Culture & Community | Arts & Culture | Public Health
Top: Artist Faustin Adeniran at his booth, HeART of Healing. Bottom: Eileen Noonan (far left) painting on the mural along with participants. Abiba Biao Photos.
Eileen Noonan hasn’t painted in years, but after seeing an offering from artist Faustin Adeniran on the New Haven Green, she couldn’t help but re-embrace her creative urges. With a wide flat brush, she began making broad strokes along the base of a tree, coloring it a rich mahogany brown. The tree rose in a field of colorful flowers and bright grass. In the center of its branches, a bright red heart, surrounded by smaller hearts, sprouted amongst thick green leaves and the bright blue sky.
The painting was part of a larger call for action held in honor of International Overdose Awareness Day last Friday afternoon, at New Haven’s 10th annual Overdose Awareness Day event on the New Haven Green. Hosted by the New Haven Health Department and Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, the event offered free health resources and literature on substance use disorder and overdose prevention, as well as a resource fair with dozens of service providers and community nonprofits.
International Overdose Awareness Day takes place annually on August 31. Carlah Esdaile-Bragg, director of marketing and community relations at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, said one of the event’s goals is shifting the conversation around substance use disorder, so it is seen as a community-wide, multi-layered issue rather than an individual problem.
Nowhere, perhaps, does that feel more urgent than on the Green, which saw close to 100 overdoses in a single day in 2018. Earlier this summer, the New Haven Health Department reported 19 overdoses in just two days at the beginning of June.
“We’re right in the middle of an entrepreneurial hub. All these small businesses, as well as large corporations and their employees, many of them walk through the Green or they go to the small caterers and food vendors,” Esdaile-Bragg said. “They see this, they come over to see what’s going on and they get information for the people that they know and love.”
Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center CEO Michael R. Taylor echoed this sentiment, stating that those dealing with substance use disorders can experience internalized shame and self-stigma (as well as external stigma from those who see addiction as a sign of weakness or a moral failing), preventing them from accessing live-saving care.
“Frequently, addiction treatment is stigmatized and people are reluctant about seeking it and we don’t want that,” he said. “We want people to view substance use treatment like any other chronic condition, and we want to welcome them and embrace them so that they can come into care.”
Art-based health interventions have been a central pillar of Adeniran’s recent work, and increasingly behind the approach that Cornell Scott-Hill takes in its approach to care more broadly. A multidisciplinary artist, Adeniran has been partners with Cornell-Scott for over three years, and blends art, community, and public health messaging together. He joined the organization’s HeART of Healing Arts Initiative this year, taking inspiration from past projects he completed.
Cornell Scott-Hill Chief of Behavioral Health Ece Tek, Director of Marketing and Community Relations Carlah Esdaile-Bragg, and CEO Michael R. Taylor.
Last year, Adeniran held an arts healing workshop alongside Aimée Burg, gallery director for the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, for residents at the Yale School of Medicine. This March, Adeniran was a guest speaker at the TransCultural Exchange International Conference held in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, where he led a roundtable discussion titled “Art and Healing, Visible Mending.”
"With this project, communities are able to come together ... regardless of their economic status, or what they are doing,” he said. “ Everybody’s coming as a unifying entity to make art, and that’s the beauty of art. Art does not discriminate, art does not sideline people. It brings community together.”
As the event went on, more attendees began to join in, filling the canvas with color. Adeniran highlighted the use of acrylic paint as a beginner-friendly medium with a low barrier of entry for people to join in on the fun. This logic couldn’t be better exemplified than by Noonan, who, despite taking a hiatus from the creative arts for years, felt natural wielding a paintbrush.
With this being her first time attending the opioid overdose event, she said that she “felt good” painting and encouraged others to try art.
“Just get a brush, get some paper, get some paint. See what comes with it. You may surprise yourself!” Noonan said with a laugh.
At another table was Sarah E. Blodgett, prevention specialist at Alliance for Prevention & Wellness. Blodgett was stationed at Alliance by the Connecticut National Guard Counterdrug Task Force, where she is a Sergeant First Class (SFC), Drug Demand Reduction Officer.
“I’ve been with the army for almost 12 years, and this is my first mission in prevention work,” she said. “So again, we worked with a lot of students, we worked with a lot of kids about resiliency and coping, [as well as] just awareness about what drug trends we’re seeing out there.”
Under an initiative from the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), Alliance is one of five Regional Behavioral Health Action Organizations (RBHAO’s) across the state, tasked with providing public health services in the South-Central region of Connecticut on mental health promotion, suicide, and substance abuse prevention, among others.
Blodgett described Alliance’s work on expanding Narcan training among first responders and destigmatizing the language surrounding individuals dealing with substance use disorders by using person-first language. Naloxone, commonly referred to under the brand name Narcan, is a prescription medication administered through the nasal cavity that can reverse an opioid overdose.
She also highlighted the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for those in distress. Children under 18 who are in crisis can contact 211. Both lines are operated by United Way of Connecticut/211.
“Sometimes the resources are out there, we just don’t know where to look, so putting it out there is great.”