Beginning in 1993, Ms. Sandven collaborated with Kansas City's Community Children's Theater, a volunteer arts organization founded in 1947, to re-imagine itself as a socially relevant youth development and theatre company: Chameleon. For ten years, Sandven wrote plays and musicals, collaborating with organizations throughout the Kansas City metro area to develop them with input from children grades K-12, reaching thousands of under-served audiences and winning multiple recognitions and awards. She taught at the Kansas City Art Institute and trained 50+ artist/educators to work in schools, group homes, lockdown facilities, summer camps, and recreation centers. 

In 2003, Ms. Sandven relocated to Arkansas to develop programs to harness the creativity and energy of overlooked and marginalized populations throughout Northwest Arkansas. As a public school English teacher, she integrated the arts in her classroom and voluntarily led professional development for teachers and school administrators throughout the state and beyond. She innovated after-school and weekend arts integration programs and raised funds from foundations and private donors, so children could access high quality arts programming and materials for free. In 2015, Sandven founded The Breakfast Club, an after-school program based at Ramay Junior High, a Title I school in Fayetteville. Authors and artists such as Darcy Pattison, Anna Myers, Mary Smith, Wolfgang Bucher, Josie Mai, Michelle Culhane, Shannon Wurst, Chris Goering, Christina Kanistanaux, Lia Uribe, Robin Spielberg, Theatre Re, Cerqua Rivera, and Aubrey Logan have collaborated with club members. 

In 2022, the program expanded to include a job-training-through-the-arts program called ART/Works!, placing high school students at the Faulkner Performing Arts Center on the University of Arkansas campus to learn on the job, working front of house, backstage, and in the art galleries. Every student involved in Sandven's programs is held responsible for community service; therefore, students perform at schools and lead art-making activities for children grades K-6. Since 2015, the program has reached 5,000+ audience members through FREE performances and workshops. Sandven regularly presents at conferences to help communities learn how to build strategic alliances and develop creative programs for under-served, overlooked populations. 

Sandven developed three courses for the University of Arkansas and the Center for Children and Youth in Fayetteville and currently teaches these courses to undergraduate and graduate students. Her most recent publication is a chapter in A Primer on Arts Integration. Her newest play about neurodiversity, Pondwatcher, is in development.