Project Self Discovery
Cleo Parker Robinson Dance

Young artists share their artwork with one another.

Amidst a cross section of Denver's multi-level income households and multi-ethnic communities, Project Self Discovery (PSD) is staking out alternative ground for 15- to 18-year-olds who are at risk for or involved in drugs, crime, and associated lifestyles. Project Self Discovery's ground occupies the non-conventional spaces of the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance studios and theater housed in the historic former Shorter AME Church. Cleo Parker Robinson, whose institution has been providing cultural enrichment programs to area youth for 30 years, developed this unique program with Harvey Milkman, professor of psychology at Metropolitan College. Milkman's research on the scope of adolescent problem behavior and investigation of "Natural Highs" as alternatives to substance abuse and crime provided the conceptual framework for Project Self Discovery.

In practice, the program engages young people in a three-tiered, 36-week intervention program for alcohol, tobacco, or other drug involvement that includes not only cognitive and behavioral change but also classes in the arts. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from 3 to 6 p.m., from September to May, 25 to 49 youth travel from their schools or correctional facilities to the Cleo Parker Robinson studios-often by PSD-provided Yellow Cab service to help ensure their attendance. In the program's first level, young people participate in personal growth classes and in skill development classes in the artistic concentration of their choice-visual art, music, or drama and movement arts (Tai Chi and dance).

In the second level, graduates make an additional 12-week commitment to participate in their classes as well as in a wilderness-based leadership experience, and in a community presentation demonstrating positive social and personal action through the artistic media of art, music, drama, and movement. The third level engages the youth in mentoring new participants."We're not trying to create performers," Milkman says, "What's more important is that they learn to work with others. This is a metaphor for democracy."