HEAL and trauma-informed expressive arts therapy

By Shannon Meyerkort, Industry Reporter

Wilsonton State School, in Toowoomba has become the first primary school to complete an expressive arts therapy pilot program to help children from a local refugee community heal from trauma.

Located in the Refugee Welcome Zone of south Queensland, Toowoomba has received large numbers of refugees over the past decade, including the Êzidî community from Northern Iraq who have fled persecution and genocide by ISIS.

The HEAL arts therapy program aims to provide young students with a way to express themselves as part of the healing and recovery process.

The program is overseen in schools by QPASTT (Queensland Program of Assistance for Survivors of Torture and Trauma). Co-CEO, Sally Stewart, explains the program’s relevance: “Art, music and play are the tools that children and young people use to express themselves and learn about the world. Expressive arts therapies are sensoryfocused and can be non-verbal, making it easier for children and young people to convey their experiences, thoughts, and feelings particularly if they are also learning English”, The program has also supported teachers and school staff to understand the context of developmental and refugeerelated trauma and its impact on children’s ability to learn and thrive at school.

“Refugee trauma, and the experience of having to flee war and persecution, can seriously affect the healthy development of children and adolescents,” Ms Stewart said. “[It] can disrupt the foundations of attachment, behaviour and learning. If a child is experiencing trauma symptoms in the classroom, they are often not able to focus on learning. If children are not supported to recover from this trauma, they can struggle at school for the length of their education and unfortunately take those struggles with them through to adulthood.”

Ann Rebgetz is the Principal of St James College, a secondary co-educational Catholic College where around 65 percent of the 570 students are culturally and linguistically diverse, and approximately 45 percent come from a refugee background.

“Prior to their arrival in Australia, many students have experienced multiple traumatic events,” explains Principal Rebgetz. “Students who arrived by boat and have been Asylum Seekers are very disadvantaged – they have to deal with the trauma of detention, as well as leaving countries. In addition, futures are so uncertain and that has a very negative impact – it is hard to talk careers when one is not allowed to work or attend university. Other students have experienced long-term deprivation and poverty whilst living in refugee camps or fleeing their homes.”

The impact of this trauma on students can manifest in different ways in the classroom, including emotional dysregulation, withdrawing, anxiety, hypervigilance, agitation and risk-taking behaviours.

Students may also find it difficult to develop trust with teachers and other authority figures or experience behavioural difficulties, impacting their ability to make friends.

Schools, therefore, are an ideal location to offer early interventions and support services because it removes the barriers of cost and transport.

Sally Stewart explains: “HEAL’s school-based program ensures there is a therapist embedded in a school to support refugee and other young people, as part of their wellbeing team. They can screen students and work with teachers and school staff to refer students into the HEAL program. Students can also self-refer into HEAL. Schools generally fund a HEAL program in their school from their wellbeing budgets and HEAL undertakes fundraising to supplement program costs.

“We know that students from refugee backgrounds benefit from specialist and earlyintervention therapy in schools, supporting them to develop positive coping strategies to deal with the stress and emotions that can result from trauma, and to build positive interpersonal relationships with their teachers and peers. The more support and early intervention students can get, and the more training and upskilling that educators can acquire, the better the outcomes will be for students and our education system as a whole.”

HEAL was founded in 2004 by teacher and arts therapist Jane Griffin OAM at Queensland’s Milpera State High School, a receiving school for refugee and migrant students before they transition to mainstream state schools. On placement at Milpera while studying her Fine Arts degree, Jane noticed that during free-drawing time, students were depicting scenes of war and horror. After graduating, Jane undertook post-graduate studies in arts therapy to become a registered art psychotherapist and established the HEAL program with the support of then principal, Adele Rice AM. HEAL has now expanded into the current program across three Brisbane schools.

Julie Peel, Principal of Milpera State High School, has been associated with the HEAL program for more than 17 years. She explains how important the program is to the entire school community: “In any one week the HEAL team provide invaluable advice to our community about the ways to work with traumatised students. They support the management of difficult student behaviours; they work as advocates for the students, enabling us to solve problems quickly through restorative justice and building empathy for classmates. On an individual level they provide therapy to really high need students, making them available for learning through improved wellbeing. They have a HEAL room which is open at lunch time, providing students with a safe space to sometimes just “be”.”

HEAL therapists present professional development to school staff a number of times in the year as well as visiting classrooms to support teachers to gain a deeper understanding about the students and the ways they can assist.

Ann Rebgetz, Principal of St James College, describes the HEAL program as providing a “protective wrap around students, enabling them to step forward, feel special and develop a skillsset and acceptance of self.”

She adds: “The HEAL program has assisted school staff to develop greater awareness of the challenges that face refugee students entering the Australian school system for the first time. The program provides a safe space for students to access should they become dysregulated in the classroom [and] the support of the HEAL therapist is particularly important when staff are feeling overwhelmed by the behaviours of a student and are unsure on how to move forward.”

Several studies and reviews have shown that creative arts therapy can significantly reduce depression and anxiety symptoms, negative mood and other symptoms arising from experiences of trauma.

HEAL self-funded the pilot program in Wilsonton State School, and despite the small sample size (seven students), results showed that art therapy helped improve student confidence, behaviour and wellbeing as well as positively influencing their ability to make friends outside of their cultural group.

Sessions vary depending on the age and needs of the child, but often involve ‘checking-in’ with the student, discussions or drawing to describe their current state of wellbeing, play or yoga-based activities, movement with sport or cultural dance and then art-making following a particular prompt or directive. After discussing the ideas in the picture, the therapist will check-in again to ensure the child feels ready and able to return to class. One classroom teacher reported: “The improvement I have seen in my Year 6 student who participated in the HEAL program has been phenomenal! His level of self-esteem and confidence has grown exponentially. He is more engaged in the classroom and confidently takes academic risks. He is more resilient and is able to emotionally regulate himself and solve problems. He is focused, actively listening and asks for help when needed.”

Programs to support young refugees vary widely across the country but all states have access to a specialist trauma recovery agency, as part of the Forum of Australian Services for Survivors of Torture and Trauma (FASSTT). Many offer professional development and training that is trauma-informed, while some offer specialised programs to support schools.

“If schools cannot offer specialist supports like HEAL,” Sally Stewart said, “we recommend offering professional development for staff to be able to recognise the signs of trauma in children and young people and explore what referral pathways might be available to local services.”

Ann Rebgetz adds that schools can engage cultural liaison staff, collaborate with families, and train teachers to develop coregulation skills so they can help students settle when distressed. “Each student should be able to identify their ‘support crew’ – those staff that know them and can offer unconditional positive regard in times of stress.”

“It is in everyone’s interest to ensure refugee children and young people can access support to ensure their experience of trauma is not a barrier to learning and they have the same opportunities as their Australian peers to thrive at school and beyond,” Sally Stewart said.

To support its fundraising efforts, HEAL will be hosting a benefit concert at QPAC in June.