Children trying to make sense of last year’s floods have a new friend in Jack, the puppet, who is visiting preschools in the Northern Rivers to share his experiences and coping skills. Jack travels the Northern Rivers with Lisa Wilson, a qualified and registered play and creative art therapist. Lisa is employed by the not-for-profit organisation, Social Futures. Lisa and Jack are part of the Strong Minds in the Early Years program, funded the NSW Department of Communities and Justice. They work with young children impacted by the floods, who may be dealing with losses including homes, preschools, toys and other belongings.
Children trying to make sense of last year’s floods have a new friend in Jack, the puppet, who is visiting preschools in the Northern Rivers to share his experiences and coping skills.
Jack travels the Northern Rivers with Lisa Wilson, a qualified and registered play and creative art therapist. Lisa is employed by the not-for-profit organisation, Social Futures. Lisa and Jack are part of the Strong Minds in the Early Years program, funded the NSW Department of Communities and Justice.
They work with young children impacted by the floods, who may be dealing with losses including homes, preschools, toys and other belongings.
Lisa Wilson completed a Bachelor of Social Science in Australia then a postgraduate diploma in Play and Creative Arts Therapies in the UK. She has loved puppets ever since she was given a Snoopy puppet as a child.
“I’ve long been interested in creative arts and using play to help children to heal,” explains Lisa.
“It is a gentle way of working with children. Play enables children to communicate in the way children naturally communicate – it’s basically their language. Instead of having to sit down in a counselling room and talk to somebody, children use play to process what they’ve experienced.
“Jack [the puppet] is very much like children, children relate to him because he looks similar, he’s a similar size to them. He’s quite a large puppet and very cool.”
Lisa has been delivering play therapy for 15 years and developing ventriloquy skills!
She says the children are usually so entranced in Jack they forget he is a puppet.
“I’ve had children who are really distressed and upset and all they want to do is talk to Jack,” she said.
“Other times the children will ask me to cover Jack’s ears if they don’t want him to hear something private.”
Together they read the Birdie Story Books on Natural Disasters, about a bird and frog whose homes were hit by a big storm.
“We read the book then Jack talks about his experience and the children will share theirs if they want to.
“Jack has been through everything you can imagine in terms of his life experiences. Jack went through the floods, and he talks about feeling mixed up.
“A parent told me her little girl was having a meltdown because there was rain, thunder and lightning one day.
“The little girl said, ‘I feel like Jack feels’ I feel all muddled up inside and confused’.
“That was the breakthrough for the family. They were able to talk about feelings and since then the girl has been a lot calmer.
“That’s it for children. The play therapy sessions allow children to recognise different feelings. Those feelings come and go and that’s a natural part of being human.
“Jack helps children to navigate those strong or big emotions because he has been through so many things himself. Children open up to Jack – he has a lovely face.”
The program is fully booked and Lisa and Jack have visited 30 preschools and worked with more than 200 small children.
The sessions run for 30 to 50 minutes, depending on the age of the child. Although it is difficult to measure the exact percentage of children who were directly impacted by flood water, all the children Lisa works with have been impacted in some way.
Lisa has also been running trauma-informed classes for preschool educators, training them to support flood-affected children.
“Play relaxes and enables us to talk about things that are difficult. I use creative art therapy sessions for the educators,” she said.
“I love the Plato quote, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”