COMPAS
COMPAS is a Minnesota arts education nonprofit based in Saint Paul. Its teaching artists work with schools, community organizations, older adult communities and disability services. Programmes include workshops, performances and longer residencies, with arts activities adapted to the people and setting involved.
Organization profile
- Organization type
- Arts and health organization
- Headquarters / base
- Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
- Geographic scope
- Minnesota, including the Twin Cities and communities elsewhere in the state
- Community Programs in the Arts and Sciences
Medical focus
Activities
Population served
Origins and organizational development
COMPAS traces its roots to a Minnesota Poets in the Schools initiative funded in 1967. The programme developed within the Saint Paul Council of Arts and Sciences before becoming COMPAS, or Community Programs in the Arts and Sciences, in 1974. Its teaching work expanded beyond poetry into other art forms.
COMPAS records a merger with Young Audiences of Minnesota in 2009. In December 2018, VSA Minnesota announced that it planned to close in September 2019 and that COMPAS would take on its school arts programming for students with disabilities and special education needs. This announcement concerned particular programmes; other VSA services were assigned to other organizations. COMPAS describes its own remit as statewide.
Arts programmes for older adults
COMPAS works in independent living communities, assisted living and memory care settings. Its Artful Aging residencies bring teaching artists to the host organization for a planned sequence of sessions. The format includes preparation with staff, opportunities to meet participants and a concluding community celebration.
The available art forms include visual art, writing, music, dance and theatre. Shorter workshops, performances and events offer other ways for communities to participate. These are descriptions of arts education and engagement; the programmes are not presented here as treatments for a particular disease.
Sources: [2].
Disability inclusion and access
Its disability programmes serve children and adults with physical, intellectual or developmental disabilities, as well as people with ongoing mental health needs. COMPAS describes work in residential care, day programmes and community settings. A documented 2019 collaboration with Avivo brought arts workshops to drop-in centres serving Hennepin County residents with serious and persistent mental illness.
The Minnesota State Arts Board’s FY2026 Accessible Arts register awarded COMPAS support for staff and teaching artist development and improvements to its website and electronic communications. The award documents a current accessibility project while leaving its implementation results to subsequent reporting.
Further health reading
COMPAS works in memory-care settings. This overview of dementia offers background for adapting creative activities and supporting participation.
This guide to autism and differing communication and support needs offers context for COMPAS’s broader work in inclusive arts and developmental-disability settings.
Sources
- COMPAS: mission and history
- COMPAS: older adult communities
- COMPAS: disability communities
- Minnesota State Arts Board: FY2026 Accessible Arts grants
- COMPAS: contact and office accessibility
- VSA Minnesota — open letter announcing its September 2019 closure and programme transfers; December 2018
- nia.nih.gov: health background for Dementia
- nimh.nih.gov: health background for Autism spectrum disorder
Institutional relationships