Youth in State Custody Try a Fresh Angle with Photography Program

Moss growing on a rock. A festive sprig of holly. Raindrops on a shiny surface. All of these images are part of an art show coming together at Parrott Creek Child and Family Services, a residential program for boys ages 13-18 who are in the custody of the Oregon Youth Authority.

“A creative class or program is a really great component for the youth here,” says Lisa Smith, Parrott Creek’s artist in residence and the photography teacher. “In terms of exposing them to new ideas, new skills, having it be a way to establish different coping mechanisms. But also having it be fun and not feeling like, ‘Oh, I have to go to art class.’”

Parrott Creek’s 16-bed program is temporarily located in Lake Oswego. Their 80-acre Oregon City campus is undergoing a $30 million rebuild right now that will more than double the number of youth they can serve. The youth at Parrott Creek are court-ordered to residential mental health treatment, in lieu of serving prison time. Stays are typically 9 to 12 months.

Smith has been working with students at Parrott Creek since 2015. She taught drawing, comics and painting before landing on photography around 2019. She likes how accessible it is, even to the students who don’t consider themselves artistically inclined. Not everybody can make great pictures, but everybody can take pictures and has plenty of experience with their cell phone.

One of the students in particular really impressed Smith this semester. The last time that Parrott Creek ran the photography program, he was not particularly interested. But this time around, he really took to the curriculum and ended up making one of Smith’s favorite images. He noticed moss growing out of a rock wall and used the macro function on his camera (the students use Nikons) to get in so close that it stopped being just moss and started looking like a forest.

“It blew me away,” Smith says. “I was just, like, ‘all right. I feel like my work here is done.’ Especially coming from a young man who wasn’t terribly engaged before, and then to see this sort of engagement. The work was just stunning to me.”

The final art show will be hung Dec. 11, but it is not open to the public.

The benefits to the art curriculum at Parrott Creek have been huge, according to Leah Lamb, the residential program manager. The biggie is the concept of healthy self-expression.

“Often times our kids yell and scream and cuss and hit things because those are all the things that they were taught, and those are the skills they come to us with,” Lamb says. “Through photography, they’re actually able to express what they’re feeling and thinking in a way that everyone else can hear them.”