Emotional Support Program
Many street-children carry with them the emotional scars of a traumatic childhood.
This Program involves attending to the emotional and spiritual needs of traumatised children, as and when needed, but especially in the early months after a child comes to one of Our Centres.
This emotional and spiritual support may involve building rapport and trust, counselling, emotional process-work, and sometimes, just focused care and attention.
JourneyWork ®
Quote from Kevin Billett, co-founder and CEO of The Journey Seminars:
“When Ravi first approached The Journey for assistance in 2008, he made the point that he knew how to house and clothe the children; he knew how to feed the children; he knew how to encourage the children to attend school and to work towards some kind of a better future.
What Ravi was struggling with was this:
“What do I do at night when
I hear the children weeping in their beds?
How do I ease their pain, and
bring lasting Joy into their lives?”
The Journey organisation, through its Journey Outreach Program, sponsored Ravi Rai to do the complete Journey Practitioner’s Program, so now he is qualified to work with the children, and helping them to clear out the emotional, physical and sexual abuse issues so that they are free to grow and live in a healthy manner.
Ravi Rai’s response:
“The changes in the children since receiving Journey Work
has been nothing short of amazing; absolutely incredible!
They shine and radiate with joy.”
A number of the staff have now been trained to perform Journey Work with the children.
Mentors
Where we feel it can be of assistance, we ask the older children to mentor certain younger children. The amazing result is that both sides benefit from this arrangement. The older children learn responsibility, building self-esteem and confidence, while the younger children receive advice and guidance from those to whom they are most-likely to listen.
Celebrations
Street-children rarely have much of value to celebrate in life. This makes celebrations within our centres all the more important. We celebrate every child’s birthday, every year. For many children, they attend their first birthday party ever at our centres. We also observe the major Indian celebrations, such as Diwali, Holi etc.
Expenditure
The expenses incurred by this Program include:
- Part wages for the staff involved.
- The cost of celebrations
Percentage of annual budget used by this Program: minimal.
Effectiveness of Program: 100%
Resources
Each of our centres has a designated Emotional Support Person who looks after children with emotional issues.
As well as this, we have five staff who are able to give Journey Process Work to the children. It is our dream one day that one or more children will grow up to be Journey Practitioners themselves, and will offer their services back to Children of Mother Earth, to help the next generation of street-children to live full and fulfilling lives.
Read about the next Program.
