Christine Valdez 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.

Tags: Art with Heart, Chill & Spill