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- Slate Canyon Youth Center in Provo unveiled a mural promoting kindness and healing.
- Youth in custody collaborated with community partners to create the transformative artwork.
- The mural incorporates Aztec and Maya influences, emphasizing cultural heritage and positive change.
PROVO — The Slate Canyon Youth Center in Utah County unveiled a mural Monday, "A Time of Kindness and Healing," as part of an ongoing initiative to empower change and inspire healing through art.
The mural, created by youth in custody in collaboration with community partners, symbolizes the transformative power of creativity and second chances.
The six-week project was spearheaded by the nonprofit One Kind Act A Day, in partnership with the Utah Division of Juvenile Justice and Youth Services and Purpose Driven Partners, as well as on-site staff at Slate Canyon and local artist Beto Conejo.
"The mural draws heavily on the youth's cultural heritage, incorporating Aztec and Maya influences," Conejo explained. "They actually came up with a lot of the symbols themselves. On both sides, you see our Maya temples, and a lot of these books you see are representative of different levels of the temple — actually, the books the youth recommended for us."
The mural experience builds upon the empowered arts engagement that began in 2019 with the "Motivated Healing" mural at the Salt Lake Valley Youth Center.
Brett Peterson, director of the Utah Division of Juvenile Justice and Youth Services, emphasized the importance of art as a means for growth.
"It's an opportunity for young people to express themselves, to find their voice, to engage in something positive that's going to be lasting," Peterson said.
These artistic initiatives have demonstrated remarkable success in fostering change, with similar projects leading to periods of peace and positivity in other youth correctional facilities.
"We had a similar mural in Farmington, Utah, and in that facility, we went nine months without a single incident with our youth after our engagement that we had," Peterson said.
During the project, volunteers with One Kind Act a Day also mentored the teens participating in the mural project on the principles of kindness, service, and accountability. Peterson said the impact the project has on the teens often leads to significant behavioral changes.
"Kindness is not something we might necessarily equate to a juvenile detention facility, but what we found is if we focus on these principles of service, these principles of positive youth development and recognizing that while we always have accountability in these settings we also can tap into some of those things that are a little more from the heart and we can see significant change with young people," Peterson said.
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