How It Works
Art-based healing for communities
after the cameras leave.
We fill the gap between emergency response and long-term recovery—helping survivors reconnect, reclaim agency, and send messages of hope to other communities walking the same road.
The Gap
After disaster, communities get emergency response: search and rescue, medical care, shelter. Crisis counselors deploy for those with acute symptoms. But most survivors don't need a diagnosis—they need a place to belong, a way to process, and a reminder that they're not alone.
That's the gap. Emergency services end. Clinical resources are limited. And communities are left to carry their grief in isolation—right when connection matters most.
Isolation compounds harm
Survivors who remain socially isolated experience lasting distress at far higher rates. Yet most interventions focus on individual treatment, not rebuilding the web of relationships that holds people together.
Some things are hard to say
Trauma lives in the body, not just the mind. For many survivors, words feel impossible. Creating something with your hands opens pathways that talking alone can't reach.
We work in the space between emergency response and long-term clinical care—offering accessible, community-based gatherings where survivors can show up as they are and create alongside others who understand.
Theory of Change
Survivors gather to create art together—making messages for other communities facing crisis
They reconnect with their bodies, break isolation, reclaim choice, and transform their experience into something they can offer others
They build resilience that ripples through their community and extends to communities they'll never meet
This isn't about credentials—it's about connection. Our gatherings can be facilitated by licensed therapists or trained community members. Healing spaces shouldn't depend on resources that many communities don't have.
The FRAME Method
Finding Resilience After Major Events. Four evidence-based pathways that work together—each grounded in neuroscience and trauma psychology, each designed to feel like sitting down to paint with people who understand.
Presence
The Body Frame
Creating with your hands engages both brain hemispheres and helps integrate fragmented memories. The sensorimotor act of art-making—holding a brush, mixing colors—activates the nervous system's capacity for safety. No words required.
Research shows even brief art sessions reduce cortisol and help the body remember how to regulate itself.
Proximity
The Circle Frame
Being in the room with people who understand—without having to explain. Our gatherings create "side-by-side" connection: painting alongside others without the pressure of eye contact or disclosure. Mirror neurons fire. Nervous systems co-regulate.
Perceived social support predicts post-traumatic growth more strongly than trauma severity.
Power
The Choice Frame
Disaster takes away your choices. Healing gives them back. Everything in our gatherings is an invitation, not a requirement. Show up or don't. Paint or just watch. Share your story or keep it to yourself. Every choice says: you have power here.
Active coping—taking deliberate action—predicts significantly better long-term outcomes.
Purpose
The Chain Frame
What happened to you was terrible. But you get to decide what you do with it now. Survivors choose—if and when they're ready—to transform their experience into a message for someone else. A tornado survivor paints hope for flood survivors. Both communities are changed.
Altruistic behavior after trauma predicts lower rates of PTSD and depression.
The Chain of Care
Every Holding Frame is both an act of personal healing and a gift to someone else. That's what makes this different—it's not a service delivered to survivors. It's survivors holding space for each other.
A survivor creates
Someone who has lived through disaster sits down with a canvas and paint. Making something settles what words can't reach.
A community gathers
Neighbors, strangers, friends—painting side by side, not talking about the trauma unless they want to. The isolation starts to crack.
A frame travels
The finished frame goes to another community facing crisis. A message from someone who's been there: You are not alone.
The chain grows
Recipients become creators. They make frames for the next community. Survivor to survivor, the network of care expands.
What a Gathering Looks Like
We partner locally
We work with trusted community organizations—schools, faith communities, nonprofits—to understand what this community needs and how to create a gathering that fits their culture and capacity.
We hold the space
Gatherings last 1–4 hours in familiar spaces. Mental health professionals are present. All volunteers are trained in Psychological First Aid. Come late, leave early, watch from the corner—it's all welcome.
Frames find their people
Completed frames travel to other communities facing crisis. Survivors become message-senders. The network of mutual support grows—community to community.
We're not first responders. We show up when the acute phase has passed and the long work begins—Month 6, Month 12, Year 5. Healing doesn't follow a timeline, and neither do we.
The Evidence Base
The Holding Space Framework synthesizes decades of peer-reviewed research in neuroscience, trauma psychology, and community resilience—translated into something that works in a church basement or a school gym.
Art-making supports recovery
Brief art sessions measurably reduce cortisol. Creating with your hands engages both brain hemispheres, supporting integration of fragmented memories. Non-verbal processing reaches places talk therapy can't.
Connection is protective
Perceived social support predicts post-traumatic growth more strongly than trauma severity. Community-based interventions show better outcomes than individual treatment alone.
Agency predicts outcomes
Active coping leads to faster return to baseline functioning. Restoring a sense of control buffers against the helplessness that underlies trauma.
Helping others helps you
Altruistic behavior after trauma predicts lower rates of PTSD and depression. Meaning-making is central to resilience—and helping others creates meaning.
Go Deeper: The Research Behind the Framework
Our Holding Space Framework White Paper includes full citations from peer-reviewed research, detailed methodology, and program applications.
For funders, researchers, clinicians, and partners who want the full picture.
Join the Chain of Care
The need is massive. The framework works. What's missing is sustained support to bring this approach wherever communities are ready.
For Funders
Your support means we can say "yes" when a community reaches out—not "let us fundraise first."
Explore Partnership →For Companies
Partner with us to support community resilience and engage your employees in meaningful service.
Start a Conversation →For Communities
Bring a Holding Frames gathering to your town, school, workplace, or congregation.
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