Creative Arts Therapy at Rikers Island Featured in New Episode of NYC Health + Hospitals Podcast The Remedy

Creative Arts Therapy at Rikers Island Featured in New Episode of NYC Health + Hospitals Podcast The Remedy

Feb 10, 2026

New York, NY — NYC Health + Hospitals today released a new episode of its podcast, The Remedy, featuring leaders and health care providers from the nation’s largest municipal health care system. Season 3 Episode 1: Healing Through Art: Creative Therapies at Rikers Island covers NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services’ (CHS) Creative Arts Therapy program, the oldest and largest jail-based arts therapy program in the nation. In this episode of The Remedy, Dr. Michael Shen sits down with Dr. Barbara Bethea, the program’s director, and music therapist Jeff Angell to explore how poetry, music, dance, and drama are providing individuals detained at Rikers with new language for hope, self-discovery, and healing. They discuss how arts interventions engage CHS’ patients, recreate a music therapy session, and reflect on the program’s impact, from the dayrooms at Rikers Island to the stage at Carnegie Hall. Season 3 Episode 1: Healing Through Art: Creative Therapies at Rikers Island is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio and other podcast platforms.

“Creative Arts Therapy is a beautiful way to support the healing of our patients,” said The Remedy Host Michael Shen, MD. “I had such a wonderful time learning about this program and the impact it has on our patients at Rikers.”

“We use art as an expressive process to help patients talk about issues in their lives,” said Dr. Barbara Bethea, Director of Creative Arts Therapy at NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services. “Arts gives them a sense of agency and a social bond with one another. It’s quite an amazing experience.”

“Music therapy at Rikers includes drumming, singalongs, song-writing, and beat-making,” said Jeff Angell, LCAT, Creative Arts Therapy Supervisor and Music Therapist at NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services. “A common refrain I hear from our patients is, ‘I forgot where I was today.’ Music can help our patients enter a new emotional space and learn new things about themselves.”

NYC Health + Hospitals’ role as a public hospital system and the major safety net health care system for New York City offers a singular voice that no other health care podcast can. It shows how the public health care system provides care for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay; offers exciting ways to support patients, including new models of care to address behavioral health needs; and responds to the challenges that face New York City, including homelessness and the climate crisis. The host and guests are all employees of NYC Health + Hospitals with a special perspective on the work they do for patients.

Previous episodes of The Remedy cover the following topics:

Season 2

• Season 2 Episode 1: Community Health Workers covers these workers’ vital role in bridging the gap between medical care and social needs like housing, food, and transportation. With over 250 community health workers, NYC Health + Hospitals has built one of the largest programs in the nation.

• Season 2 Episode 2: How NYC Care Helps Uninsured New Yorkers highlights how the program provides health care to low-income and uninsured New Yorkers — regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.

• Season 2 Episode 3: Treating Violence covers the critical work the public health system’s Hospital Violence Interruption programs (HVIP) do to prevent violence, save lives, and heal communities.

• Season 2 Episode 4: The New Ellis Island highlights the historic work of NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arrival Center, a central intake facility for all newly arriving asylum seekers run by NYC Health + Hospitals’ Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center (HERRC) program.

• Season 2 Episode 5: Street Medicine in NYC covers the efforts of social workers the public health system’s Street Health Outreach + Wellness (SHOW) program, a street medicine program that provides medical care, behavioral health, and social services to New Yorkers who are experiencing homelessness or historically disconnected from care.

• Season 2 Episode 6: How AI Will Transform Healthcare in NYC covers how the public health system is using artificial intelligence to enhance patient care, improve efficiency, and support its workforce.

• Season 2 Episode 7: No Wrong Door: Addiction Care in NYC covers how NYC Health + Hospitals is treating substance use disorder with a comprehensive approach—whether someone walks into an emergency room, seeks help at a methadone clinic, or connects through community outreach.

Season 1

• Season 1 Episode 1: The Power of Primary Care features three primary care doctors on how working with their patients informs their roles in leadership at NYC Health + Hospitals.

• Season 1 Episode 2: Food is Medicine recognizes that plant-based eating is powerful medicine – it can lower high blood pressure and bring type 2 diabetes into remission – and considers how hospitals can help their patients pursue a plant-based diet.

• Season 1 Episode 3: Ready for the Next Pandemic considers how New York City’s public hospital system has consistently answered the challenge of Ebola, COVID-19, and mpox all while staying ahead of the latest health crisis.

• Season 1 Episode 4: Women’s Health considers how New York City’s public hospital system is expanding access to women’s health care in a time when many women across the country are facing restricted access to care.

• Season 1 Episode 5: Caring for the Newest New Yorkers covers how the staff at NYC Health + Hospitals are rising to the challenge of caring for the over 175,000 asylum seekers who have come to our city since spring 2022.

• Season 1 Episode 6: Caring for Homeless Patients covers how NYC Health + Hospitals serves its over 70,000 patients who are experiencing homelessness.

• Season 1 Episode 7: Helping Healers Heal covershow NYC Health + Hospitals supports the mental health of its more than 40,000 health care workers.

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MEDIA CONTACT: pressoffice@nychhc.org

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About NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services
NYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services (CHS) was established in the fall of 2015 as a new division of NYC Health + Hospitals in order to provide high-quality health care to people in the custody of the NYC Department of Correction. In addition to providing direct patient care in the jails, CHS conducts pre-arraignment health screenings and court-ordered forensic examinations. As part of NYC Health + Hospitals, CHS is able to leverage the resources of the nation’s largest municipal health care system to improve the care provided to New Yorkers while they are in custody and to help them successfully return to their communities.

About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest municipal health care system in the nation serving more than a million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient care locations across the city’s five boroughs. A robust network of outpatient, neighborhood-based primary and specialty care centers anchors care coordination with the system’s trauma centers, nursing homes, post-acute care centers, home care agency, and MetroPlusHealth —all supported by 11 essential hospitals. Its diverse workforce of more than 46,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.