Virtual Event
Artist residency staff and leaders regularly navigate mental health and psychological concerns among artists, staff, or within the broader residency environment. Responding effectively requires understanding our own responses to stress, recognizing when someone may need additional support, and knowing the limits of our role.
This hands-on training led by a mental health clinician offers concrete tools and approaches for recognizing and responding to psychological distress in your residency community.
Paid program—advanced registration required.
What The Training Covers:
What are the signs of escalating stress? How do we engage with someone who may be experiencing psychological distress? And when is it time to involve a mental health professional for additional support?
This training, led by licensed mental health clinician Katie Hadden, is designed specifically for residency leaders and practitioners. It was first created for the staff at Penland and has run for the past five years, supporting a range of practitioners. In this special session, the content has been updated for ACA's network—complete with practical frameworks for noticing signs of increased stress, listening and responding with care, and linking people to appropriate resources when necessary. Participants will explore a range of situations residency staff commonly encounter and work through issues identified by past participants.
The session offers multiple approaches for responding to distress while helping participants clarify the boundaries of their roles. Attendees will also receive handouts and resources to share with their broader teams.
Attendees will take away:
- A practical framework for noticing signs of distress and responding with care
- Greater confidence in engaging with someone who may be struggling
- Tools for understanding their own stress responses and boundaries
- Scenario-based approaches for common situations
- Resources and handouts to share with their teams
Facilitator:
Katie Hadden, LCSW, LCAS at Flourish Counseling + Wellness (Ashville, NC)
Katie Hadden is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been supporting clients with mental health and wellbeing for over 12 years. She focuses her work on supporting adults who have experienced trauma and the emotional experiences that accompany these events in life and offers evidence-based practices including EMDR, CBT, Mindfulness, Equine Assisted Psychotherapy, and somatic techniques. She currently serves as the Program Director of Flourish Counseling & Wellness, PLLC. She has partnered since 2021 with Penland School of Craft to offer annual trainings for their on-the-ground staff in responding to mental health issues as well as monthly consultations for Penland’s leadership.
Special Guest:
Geoffrey Jackson Scott, Creative Director, Co-Founder at Peoplmovr (Los Angeles, CA)
Geoffrey Jackson Scott is a senior creative executive and strategist whose work bridges creative development, cultural strategy, and public engagement—building stories and structures that connect artists and audiences over time. For more than two decades, his work has spanned theater, opera, museums, immersive experiences, social practice, and cultural institutions, with a throughline of artist and project development, public programming, and cross-sector collaboration. He is the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Peoplmovr, a creative studio shaping culture through story, strategy, and involvement. He has held senior leadership roles including Director of Public Engagement at the Museum of the Moving Image; Director of New Play Development and Dramaturgy at Victory Gardens Theater; and Literary Associate at New York Theatre Workshop, where he led new work initiatives and the emerging artist development program across eight seasons. He currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for Artist Communities Alliance.
Geoffrey has curated and produced festivals, selected and developed new work, led commissioning initiatives, and designed public programs. His work includes television development with Hawk Pictures and immersive location-based entertainment in collaboration with Culture House Immersive.Select projects include The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as Told to Alex Haley (Metropolitan Opera), NationX (Intelligent Mischief/13EXP), and The Mile-Long Opera (High Line, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, THE OFFICE performing arts + film). He consults for the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and regularly speaks on equity-centered public engagement, creative development, and cultural strategy.
