Artistic approach to kid’s therapy

CREATIVE initiative, Van Go, has launched an appeal for the public to make and donate sock puppets to be sent to children exposed to family violence.

Providing services to kids and families in Moorabol, Ballarat, Hepburn and Golden Plains, the Van Go program works under WRISC Family Violence Support as a children’s, creative therapeutic program.

Van Go coordinator and single session therapist Ash Milne said they have found that children tend to feel more comfortable engaging and opening-up during their sessions through play and art.

“The concept of Van Go is we have a therapy van and therapists will go and do therapy in the van with kids or we’ll go to a local community space or a school,” she said.

“We work with kids who have experienced family violence and we use creative therapies, art, music, play, to engage with kids by allowing them different ways to express themselves.

“With trauma, that could affect their whole life, they may not always have the words so the creative therapy is a way for them to engage using their bodies and process things without always having to have the language.”

The program is currently free and offered to any family or child in the regional area who is dealing with family violence related trauma.

“The idea is around removing barriers around local communities with that concept of families being isolated and not being able to access therapy in the bigger towns,” Ms Milne said.

“We offer family sessions and on-going long-term therapy and we are unique in the way that we can provide longer term therapy if needed.”

Once dependant on face-to-face therapy sessions with their clients, the Van Go team had to adapt quickly once the pandemic hit to ensure they were still supporting their clients.

After having to work online and from home, Ms Milne said they realised they had to take a different approach.

“Initially, we thought it was too hard to do the online sessions with the kids so we were providing parenting support in that first wave of lockdown,” she said.

“We realised these kids can’t wait and we needed to give it a go.

“So, we’ve been sending families art packs so the kids have something to work with as well as sock puppets as a part of this initial engagement process.”

In a bid to involve the wider community in the program and to further support, Ms Milne said WRISC launched the sock puppet donation campaign and were met with great excitement.

In a bid to involve the wider community in the program and to further support kids to were in need of toys, Ms Milne said they launched the sock puppet donation campaign and were met with great excitement.

“Puppets are a great tool to be able to be expressive and share things they wouldn’t share otherwise because they can talk to the puppet on our hand so it’s a little bit less scary,” she said.

“We’ve had so much interest for the puppets, we came up with the idea only a couple of weeks ago to make it a bit more of a community initiative.

“A lot of our community want to help kids so there’s that element and at a time like right now, it’s providing people at home with a little project and sparking those conversations around family violence.”

For more information about WRISC’s services, visit wrisc.org.au.