We receive updates from Stacey, who has been using our Chill & Spill curriculum with young women in South Africa. This was an update from a February workshop she held:

On a recent Saturday, a small room in Soweto was filled with a wonderful creative spirit. A group of young women, all orphans between the ages of 13 and 18, enjoyed a Chill & Spill workshop themed ”˜From Our Hearts to Yours.’ I adapt all of our activities to fit relevant issues related to their lives here in South Africa, as they hail from an area which suffers from poverty, unemployment, child-headed households resulting from the HIV/Aids pandemic, crime, and teen pregnancy. They all live with guardians or are in foster care.

I chose to form this group as I believe strongly in the ”˜girl effect’ – if we can uplift and empower young women the entire community benefits. There is a great need for a safe space to communicate what’s going on in their lives and we do it by providing a place for creativity, peer support, and a sense of ”˜belonging’. Five of the group members had already received Chill & Spill journals six months previously when the group first began. Our group, named Mekgabiso Ya Pelo (“Art with Heart” in SeSotho), has grown and now there are 20 of us!

During our Saturday session, the new group met, and there was a grateful exchange of energy as they each received a Chill & Spill journal and art materials gifted by Art with Heart. I very much enjoyed giving the gifts to them.

February is the month of love, and so we focused on the love and care that each young woman can give to herself. Our theme was a variation on the ”˜Me, Myself & I’ activity in Chill & Spill. I believe our potential is expressed through the quality of our experiences, so we discussed self-awareness, being good to ourselves, and loving who we are. It is important for each young woman to feel seen, validated and indelibly connected to each other through a sense of abundance.

I hope that the presence of a caring adult provides a sense of safety from which these young women can set out to discover and grow. I am touching just a few, but I hope that my touch is a significant one. Thank you to Art with Heart for their encouragement and for reaching out to us in South Africa!

Art with Heart would also like to thank The Sammamish Club for making this possible!

We received this letter the other week from a sibling of a cancer patient. We love this…

I am 10 years old and wanted to let you know that I love this book [Magnificent Marvelous Me] and I can express my feelings in here.

Before I did this book, I felt lonely like there was no one around. After I did this book, I felt really happy and important. This book helped me learn that it’s okay to show the world who I really am.

We received this letter from a parent in Austin, TX:

My name is Kelly, I have a 7 year old daughter. She is the most loving child, but struggles every day with crippling Perfectionism. She has social anxiety, she is self-defeating and feels she cannot and should not do much to avoid failure. Her biggest issue is feeling inadequate.

We have taken steps to help her change how she reacts to things and how she sees herself and the world around her. She is a very intelligent child and has fought us every step of the way. For Christmas I thought this book would be a fun way for her to open up about her feelings and express herself in a new medium. She did not touch it until today.

We worked together on a few pages in Magnificent Marvelous Me tonight. When I asked her about herself and how that page made her feel, she yelled, “I am awesome!”

After she said it, she stopped and looked at me and we both smiled and cried. She said she did not mean to say that, but it felt great. I have NEVER heard her say that unless she is forced to.

I cannot tell you how great this was. It is a small thing, but a giant step for us.

Thank you so much. Art has always been very important to me and this is a great way for my child to open up to herself and express emotion in a new way. She is finding herself and I cannot say thanks enough!

Celebrate those who help hospitalized children cope

In March we celebrate women’s history and basketball.  It is also Child Life Month an opportunity to recognize and honor those who provide special services for hospitalized children suffering from health-related challenges.

Children aren’t equipped to cope with traumatic health challenges like adults. That’s where Child Life Specialists step in. Terminal illness, loss of a family member or other serious hospital events can cause kids to feel frightened or confused. Before there were Child Life Specialists, they often faced these situations – and their emotions – alone.  The sights, sounds and smells of a hospital or watching a sibling undergo a painful procedure can create severe stress for a child, but with the help of these certified professionals, kids can better understand and manage these experiences.

The Child Life Specialist is a true hero who helps ease the burden of a child’s trauma with targeted interventions and creative tools that allow kids to work through their anxiety and express their feelings. Hospital preparation, creative play and therapeutic art workbooks (such as those created by Art with Heart) are some of the tactics they use to help children understand what’s happening around them, foster an environment of emotional support, and help them cooperate with the medical services they need. Research shows that the services a Child Life Specialist provides can help children through the stress of trauma and pain, causing them to actually heal faster both physically and emotionally.

A while back, my own son received special treatment from a Child Life Specialist before surgery, and I found that he wasn’t the only beneficiary. Both my husband and I found our anxiety levels decreased exponentially as we watched her demonstrate what was going to happen during the surgery in child-friendly terms. While in the waiting room, he happily worked through his “Oodles of Doodles” (Art with Heart) book and by the time they wheeled him off, he was happy and content.

So this month as we’re honoring women’s history and watching basketball, let’s take a moment to recognize Child Life Month. While we all hope to avoid the need for these services, it’s nice to know that truly heroic professionals are there for our most vulnerable if they ever do.

Steffanie Lorig, Executive Director

We got this letter the other day from a 10 year old boy who received Magnificent Marvelous Me from a Child Life Specialist…

I am 10 years old and wanted to let you know that this book is amazing and you should make more books that are similar and I would love that.

Before I did the book, I felt amazed by it.

After I did some of the book, I felt better with my feelings and how I am now.

The book so far has helped me with my feelings alot because I have been very scared to talk to my parents about my feelings and I can now talk about my feelings.

We were so pleased when the Young Heroes Program asked Art with Heart to participate in one of their service learning days.

One youth worker told us, “We lead a diverse group of middle schoolers a good portion of them are at-risk and off track. Many of them live in neighborhoods rife with violence and struggle internally with anger and confusion.”

She invited Art with Heart to participate because she felt that a workshop on non-violent expression would be very good for the kids.  She was particularly interested in having Art with Heart do an activity out of Chill & Spill so they could learn how to use creativity as an effective outlet to deal with the issues facing them. She continues, “It would be very relevant to our topic, and would be a way to finally engage the kids in art in our program!”

Their service topic was “The Roots of Conflict,” and they covered youth violence, gang/community violence, and methods of peaceful communication. Art with Heart invited Dr. Ana, a child & community psychologist with 30+ years experience to lead the workshop. She has been an avid supporter and contributor to Art With Heart since first discovering “Oodles of Doodles” many years ago.

Dr. Ana led all 55 students in Chill & Spill’s “Powerful/Powerless” activity, focusing on their strengths. She then asked them to use these strengths as a starting point for an “Exquisite Corpse” poem.

The youth leader told us that she was amazed at how much the students shared when they were done. “I’ve never seen them want to share so much! It was amazing.”

Ana recalls, “Our Young Heroes learned strategies to access their deep, knowing selves and express their precious pearls of experience and wisdom. As they learn to connect with their communities in active, compassionate ways, Chill & Spill activities prepare them for this important work by helping them to know themselves better, act confidently, and react peacefully.”

Christine V. is a Prevention and Intervention Specialist at Anacortes Middle School who has been using Chill & Spill or over two years now. We’ve asked her to send us her updates and will post them here as she has time to share:

Last week we did “My Place.” Every time I’ve done this activity with a group, I have to sort of feel around for the frame of reference. But with this group I felt like I was just going along for the ride.

All of them knew right away what their special place was, some were real, some imaginary, some an amalgam. And most of them already had a lot of practice of going to their special place when things were tough.

I was mesmerized by their descriptions of their places and how they brought in so many of the senses. Listening to them, I could smell and, in some case, even taste what they were describing. When we talked about the activity afterward, the main focus was on ways we can solidify the place in our minds so we can go there any time. So we decided that next week (today) we would do collages of our special spaces to really help us see them.

I also started recruitment for a second group, to start next week. That one will be all boys, since this one turned out to be all girls.

Christine V. is a Prevention and Intervention Specialist at Anacortes Middle School who has been using Chill & Spill for over two years now. We’ve asked her to send us her updates and will post them here as she has time to share:

I started a new Chill & Spill series with a group of four 7th and 8th grade girls. Two of them have past experience with C&S, one individually and one in a group.

We did the first activity, “Writing and Drawing Can Help You Figure Stuff Out.” Because our time is very short, I’m trying to keep my talking to a minimum. So I just gave them the basic instructions about confidentiality and stressed that I have two things that are big with me:

1. Whatever comes out, comes out. Just let it.
2. Keep the pen (crayon, pencil, marker, whatever..) on the paper.

Some great stuff can come out at the point where you think you’re done. And that’s what they did as they sprawled all over the room. Afterward, we shared just a little and they were off to their next class.
I haven’t done a group since last June and it was great to be back. Looking forward to the next session! More to come!