The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for an integrated arts therapy intervention to influence youth at risk for delinquent behavior. Toward this goal, we applied a one-group pre-post experimental design to assess the effect of an Integrated Arts Therapy Program on participants' selfreported life satisfaction, self-esteem (global and academic), mood (general and momentary), and emotional and behavioural problems (emotional, conduct, hyperactivity, peer, and prosocial behavior) in a sample of students with risk of delinquency. Teachers identified at risk youngsters and 95 students aged between 8 and 17 participated in 16 different gender-mixed groups for 16 sessions during eight-week program period. Results of within group comparisons indicated positive, statistically significant improvements from pre-to posttest on all of the measures: (1) increased global self-esteem (the Global Negative Self-Evaluations Scale), academic self-esteem (the Perceived Academic Competence Scale), and life satisfaction (the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale); (2) decreased total difficulties with conduct and hyperactivity problems, and improved prosocial behavior (the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire); and (3) improved momentary and general mood over time by intervention. These findings indicated that the multi-modal arts therapy group-based program for students with risk for delinquency may be an effective intervention and can lead to at least short-term positive changes by improving participants' self-esteem, wellbeing and behavioral problems.
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