Eyes on the street: Photovoice, liberation psychotherapy, and the emotional landscapes of urban children

Abstract

Eyes on the Street is a therapeutic photovoice program which empowered 25 predominantly African American children (ages 7–12) to use digital photography to express and process emotions about their neighborhood, the Hilltop South community of Pittsburgh. Many of the Hilltop South neighborhoods suffer from the effects of systemic sociopolitical disenfranchisement and trauma. This program implemented photovoice as a trauma-healing intervention to empower youth in the Hilltop South to recognize, utilize, and artistically express their emotional responses to the public places of their neighborhood. The program's objectives were to create activities and spaces where children can practice emotional agility by articulating their feelings as images, and to introduce children to a self-advocacy tool with which to assert the needs of their community. This paper lays out the principles of liberation psychotherapy, discusses how they have guided the program development for Eyes on the Street, and showcases the details of the trauma-healing photovoice curriculum.