Seeing Resilience : Qualitative and Arts-based Doctoral Research to Understand Images from Photography-based Mentoring Program View Digital Media

Workshop Presentation
Sarah Kremer  

This interactive workshop features the methodology of and results from Seeing Resilience: A Qualitative and Arts-Based Study to Understanding Images Made in a Photography-Based Mentoring Program, a doctoral dissertation project that focused on understanding the phenomenon of youth and adult experiences in self-efficacy, mentoring relationships, and connection to the program community as they cumulatively contribute to youth resilience in a photography-based mentoring program. The study aimed to validate and expand upon results of earlier quantitative program evaluation reports through the use of photographs and writing as data from program participants (n=34) who submitted materials based on prompts and contributed to meaning making in a response process designed to gather a holistic and sensory experience of the data. Self-efficacy, mentoring relationships, and connection to the program community as resilience-building experiences are understood through Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. The findings successfully validated and expanded upon existing evaluation results, resulting in a rich and more nuanced understanding of youth experiences of self-efficacy, youth and adult experiences of their mentoring relationships, and all participants’ connections to the program community as they contribute to overall youth resilience. The results suggest a new set of proposed mechanisms of change from combining art making and youth mentoring that have relevance for the fields of art therapy and youth mentoring, as ways to combine the dual interventions to enhance impact, and for general programming involving creativity for youth and non-clinical ally adults.