This programme, developed specifically to assist in the nurturing of RESILIENCE in children, takes place during the school year over a period of 10 months within the classroom setting as part of the Life Orientation curriculum.
Sessions incorporate a range of creative interventions.
The four pillars of the programme incorporate the Circle of Courage model; independence, generosity, mastery and belonging.
This programme was piloted as a response to the COVID-19 epidemic, and the lack of psychosocial support for young people and educators during the lockdown period. We ran the programme with groups of Grade 6 and 7 learners initially designed as a 6-week intervention but it extended to 7 months in 2020.
We witnessed the young people’s resilience, despite the adversity with which they were faced, and we identified some areas which needed strengthening, for them to rise to their potential. The focus of the programme, therefore, was to nurture each child’s resilience, using creative techniques which would strengthen and connect them to resources within themselves and their external environments.
Resilience is defined as the ability to achieve positive adaptation despite being faced with adversity.
It refers to both the ability of an environment to provide a child with resources that help them cope, as well as the child’s ability to navigate their way towards these resources. It is therefore important for us to not only develop the children’s internal resources, but also strengthen the resources around them, make them aware of these resources and help them make use of them.
Resources for resilience are called protective factors and include a person’s internal resources and external resources in their environment. The factors we focused on in our sessions were the outcomes of the Circle of Courage (belonging, mastery, independence and generosity), hope, and relational resources in the community. This programme does not aim to create these factors as outcomes, but rather to nurture and enhance the children’s inherent strengths, capacities and potential.
In January 2021, we relaunched the programme as a flagship MusicWorks intervention, renaming it the Creative Resilience Programme.
It is run in Stellenbosch, Heidebeld and Zonnebloem. See our Communities & Sites page for more information.