Big Thought’s Creative Solutions is an arts-as-workforce intervention program for adjudicated youth, ages 10-17. Creative Solutions uses visual, performing and digital arts to help young people tap into their inherent greatness by improving job skills, promoting a positive self image, and increasing social and emotional development.
Implemented in partnership with Dallas County Juvenile Department, SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts and master teaching artist mentors, Creative Solutions uses an innovative, results-driven model to promote lasting, positive change in the youth served.
Creative Solutions has worked with some 14,000 Dallas youth over 25 years.
In Texas, more than 60 percent of juvenile offenders end up in trouble again within three years of probation or release. For Creative Solutions, the eight-year recidivism rate is just 10 percent – one of the lowest in the state.
Zy’Corey is a Creative Solutions participant at Big Thought.
“In the real world I’m not really accepted, but at Big Thought it’s like a family,” said Zy’Corey. “I feel like I can be myself. And that I can express myself through creative thinking, creative ways. I can dance and act. I can sing. Do poetry. I’ve took dance before, but when I came to Creative Solutions it just brought it out more, because it was like a family.”
“People that have been through the same thing – we’ve all been through the same thing. We’ve all been on probation and everything,” said Zy’Corey. “So I felt more comfortable around them. We could relate.”
In the summer of 2019 Zy’Corey was elevated to Peer Leader. He was also one of the few students who shared his story with Presidents Bush and Clinton during a visit last summer.
Zy’Corey’s latest endeavor is preparing for an original musical production of The Forgotten Voice, which was developed by the Creative Solutions students. The musical centers around the journey teenagers go through to discover themselves and their voice.
“We want the world to see that we can tell [the story], because some of us have been in that situation. We go through high school, we know what happens in high school,” said Zy’Corey.
When asked to describe the program in one word, Zy’Corey said, “Extraordinary!”
Founded in 2006 by Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones, The Rees-Jones Foundation is a private foundation that works with nonprofit organizations, primarily in North Texas, to serve and improve the quality of life of others in tangible ways.