Finding creative ways of working with children with a trauma background and those who may have faced significant disruption in their lives.
Children who are experiencing barriers to their learning, due to the impact of trauma, may present with a number of difficulties including the inability to self-regulate and manage emotions. Providing mentoring support to these children requires creating a ‘safe space’ through building a trusting relationship, setting boundaries and establishing predictable routines. Using story sacks can provide a great multi-sensory approach to engage children in a non-threatening way, recognising their developmental stage and taking them from where they are at present.
Particularly within the early years and key stage one, children can struggle with communication and with the expectations of the classroom, potentially having missed out on developmental stages due to their pre-care experiences and further changes of carer placements and schools. Using story sacks supports the principles of the PACE approach (Playfulness Acceptance Curiosity and Empathy) promoting the experience of safety in your interactions with children. Story sacks avoid rigid approaches and provide flexibility meeting the child’s need to retain a degree of control, whilst also containment within the boundaries of the mentoring session.
How story sacks can support engagement:-
Firstly, allowing some time at the beginning of a session just to wonder what might be inside the bag and asking the child to guess from clues in the picture, helps to draw the child’s focus.
- Firstly, allowing some time at the beginning of a session just to wonder what might be inside the bag and asking the child to guess from clues in the picture, helps to draw the child’s focus.
- Next, either show the book cover for further clues or reveal one of the puppets, or related objects, inside to start to build a narrative about what the story may be about.
- As the story develops encourage the child to handle the objects or use puppets to act out the story as you read.
- Pause to ask about how the character is feeling? this can then lead to thoughts about a time when the child felt happy or sad, making exploring feelings and emotions more accessible to a child.
- Allow space for the child to work with the resources in their own way and adapt text to meet the needs of the child by reducing or extending the story supporting stage of development and emotional regulation.
- As confidence with using the story sack develops, encourage the child to take the lead in the story by going through a second time with the adult using the puppets. Building the child’s confidence and sense of empowerment through praising their engagement and small steps taken.
Examples of story sacks used to good affect:-
Sean the Shy Shark – exploring themes of being shy, friendship, bullying, being different.
Ringo the flamingo - exploring themes of loss, disability, being different and resilience.
Whilst the stories have relevant themes each child may take aspects of the story and make meaning relevant to their life story, in-addition to relevance to their current experiences. Extension activities using sensory resources can continue to build upon learning i.e. creating characters with different feelings faces out of playdough or clay.
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