Dear Innovative Resources,

 

I've been using your resources for eight years now and have found many different ways of utilising them in my work with children and families.

 

Recently, my husband went on a Kokoda trail trek in New Guinea. Apart from substantial physical preparation he and other trekkers were advised to take some small gifts for distribution to children along the trail. After some discussion about the merits of various small, child-friendly items I suggested taking sheets of stickers. My husband had not explored my (impressive) sticker collection before and immediately recognised the attractiveness and practicality of this suggestion.

 

I also asked him to squeeze my one and only pack of Strengths Cards for Kids cards into his day pack. He gave the cards to the teacher at Efogi school. Efogi is a village on the Kokoda trail. The single teacher school has very few resources. My husband said the teacher and children loved the cards and stickers.

 

I've ordered a new set today. and I've gained immense pleasure from thinking about those lovely cards travelling to such a remote part of the universe!

 

Best wishes,

 

Margaret McDiarmid, Social worker, Alexandra Headland, Queensland.

 

____________________ 

A Letter from Jean

 

'I work at Belyuen Primary School, a two-teacher school for Indigenous children, a ferry ride across Darwin Harbour. There are 45 children from pre-school to Year 7. I have been working with Aboriginal children for thirteen years. At my last school we used The Bears and Strength Cards, and good discussion is generated by the pictorial nature of the cards.

 

Today I am buying Strength Cards for Kids and a colourful bag. I am going to place the cards inside the bag and each day it will be one child's job to randomly pull a card out of the bag. Then we will all discuss how to show that strength throughout the day. This discussion helps to develop language and vocabulary.

 

I am always striving to have a cooperative classroom, trying to create a harmonious learning environment and these cards help this to happen.'

Dancing on a Moving Carpet

Interview with Parenting Trainer, Lynne Kennedy

'Sometimes it feels that in trying to balance our work, personal and family life commitments, we are dancing on a moving carpet!'

Lynne Kennedy and Diana Kay, Skillbuilders

 

Exhausting! Exhilarating! Relentless! Rewarding! What on earth could be all of these things, sometimes even all at the same time? It's parenting of course!

 

Lynne Kennedy and Diana Kay have been facilitating parenting programs for many years. They have recently formed a private consultancy called 'Skillbuilders-for people who parent' and now offer highly acclaimed workshops and programs in parenting throughout Victoria.

 

As Lynne and Diana say, 'Parenting is the most important job in the world. We all want to give our children the best possible care so they grow into happy, confident and resilient young people. Without training or manuals we are expected to know exactly what to do. It's all supposed to come naturally!

 

'Certainly, most parents do well most of the time. But we can all remember many sleepless nights filled with worry when we think 'What am I supposed to do now? I was never prepared for this.'

 

Skillbuilders was formed to create opportunities for people who are interested in parenting to share ideas and learn new skills. Play groups, kindergartens, childcare centres, and schools are among the groups that have called upon the Skillbuilder magic. Some of the workshops carry such intriguing titles as 'Dancing on a Moving Carpet', 'How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk', and 'Ready or Not-Adolescence Here We Come'.

 

Lynne and Diana draw on their own parenting experience (both for over 17 years) as well as those of the many families with whom they have worked. They also draw on the tools that they have come across professionally, including St Luke's Innovative Resources' range of strengths-based cards, stickers and other 'seriously optimistic' materials.

 

'I often use the Strength Cards for Kids in working with parents,' said Lynne. 'For example, I may place all of the cards on the floor and ask the parents to choose a strength that they have, and a strength that the child has. Often I do this towards the end of the session-it's a great way to summarise and a very positive last thought for participants to take home.

 

'It can be an effective way of opening the session as well, particularly with parents of teenagers because it is so easy for concerned parents to come with a strong focus on what may be 'wrong'. I remember once I asked a group of parents to do the exercise at the beginning of a session. One parent couldn't select a strength or find anything positive to say about her teenager at that time except, "He breathes!" But by the end of the six-week, strengths-based program, this parent was more readily able to identify strengths in her teenager.

 

'I have used St Luke's resources in my own parenting too,' said Lynne. 'When they were younger I asked my children to choose four cards from the Strength Cards for Kids that represented strengths they felt they had. I created a poster for each of them by colour-photocopying the cards onto a single page and then laminating the posters. They loved those posters-they are still on their bedroom walls today, several years later!

 

 

Wisdom Born of Pain

 

'The body cast that stands out in my mind is of a woman who lost one breast to cancer. Her strength and wisdom in living with this show the fabric women are made of. It was a powerful exhibition. The support, the willingness to participate and, for some, to overcome personal fears and gain self-acceptance were wonderful to be part of. I am overjoyed that I took up the idea that came to me and ran with it.' Enola King

 

Enola King writes about her art exhibition using body casts and Innovative Resources' cards sets

 

I'm a teacher and in my classes with adults we use the Strength Cards for Kids. We use them with the question 'Which strengths will you use to get through this course?', and then we discuss the choices the students make and they write about how that strength will manifest itself over the coming months.

 

In 2003 I had an idea for an art exhibition entitled 'Wisdom Born of Pain'. The medium would be body casts made of plaster bandages, with each one being decorated by the man or woman showing the wisdom they had gained through adversity. I approached people I knew and most of them said yes-they thought the idea was great.

 

The process took nine months and was organised to celebrate International Women's Day 2004. A small gallery in Woonona (New South Wales) called 'Vision and Space-Spirit of Place' had the atmosphere I was looking for and the location that felt right.

 

In the gallery was a glass door, so I 'blu-tacked' Innovative Resources' Strength Cards for Kids on both sides and made it look like a wall with the heading, 'Words of Wisdom'. The gallery also had a small bay window enclosure in which I placed a butterfly-shaped, coloured glass candleholder sitting on a blue cloth. I lit a candle every day the exhibition was open. Around the candleholder, on the walls, I had the words from the Strength Cards for adults reprinted on coloured paper, cut out and blu-tacked on various angles. This stood alone with no title.

 

As people came to view the exhibition they would stop and stare at the cards and I would say, 'Which ones are you?' and leave them to contemplate their answer. To me, the cards were an integral part of the exhibition. Those who participated in the body casts experienced personal growth.

 

I'm not a trained artist, nor were most of the women and men who participated. We are simply creative beings. For those who came just to view the exhibition, well, I hope they too walked away with wisdom-the ripple affect. For me, it was wonderful. It exceeded my personal expectations. I hope this story is useful and motivates others to think outside the box too.

 

Putting Happiness High on the Agenda-the Japanese Connection

By John Holton, Writer-in-residence, Innovative Resources

 

'In Japanese culture it is very rare for people to express how they "feel", whether it's about themselves or others. This is particularly true of men and boys.'   Tomoko Tamaka

 

In February this year, Tomoko Tamaka visited Bendigo from Yokohama in Japan to take part in the Innovative Resources Summer School workshops. A mother of a two-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son, Tomoko teaches social skills to nursery school (the Japanese equivalent of pre-school) children as well as working in after-school care.

 

"Children just love them."

Tomoko first heard about Innovative Resources (IR) when a Japanese colleague of hers went to a seminar presented by a visiting social welfare worker from England who raved about IR products. She searched out St Luke's on the internet and purchased both The Bears and Strength Cards For Kids. Tomoko was immediately struck by the positive reaction of her own children to the resources, particularly their ability to elicit strong emotional responses in spite of language and cultural differences. As Tomoko put it, 'The children just love them.'

 

The cards were a revelation for Tomoko, and unlike anything available in Japan.

 

'In Japanese culture it is very rare for people to express how they "feel", whether it's about themselves or others. This is particularly true of men and boys,' Tomoko said.

 

What's the Japanese word for 'compliment'?

An example of this arose in our conversation when Tomoko realised that there was no Japanese equivalent for the word 'compliment'. It led to a very interesting discussion on the whole notion of 'gifting'.

 

At Kennington Primary School Tomoko and I met with Assistant Principal, Helen Hobley, an advocate of St Luke's strengths-based resources, and someone who is passionate about her students' right to be happy. Happiness is high on the agenda at Kennington Primary-as important, more important perhaps, than any of the formal curriculum.

 

Permission to be happy

'We want to give children permission to be happy, no matter what their circumstances outside of school-it is every child's right,' Helen said.

 

Tomoko was impressed by the range of core subjects and specialist areas of study in Australian schools. She also showed a lot of interest in the 'You Can Do It' program and was fascinated at how social skills and strength-building were incorporated into every part of the Kennington Primary School curriculum.

 

Helen gave Tomoko an outline of how she uses the various Innovative Resources' card sets in classroom situations including caring for students' welfare, conflict resolution and special programs.

 

Resolving conflict using Strength Cards

'My experience has been that the kids really respond to the cards,' Helen said. 'They love to hold them; they love the visual stimulation, the humour. If children have been fighting I'll often take them aside, spread the Strength Cards on the floor and use them as a way of talking about why they aren't getting along.

 

'I usually ask them to choose five cards that they think relate to the other person, and to use the cards as a way of offering a compliment. Often after a short time the difficulties begin to look rather insignificant. Once I've been through this process with kids, it's rare to have any problems with them again.'

 

Helen also uses the Shadows cards as part of her 'Seasons' program, that concentrates on areas such as death, grief and loss.

 

It's okay to be different

'The older kids especially find Shadows a really good way of expressing their feelings. With the younger groups, The Bears works really well as a way for children to describe how they feel about all kinds of situations. It is also a great tool for promoting diversity-for showing the children that it's okay to be different.'

 

In a grade two class, Tomoko and I had the opportunity to see the power of Strength Cards for Kids first hand. We sat in a circle with the cards spread out on the floor in front of us. After a short conversation about the things that make us happy or feel good about ourselves, Helen invited us all to choose a card that said something about ourselves-a personal strength that maybe we hadn't thought of before. All of the children enthusiastically took a card. We each read out our strength to the group and put the card back in the centre.

 

Making someone's day, week, even life?

The next part of the exercise was really special. We all selected a person within the group that we would choose a card for, as a gift just for them. We all sat next to our chosen person in the circle and one by one revealed our gift. Helen asked the children afterwards how they felt about receiving their compliment. Answers ranged from 'happy' and 'confident' to 'special'. There was a wonderful feeling in the room and a sense that, for some these kids, the compliment really made their day, their week-their life? Who can say?

 

Tomoko couldn't wait to share her unique experiences with friends and colleagues back in Yokohama.

 

 

 

Tools to Tonga

 

Ene'io and Sumuoko have studied the Diploma of Early Childhood Education and are employed by the Tonga Preschool Association to provide training to other staff. They were visiting Australia to gather ideas resources and knowledge to share with other workers in Tonga.

 

Belinda Ryan says she was privileged to meet with Ene'io and Sumuoko and Helen Fallow from Pursuit Consulting and Training Services in Melbourne.

 

'Ene'io and Sumuoko were interested in the way St. Luke's works in partnership with families to assist them to identify their strengths and find solutions. They were also interested in my role in supporting children with additional needs and were keen to hear about my experiences and ideas for building relationships and for getting conversations started.

 

I used the Strength Cards for Kids, the I Can Monsters and The Bears to share my experiences of building self-esteem, identifying strengths, finding solutions and identifying change. We had a wonderful time playing with the cards on the floor. We shared our own strengths and identified those we wanted to increase. We talked about the importance of young children being able to talk about being safe. Ene'io and Sumuoko liked the happy monsters and felt the messages conveyed were very powerful.

 

They felt the children in Tonga would enjoy the cards because of their humour and versatility and the positive messages they convey. They also liked the fact that there were no set rules for using the cards. As for me, I was thankful for the opportunity to learn a little of how Ene'io and Sumuoko work with the children in Tonga.'

 

Ene'io and Sumuoko were delighted to accept a gift of the Strength Cards for Kids and the I Can Monsters and were looking forward to taking them back to Tonga to share with their colleagues.

 

 

Belinda Ryan, Preschool Field Worker, St. Luke's, Kyneton.