Beravement Training for Car-Givers of Children

Beravement Training for Car-Givers of Children - Image From a very young age, so many children are forced to deal with trauma and hurt, often caused by the death or the abandonment of family members. Sadly enough, little attention is given to help these children deal with their emotions. We have seen the results of this: feelings of rejection, loneliness, pain and hurt that lead to depression, bad relationships and bad performances in school and even more destructive behaviour like violence, crime, promiscuity, taking to the street and addictions.

Our Child Development department in Africa has recently started a partnership with Rob’s Rob Smetherham Bereavement Service for Children, an organization trains caregivers to provide psycho-social support through play for children affected by death and loss. The training is aimed to help caregivers understand grief and consider losses, and then to understand how loss impacts the lives of children, understand the grief process, and then to show how to use play skills to communicate with children.These plays can include:

  • Drawing of family pictures: the family picture gives you an idea of the different family members, and their relationships, who is living in one home, marriages and who is deceased, etc.
  • In the ‘Me Bag’ the child writes down all the things he/she likes or doesn’t like about him/herself and the things that make him/her happy or sad.
  • The method of clay can be used by the child to build a face of somebody who haunts her or who he/she is angry with.

    • The complete training program consists of a foundation skills, advanced skills and training of trainers programme.