Emerald Sketch Early Childhood Trauma Response

The Emerald Sketch has been an immediate needs trauma response team since March 2013, following the Newtown massacre. March was a tipping point for the Newtown, CT community. The ninety-day marker post-tragedy is a very significant moment in time when the community benefits from outreach and learning what resources are accessible.

The Emerald Sketch is prepared to visit Madison, Wisconsin this month, where the latest massive elementary school shooting took place in December 2024. This is the best response time to implement immediate needs assessments and mobilize ongoing creative arts therapy services.

The American states have no system in place to help schools or communities devastated by gun violence. Help the Emerald Sketch help the children and families in the greatest need.

Now in 2025, humanitarian aid is being disbanded and defunded more rapidly than fathomable, and local action is essential to implement proper assessment and offer sustainable options for families in need of mental wellness support.

The government is failing, and with your help and private funding, the Emerald Sketch can continue to train, deploy, and activate outreach as needed.

The founder and clinical director of the Emerald Sketch, Nicole Porter, directed child therapy following the Sandy Hook school massacre and mobilized ongoing creative arts therapy immediate needs services for young children and families post-American terror, as well as globally during active war.

Current efforts have been training clinicians on the ground helping survivors of the California wildfires, as well as the community of Madison, Wisconsin (location of the most recent heinous elementary school tragedy). Humanity is up against a devastating national and global child mental health access crisis. In New York, I am actively collaborating as a co-founder and speaker for the Creative Arts Therapy Advocacy Coalition, urging the Governor for inclusion of creative arts therapy in the mental hygiene budget for 2025. Amidst this is the ongoing migrant child crisis, of which my art therapy trauma response program, the Emerald Sketch, implements ongoing volunteerism to provide arts therapy to refugee children at shelters in NYC and outreach at varying locations. For more information on Nicole Porter's global mass trauma response, you can visit www.emeraldsketch.com.

Funding will be wonderfully allocated to support the production of direct art therapy services for disenfranchised children exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder due to American terror, as well as implement greater community outreach and trainings.