used to issue your Certificate of Attendance and Europass Mobility document. View sign-in sheet (PDF)

Output

Every participant leaves with a completed Dissemination & School Impact Plan — a step-by-step template for applying the course back at your school (see below).

Feedback

An end-of-course evaluation form is sent to every participant after the course ends — a chance to reflect on what you've learned and how you'll apply it, and it helps us keep improving the course for future participants.

Your paperwork

Keep your travel tickets, boarding passes and (if you used green travel) any related receipts — your school or National Agency may ask for these for their own Erasmus+ reporting.

How to prepare

Have one small group in mind before you arrive — ideally six children or fewer, drawn from a class you teach or support, with their age. Every plan you write during the week is for that group, and the generic plan is the one that never gets used.

Bring a laptop or a phone with internet access. On Day 1 you look up how art therapy is regulated in your own country and which professional association exists there; that entry becomes the referral line in your plan.

Please do not bring pupils’ artwork or case details. Everything you observe and practise on during the week is work this group makes in the room, which keeps the children you teach out of it entirely.

No art background is needed and no drawing ability. Working with the materials yourself is part of the method, not a test of it.

Practical information

Registration & documents

Not sure how registering works or what paperwork is involved? See our full Registration & Documents guide — from applying to your Certificate of Attendance, in one place.

Invitation letter

Need a formal invitation letter for your school or embassy? Request one — we send it within 2 business days. See a sample (PDF).

Learning Agreement

Prepared by our staff and sent to you and your school once your registration form is submitted — see what it looks like. See a sample (PDF).

Billing & invoicing

We issue official invoices/proformas with the participant's name and course details — ask us. Payment is due in full by bank transfer before the course start date. See a sample (PDF).

Airport transfer

Guidance on getting from the nearest airport to the venue is included in your welcome information.

Accommodation

We can recommend partner hotels close to the venue in the host city — ask us when you apply.

For your school / proposal

School impact

After completing this course, the participating staff member can transfer outcomes directly to their school: a short briefing for colleagues sharing the key takeaways, applying relevant tools or strategies from the programme in their own role, and inclusion of the course materials in the school's professional development resources — turning one person's mobility into a wider institutional gain that supports the school's Erasmus+ objectives. Use the Dissemination & School Impact Plan below to fill in your own — it saves as you go and can generate a one-page summary for your coordinator too.

Prefer a blank, course-independent version of this template? Get it here →

After the course

Participants will receive their Certificate of Attendance and the co-signed Europass Mobility document.

Participants will complete a general course evaluation and event survey.

Participants will receive course materials, videos, photos, and PDF documents in both digital and print formats.

Follow-up support: an email group is created for idea exchange, self-evaluation materials are provided, and participants receive a follow-up check-in after 3 months — long enough for an eight-session sequence to have finished, which makes the useful question how the last session went rather than how the first one did.

Frequently asked

This course is an eligible training activity under Erasmus+ Key Action 1 (School Education Mobility) — the course fee, travel and subsistence fall within the eligible cost categories. Whether it is covered depends on your own project's approved grant agreement and your National Agency's rules; we provide all the invoices, attendance records and certificates your National Agency requires for reporting.

B1 is enough — you do not need to be fluent. Trainers speak slowly and plainly, every session is built around doing something rather than sitting and listening, and groups are mixed by nationality so people help each other out. A rough test: if you could follow a staff meeting held in English and ask a question in it, you will be fine here.

Absolutely — group bookings of 3+ from one school or organisation receive priority placement, and we can schedule a dedicated session for groups of 12 or more.

Our courses run on request at our centres in Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin, Budapest, Bremen and Rome. Tell us your preferred city and dates and we will arrange a session.

Tuition, all course materials, your Certificate of Attendance, and the co-signed Europass Mobility document. Flights, accommodation and travel insurance are booked separately — we send a vetted hotel list.

You can move to any later session free of charge. Cancellations made 30+ days before the start date receive a full refund; a reduced refund applies closer to the date — see our full Cancellation & Refund Policy for the exact schedule.

Among the objectives of Key Action 1 mobility in school education, the Erasmus+ Programme Guide lists “supporting professional development of teachers, school leaders and other school staff” (Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Part B – Key Action 1, Mobility for pupils and staff in school education, Objectives of the action, p. 103). The Guide's school-education priority “Promoting wellbeing at school” — set out for cooperation partnerships under Key Action 2, and a useful reference for the aim — covers “promotion of well-being (both in terms of mental and physical health) for learners and teachers” and “cooperation with the wider community, in particular with health and welfare professionals as well as parents” (Part B – Key Action 2, Partnerships for cooperation, Sector specific priorities, school education, p. 230). This week gives school staff a bounded, non-clinical way to use art-making for pupils' emotional and social wellbeing: participants leave with an eight-session sequence for one named group in their own school, an observation sheet that records what a child did rather than interpreting it, and two referral lines — the school's safeguarding route and the therapy route in their own country — so that the teacher's part stays on the teacher's side of the line and hands over to health professionals where it should. Frame it in your own project's terms — your National Agency's current call will confirm exactly how it applies.

No, and the course does not lead to one. It teaches the classroom end of a tradition — structured drawing, mask-making, collage and guided storytelling — that a teacher can run without a therapy qualification, and it is explicit about where that ends. Art therapy itself is a regulated profession in much of Europe; on Day 1 you find out how it is regulated where you work, and who you would refer to.

No, and we would not teach that. Interpreting children’s drawings as a window into their inner state is not something a teacher is trained or asked to do here, and acting on a personal reading of a drawing can do harm. What you practise instead is observation — recording what a child did with the material, in what order, and what they said about it. That record is useful to you, to a colleague, and to a professional if you ever need to refer.