Building Resilience From the Inside Out Through Play, Puppets, and Stories
Lani Gerity DA, ATR & Susan Ainlay Anand MA, ATR-BC
As art therapists who have practiced in cultures other than our own and within communities stressed to the breaking point, we found that our studies of strengths and resilience research from the "inside out" was most useful. We applied the theories of community organization as described by Kretzmann (1993) and McKnight (1995). Their theories are quite simple and powerful, and helped us to recognize the strengths and resilience that already exists within these individuals and communities.
Kretzmann and McKnight have been conducting research among community organizations for decades, trying to determine what contributes to success and failure in community initiatives. They observed service providers who entered community and created doubt and feelings of disempowerment in the minds of community members. They found that organizations modeled on an "outside-in" design (hierarchical, with authority coming from professionals outside of the community) fostered dependence and weakness in those they served, while asset-based community organizations were more likely to promote strength and authority within the community - an “inside out” model. In their view and in our own observations, this kind of intervention can be sustainable, provide a warm, positive sense of community, and continue with or without the original members.
Our work with communities under stress was undertaken in a way that was as mindful and as careful of strengths and assets as we could make it. We feel that our interests in growth from the inside out - that is imagery, metaphor, cultural markers, and insights that comes from the people we work with rather than from outside of them - was an asset that we brought to our work.
We discovered that when we pull imagery and narratives in the form of puppets from children/participants and allow them to explore and develop their own characters, we are working in this Kretzmann and McKnight "inside-out" way. Once characters are developed and animated in the form of paper puppets, narrative can be created, meaning can be made, and group story can unfold. With simple bookmaking techniques, the narrative can be contained and the puppet can be housed within a book.
Teachers who are confronted with behavioral issues with students can use our techniques and have a great wealth of resilience narratives and characters to create metaphors and work on building feelings of self-worth and community in the classroom. The advantage of using imagery, stories, ideas, and characters from the individuals you are working with, is that strengths and assets are acknowledged, stories are valued,and the learning is therefore "inside out". As a consequence, individuals are engaged and participate more fully in learning (Gerity 2006).
This full-day course will include an introductory narrative with various kinds of puppets, giving participants a range of puppet possibilities. We will provide examples of simple book structures including a book created with one piece of paper, simple pamphlet binding, and an "altered" child's board book - all of which are suitable for most classrooms and most budgets.
The first half of the day will focus on making puppets and characters, using a variety of collage techniques with card stock. Once the characters are developed, participants will create the storybook as a companion art piece for the paper puppet.Participants will experience the ease of eliciting narratives of resilience, healing, and strength, while learning how to create playful paper puppet characters and a simple book structure. Group stories will be created when the puppets and characters come together in small groups. The instructions will be fairly simple so this course can be replicated in most settings and with limited budgets.
The final discussion will allow for sharing of creations and how resilience, healing, and strength may be discovered when working with puppets and narratives. Additional therapeutic art interventions that may be helpful for teachers dealing with behavior issues in the classroom will be discussed.
REFERENCES
Gerity, L. (2006) "Trauma, Puppet-making, and Narrative; Creating Moments of Reprieve" in Puppetry in education and therapy: Unlocking doors to the mind and heart. (Bernier, M. and O'Hare, J. Eds.) USA: Author House.
Kretzmann, J. P. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community's assets, Evanston, IL: Institute for Policy Research.
McKnight, J.L. (1995). The careless society - community and its counterfeits. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.