Design a Workshop Plan detailing at least Four Integrative Creative Interventions.
Name:
Institution:
Course:
Tutor:
Date:
Design a Workshop Plan detailing at least Four Integrative Creative Interventions.
Introduction
The emergent social inconsistencies pose various challenges to the populations. This is further compounded by the fact that their frequency and effects have become more diversified in the recent past. This is attributed to the inherent social changes that stem from the dynamic nature of the current social problems. Conventional methods and approaches to addressing these problems have continuously borne minimal results. Thus the need to come up with more creative approaches is of paramount importance. This paper provides a design of a workshop plan detailing four integrative creative interventions. It is believed that his will be effective in addressing particularistic problems of the target population.
Pre-Planning
Planning of a workshop is an involving procedure that requires a high level of commitment and expertise. This is particularly important when it concerns sensitive aspects and a target population that has particular needs. This workshop concerns itself with generating creative interventions when administering therapy to children from broken families. In this respect, it should be acknowledged that such children find it difficult to express their feelings irrespective of the fact that such feelings have detrimental implications on their self esteem. These strategies can also be employed by mental health professionals in addressing the relative concerns.
The pre session planning requires effective address of various factors that are imperative in carrying out the activities. Respective activities in this regard included coordinating with various professionals that would participate in the workshop, coordinating the site by making vital reservations for rooms, arranging for timely delivery of relevant materials and coordinating logistics.
Logistical arrangements entailed acquiring the materials, coordinating travel arrangements and planning for meals and snacks. Further, administrative work such as registering the participants, recruiting volunteers, publicizing the workshop and arranging for dietary concerns were undertaken during this session. Another important activity at this stage was communicating with the participants and confirming their participation in the workshop.
The Plan
The objectives of this workshop would be to demonstrate creative intervention measures when administering therapy to children from broken families. Attendants will include professionals from the mental health department, social workers from different disciplines as well as children from broken families and their parents. The main goal is to equip these populations with vital skills of handling such children and providing a viable environment for effective expression. This is imperative in enabling them to cope with the overwhelming feelings of insecurity and frustration.
As indicated earlier, the creative and integrative interventions that are presented in this study seek to capture as well as sustain the interest of the children during counseling. They are typical to a safe environment for undertaking effective therapy. Effective administration of this requires a clear understanding of the relative theoretical basis. Acknowledgement of the main end of attaining treatment is also vital as it helps the administrator to focus on distinct objectives.
The first integrative approach in this respect would be the employment of Paper Bag Puppets. To begin with, it is worth noting that as much as the adult is responsible for providing essential guidance, s/he must participate actively in the activity too. In this, both the child and the adult need to start by making a paper bag puppet that would be a representation of them selves. Children should be left to explore their creativity at this point but relevant guidance is important too. After creating these, both parties should be allowed to introduce their puppets accordingly. Again, it is imperative to encourage the child to explore various creative opportunities that would constitute giving the puppet name and determining the sex of the same. Notably, this also plays a critical role of breaking the ice and easing the tension between the two.
Then, the respective adult should employ the puppet in interviewing the child. Typical questions in this respect include the name of the child, his or her favorite color, events that make the same happy or sad, things that the child would wish for, events or things that trigger feelings of fear in the child and so on. The child should also be allowed to use the puppet in responding to the respective questions. Fundamentally, it can not be disputed that children enjoy the construction of puppets.
During the construction process, the adult should encourage an informal conversation but should refrain from introducing sensitive issues. The information derived from these discussions would be sufficient for making vital deductions. In particular, it is posited that this would provide a sustainable basement upon which an objective assessment would be based.
Puppets in such an environment are also important because they help in enabling the child to maintain his or her own personality and enhance feelings of security. This is important as it enhances objective expression of painful feelings. It eases communication and enables the child to explain situations that would have otherwise not been explained directly and which are essential for treatment of the same.
Another creative process in this respect would include the “butterfly in my stomach” model. In this, the adult begins by ascertaining to the child that in the current society, each individual always has various problems that undermine his or her effective functioning. S/he should assure the child that having such worries and problems is normal and that it does not need to weigh down the same. Then, the adult goes ahead to provide a clear explanation regarding the response of the body to various the inherent worries and problems. Typical explanations would include the fact that an individual’s heart pounds whenever s/he is frightened of something or some situation or when the child has feelings of sadness and bitterness, s/he feels like there is a lump in his ort her throat and so on.
At this juncture, the adult can then introduced the expression of having butterflies in the stomach. If the child does not understand this, the former needs to provide a clear and explicit explanation of its meaning. Essentially, this means that feelings of nervousness and worry are bound to make one experience funny feelings that can be likened to having butterflies in one’s stomach. Nevertheless, this does not literary mean that the same has butterflies; rather it implies the cumulative feelings of worry and anxiety.
Next, the child and the adult need to collaborate in drawing clear outline of the human body. In this regard, the adult only needs to provide guidance and direction to the child but refrain from dominating the process. This enables the child to explore his or her creativity and eases the relational tension between the adult and the child. Next, the adult should provide the child with an assortment of different sizes of butterflies. In this regard, the butterflies need to be multicolored as this is appealing to the child and is therefore likely to encourage participation.
Then, the child should be requested to write his or her problems and or worries on the pieces of butterflies that were provided by the adult. Smaller worries should be noted on small sized butterflies and bigger worries on large butterflies. In most cases, it should be appreciated that the child is likely to be reluctant about noting the challenges. Adults in such instances should take the initiative of providing vital prompts that would offer relevant guidance to the child.
Specific areas of concern in this regard can be the worries and problems that the child struggles with while attending school, the relative problems and challenges that they face in a home environment and the problems and worries that they experience when interacting with their peers especially during play and on normal occasions. Then, the adults should help the child to glue the various butterflies on the body outline that the child drew previously. These should specifically be placed on the stomach of the outline of the body.
The adult can capitalize on the free and formal communication during the identification of worries to generate more information about the respective challenges and problems that the child identifies. Further probing about the nature of the problems and the strategies that the child uses to resolve the problems would enable the adult to evaluate the problem solving capabilities of the child. Furthermore, the adult can have a chance to examine the support network that is available to the child by asking questions related to the individuals that can assist the child to overcome particular worries. When the exercise is over, the child can be provided with relevant colors to decorate the outline of the body as well as color the butterflies accordingly.
Notably, this approach has various beneficial effects on the welfare of the child besides enhancing self expression. They encourage self awareness, trigger problem solving skills and enhance effective expression of negative and or overwhelming feelings that undermine effective functioning. In addition, the approach can be very beneficial for children who have multiple problems that need to be resolved at ago. Effective expression of relative problems enables the adult to prioritize the same in order of their impact on the wellbeing of the child and decide the ones that need to be treated first.
The third approach to making necessary intervention measures would be the employment of paper dolls. In this the adult need to begin by explaining to the child that the activity entails identification of individuals that contribute differently to their lives and how the child feels about the same. With the guidance of the adult, the child needs to be allowed to construct a total of eight dolls from the paper that is provided. In most cases, children tend to enjoy such activities and to maintain this, the adult needs to include fun activities. The characteristic informal communication between these two enables the adult to collect fundamental information and it also helps in breaking the ice.
After this, the child should be allowed to label the dolls by writing on the same the respective names of individuals that the child thinks make vital contributions in his or her life. The child should be encouraged to include him or her self, close and distant family members and any other individual with whom they share a close relationship. The child should also be encouraged to include individuals who have made both positive and negative contributions to his or her life. In particular, they should also note the names of persons that they despise or resent for having hurt them in different ways. Examples of individuals that could be included in this encompass teachers, baby sitters, best friends, foster parents and or pets.
Then, the child should be provided with stickers having smiling faces, angry faces, stars and those containing black dots. With the guidance of the adults, they should then be allowed to place happy faced stickers to individuals that they perceive to be happy. This should be followed with a credible and clear explanation with regard to why they feel the respective persons are happy. They should be encouraged to give relevant illustrations that show that the persons are actually happy.
The next step would be to place angry faced stickers on the persons that they consider to be angry. Likewise, this should be coupled with a clear and persuasive explanation of why they feel the respective persons are usually angry. Also, they should provide vital illustrations of events in which such persons expressed their anger. Most importantly, they should be in position to identify the individuals, events or objects that the given persons are angry at.
Then, the child should be allowed to put the black dotted stickers on persons that they consider to be bad and mean. Again, this should be accompanied by credible explanations that justify the decision. Finally, the child needs to be allowed to put a star sticker on the individuals that s/he considers to have been helpful in his or her life. Again, this should be accompanied by a credible explanation that would justify the same. At the end of the activity, the child can be allowed to develop a sticker book and take the same home for his or her own use. Notably, this activity is important because it is interactive and enables the child to express his or her feelings and or thoughts accordingly. Further, it helps the adults to understand the relationships of the child and provides a clue with regard to how the child can be assisted to overcome the insecurities.
Finally, the scavenger hunt game can also be imperative in making vital interventions. This is a group activity and can be employed as a wrap up of the workshop and would therefore involve all the participants. The participants would be categorized in to various groups, depending on their age and concerns to be addressed. The coordinator would then be required to develop relevant hunt items that would address different concerns of each group. These would be noted on cards or papers and mixed. With regard to the troubled children, the items can include the meaning of divorce, the thoughts and feelings of both children and parents and inspirational words that encourage the parents as well as affected children. To begin the game, each group will be assigned a group leader to coordinate the activities accordingly.
Each team would then be given a specific list of items that it requires to collect. It would be assigned thirty minutes to carry out this task. The group that happens to collect more articles will be considered the winner of the game. This measure is imperative as it encourages communication, regardless of the fact that the participants would be going through a hard time. In addition, it encourages effective expression of feelings as members are able to make consultations and hold dialogues accordingly. Of great importance is the fact that it encourages problem solving as the participants are required to use their creative skills in finding the articles. This also develops teamwork and aids in development of viable relationships.
Implementation Schedule
The acquisition and staging of all the required items would be done during the pre session stage. The workshop would begin at eight and end at three. Participants will be required to be seated by then. The session would begin by a short inspirational video presentation that would last for thirty minutes. The paper bag puppets approach would follow this presentation and would possibly last for one hour. It would be followed by the butterfly in my stomach model that would also take an hour.
These constitute their first phase and participants would be allowed to have a break for thirty minutes. During this, they would be entertained by a live performance and be served with snacks. The paper dolls model would then follow this and would also last for an hour. Finally, the scavenger hunt game would wrap up the session and would last for an hour too. Participants would then be served with lunch and allowed to leave at their own pleasure.
Evaluation
The main goal of these interventions is to enable the children affected with the negative implications to be able to open up during therapy. This is important as it eases the pain and allows the relevant personnel to undertake treatment accordingly. Evaluation of whether this goal was met would be done using a standard feedback program for both the children and adult participants. Relevant questions would be compiled and mailed to the participants to inquire about the effectiveness of the same three days after the session. Responses would then be analyzed and relevant deductions derived accordingly. Specific areas of concern in this regard would also entail the perceived strengths as well as weaknesses of the program. Findings would form the benchmark for future creative interventions.
Conclusion
The emergent social inconsistencies have far reaching implications on the holistic welfare of the society. Vulnerable populations such as children, the sick and the old suffer the most because of their limited abilities to cope. Conventional approaches that were employed in addressing these have become inefficient over time. The integrative creative approaches that have been suggested by this study can be effective in enabling the children suffering from the negative implications of divorce to cope effectively. This is because they enable the children to express their painful thoughts and feelings in an effective manner and therefore respond to treatment.
