Art Helps Clients Cope At Continuum’s First Show

The pill bottles hang suspended in the air, a testament to their ubiquity and the damage they cause. Behind them are arrayed a series of facts and statistics about drug overdoses. Over 1,000 people die from them in Connecticut every year. Since 1999, almost 1 million have died nationwide, with opioids accounting for two-thirds of those deaths.

Sarah, a client of Continuum of Care, made the piece to commemorate International Overdose Awareness Day, on August 31, tied to an event with Musical Intervention on the Green. ​“There were a lot of people looking for resources to help,” she said, after ​“mental health crises that they had.” Sarah’s piece now hangs alongside the work of many others in Continuum of Care’s first art show, running now for a month at the organization’s headquarters on Legion Avenue.

“Art club,” part of Continuum’s programming, ​“really means a lot to me,” said Sarah, who agreed to be interviewed for this story. As an avenue for personal expression, ​“it really helps us cope with the things that we go through.” Art could be said to be its own coping mechanism. 

She also made a piece focusing on autism; she was ​“diagnosed as being on the spectrum,” she said, when she was a teenager. In the years since, she has heard a lot of negative connotations with that diagnosis — ​“words like ​‘epidemic,’ ​‘burden,’ ​‘need to fix something,’ ” — ​“but really,” she said, ​“we’re more aware that being neurodivergent” just means ​“our brains are wired differently. We all have different brains,” and ​“some brains have more needs — needs that need to be met.”

“I should be treated with respect,” she said, ​“not just stigmatized with what is perceived out there with mental health.”

Continuum of Care has taken on the mission ​“to enable people who are challenged with mental illness, intellectual disabilities, addiction, or homelessness to rebuild a meaningful life and thrive in the community,” as the nonprofit’s website states. Continuum started in 1966 as the New Haven Halfway House, a residence for people with mental illness ​“and one of the first transitional facilities in the country.” That house is still in operation, but is now one of 56 Continuum locations across the state. ​“Each year we provide community-based residential, crisis and respite, case management and community support services to more than 2,000 individuals with mental illness, developmental disabilities, behavioral health issues, and/or substance abuse problems,” its website states, ​“with the goal of full and productive integration with the community.”

Daniel Onorato started working at Continuum of Care as a recovery support specialist in May 2023; he had gone through the recovery program successfully himself, and the staff saw that he was an accomplished artist and musician and recommended him first for an internship and then a position in Continuum of Care’s health and wellness team. 

“One of the first ideas I had was to do an art show,” he said. He began by starting an art club. ​“We opened up a space, we brought as much art supplies as we can, and anyone was welcome to come,” he said. Over the next year and a half, he got to know the residents at the facility — ​“tons of people love making art,” he said — and he began gathering pieces.

“I try to connect with the people I’m working with and get to know them, so that I’m aware of things they might be passionate about, or give them options to discover something they might be passionate about,” Onorato said. ​“If there’s a way for you to engage with yourself and your own way of expression,” or even if ​“you find something you care about, it’s going to be that much more important for you to grow and get better, and maintain recovery.… It adds value to your life.” Onorato speaks and works from experience. ​“I’m the first test subject on this theory of mine,” he said with a laugh, ​“and it appears to be true.”

“It’s a creative way to help the clients with their journey,” said Touré Diggs, director of wellness and employment support services. The art club has been ​“a hit with all the residents,” with the show as a way to showcase their efforts. ​“Art expression,” he said, turned out to be ​“one of the most successful ways to get them to engage.”

Asked about why it has worked, Diggs suggested that ​“if it was something they’d done in the past, we brought that inner child back out, that inner creativity that maybe they weren’t connecting with.”

Program Manager Ivette Altieri sees the positive effects that creating art can have. ​“Folks are all going through different things,” she said, and making art is, first of all, a form of expression; as Diggs put it, ​“if they can’t express it verbally, maybe they can do it through art.” It’s also a way to spend time that ​“distracts from everything else,” Altieri said. People become engrossed in making art, engaging their minds the same way fitness programs can get the body moving. Finishing a piece of art can build self-confidence; ​“you can just see them flourishing,” Altieri said, ​“growing into doing things and engaging with others.… It’s an amazing transition to see them push themselves.” The art club is also about ​“being there for each other,” creating a sense of community. All of it fits into the broader idea of ​“wellness overall,” Altieri said.

Continuum of Care has started to do similar programs with music (Onorato himself performs around New Haven and elsewhere as Old Milk Mooney), from karaoke to a talent show. They have plans to do a guitar group as well, with formalized lessons. Right now, the health and wellness team is Onorato and Altieri, with Diggs overseeing their efforts. But they are planning to hire another person to help expand. ​“It’s been fun to see how this program is growing, and there’s so many more possibilities. The more we do, the more we’re able to do,” Onorato said, in ​“being able to help people.” This can mean a ​“wider reach” and ​“more activities.”

Continuum of Care’s art club already fits into a wider panoply of activities, from sports to museum visits to apple picking to wilderness walks. Altieri has seen people who first engage with the art club move through the other activities as well. ​“Little by little, they started with just sitting down, and that was all they wanted to do,” Altieri said. In time, they were doing art and tennis. ​“We see them from not being so active, to active — that’s our overall goal,” she said.

The health and wellness team structures its overall programming around the concept from the national Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that there are eight principles of wellness: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental. For each person at Continuum, each of the principles represents a possible entry point, a way into embracing the other seven. 

“If you can get people to connect with one of those principles, you take it,” Diggs said. ​“Everyone may not want to engage in the financial piece, or the vocational piece.” Art taps into a few of the principles at once. ​“You find that common ground to connect, that lets you in,” Diggs said. ​“Then you can work on the other areas, at their pace.” But first, ​“you open the door.”

“Since I’ve joined a year and a half ago, our reach and what we offer has definitely grown,” Onorato said — continuing a pattern set earlier by Diggs and Altieri — ​“so we’re heading in the right direction.”

To learn more about Continuum of Care, visit its website.