RESOURCES & LINKS

Need more information about arts and aging? On this page, we offer resources that may help you as you try to interest your friends and colleagues in arts-and-aging programs, expand your own activities, or look for research results, newsletters, and other information about the creative engagement of older adults.

We’ll keep adding to these resources as we grow. Come back often to discover more.

National Center For Creative Aging

MnCAAN is closely affiliated with the National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA), located in Washington, D.C. Our founders got their inspiration from NCCA and from its founder, Susan Perlstein, who is now NCCA’s director of education and training. She was the keynote speaker at MnCAAN’s fall conference in 2007.

NCCA’s mission is to foster an understanding of the vital relationship between creative expression and the quality of life of older people. Its work focuses on education, research, policy, and advocacy on arts-and-aging themes. Gay Hanna is the Executive Director.

Among the many accomplishments of NCCA, it has helped to generate more than 20 regional arts-and-aging networks, partnered with Dr. Gene Cohen to do a landmark research study on the benefits of artistic engagement for older adults, and created a national campaign called The Art of Aging: Creativity Matters. NCCA also conducts training programs on arts and aging and publishes related materials.

Request a free subscription to NCCA’s e-newsletter to learn about new research, publications, training events, and other resources.

New Toolkit From NCCA

The National Center for Creative Aging has just released a comprehensive, 232-page toolkit to provide detailed guidance in how to set up and administer high-quality, professionally led arts programs for older adults. Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit is a first-of-its-kind resource for arts, healthcare and aging services organizations. The Toolkit is published jointly by NCCA, the National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts, and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC).

The Toolkit describes:

• The benefits of participatory arts education programs for older adults and society
• Aging services and arts infrastructures and their relationship to one another
• Best practices models on how to design, find partners for, fund, implement, sustain and evaluate arts education/participation programs for older adults
• Case studies of exemplary programs

MnCAAN highly recommends this excellent Toolkit for all organizations interested in setting up, supporting, or strengthening arts-and-aging programs. You can purchase it or download it for free from NCCA.