With Women
Trauma-Informed Psychological Care through the Arts at Karnataka State Home for Women, Bangalore
The Foundation for Arts and Health India (FAHI) has been implementing an ongoing trauma-informed expressive arts and psychosocial care programme for women at the Karnataka State Home for Women, Bengaluru since April 2025, initiated with the support of Center of Excellence, NIMHANS. The project works with women navigating histories of abandonment, violence, mental illness, displacement, and institutionalisation, using arts-based and body-oriented approaches to support emotional regulation, self-expression, reflection, and peer connection. Sessions are conducted bi-weekly within the institution through modalities including movement, visual art, storytelling, music, craft, play, drama, rhythm, and somatic awareness practices. The project is led by Bhargavi Raman, and co-facilitated by Sannidhi Surop and Shravanthi Venkatesh, along with a team of two interns supporting facilitation, observation, and documentation.
Over the past year, the programme has facilitated consistent engagement and emerging shifts in regulation, communication, and group cohesion among residents. Activities are designed within a trauma-informed framework that prioritises safety, choice, cultural familiarity, and non-verbal forms of expression, particularly for participants who may not be able to access verbal sharing. Alongside direct sessions with residents, the project also includes staff care sessions, reflective evaluation processes, and the development of a replicable model for trauma-informed arts-based mental health care in institutional settings.
Co-Facilitators: Sannidhi Surop & Shravanthi Venkatesh
Programme Lead: Bhargavi Raman
Project supervised by: Katia Verrault, DMT
Programme Director: Maitri Gopalakrishna, Dramatherapist and Counselling Psychologist
You can view a glimpse of the work in these videos: English version and Kannada version (Please note that these were created about 8 months ago)
We are also happy to share with you that our work at the State Home has been published in the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship (GAIMF) Anthology on Trauma-Informed Practice in Global Settings (pages 83-89).
If you would like to support this work, you can contribute here. Please ensure that you add ‘State Home’ in the comments while making the contribution.