National Initiative for Arts & Health Across the Military

In partnership with Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Americans for the Arts and a coalition of federal and nonprofit agencies—including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Patient-Centered Care and Cultural Transformation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the NIH, Global Alliance for Arts and Health and National Center for Creative Aging—this groundbreaking initiative helped integrate the arts as tools for health and well-being for military-connected populations. Result: A series of first-of-their-kind national convenings—summits, roundtables, and community forums—engaged over 200 stakeholders and produced a national blueprint for action and two white papers detailing collective action strategies in policy, research and practice. These efforts laid the groundwork for a growing new field in arts, health and the military, and established new formal interagency partnerships that supports training for VA health teams on integrating arts partnerships into Whole Health models of care.