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I’m Packing Up My Bags

I’m flying to the Dominican Republic this week to help create a counseling program for a non-profit organization called Children of the Nations (COTN).

COTN works with destitute and impoverished children who often do not have access to an education, medical care, food, or a roof over the heads. Mental health services are a luxury that pail in comparison to other urgent needs, so its no surprise that they aren’t much of a priority.

Yet COTN is changing this trend. It recognizes that helping children who live in poverty must have more than food, clothing, and textbooks to be renewed and receive hope. To heal from war, natural disasters, and other traumatic events, children must be given an opportunity to process these things and make sense of them.

That’s where play therapy enters the scene. It gives children a way to make sense of their lives in a way that is safe and comfortable to them. Furthermore, it’s not inhibited by the language barriers, need for translators, or cultural differences that are frequently encountered in talk therapy. As a result, the counseling program I’m hoping to develop in the Dominican Republic is based in play therapy.

I’m excited to be a part of this new venture, and I’m hopeful that the child counseling program will develop in the Dominican Republic in the next few months. If it works, we will start building similar programs in Africa.
This trip means that next week I won’t be posting a blog entry because I’ll be out of town, and probably without an internet connection!

Source: Amy Wickstrom, PhD, Marriage and Family Therapist, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor. The play therapy blog at More Than a Toy (www.morethanatoy.com/blog)