CHOICE4CHANGE
CHOICE4 I HAVE THREE HOLES IN MY HEART NO SURGEON COULD REPAIR THEM NO SCAN COULD SEE THEM BUT I HAVE THREE HOLES IN MY HEART
A Choice4Change client is above all, a mum; a separated or bereaved mum, but always a mum. Celia Wyatt (MBACP) tells us about the work of Choice4Change One of the most abiding themes for women in prison is grief and guilt over lost or separated children. Choice4Change (C4C) exists to help women with such heart-breaking losses. Through one-to-one sessions, C4C’s counselling aims to build a better understanding and acceptance of the past and to resolve some of its pain, to identify and acknowledge strengths, and to grow in self-respect, confidence and resilience. C4C is a project of Choices Islington, a Christian charity with an ethos of compassion, care and respect. The counselling is non-judgemental, accepting 22 H E A LT H Y F O U N DAT I O N S
and respectful offered with warmth and care. C4C uses its own bereavement programme called Time to Heal, which works through identifying deeper feelings, often pushed down and denied, and finding healthy expression of emotions of anger, guilt and shame about losing children. It has a strong focus on enabling grieving, especially where children have not died but are permanently separated. The programme moves on to consider issues of responsibility; how did this happen? Often, there’s a long and complex process of helping a mother to see she was not solely to blame and to recognize that others bear responsibility for what happened too. Forgiveness is used to help resolve anger towards others and the self, and as a long-term solution to feelings of guilt and shame. The end focus is on understanding acceptance and letting go in order to move on. Although C4C is primarily a counselling programme, the service does include advocacy and practical support with re-establishing contact with separated children, including letterbox contact with adopted children. This is often a necessary step to set minds at rest about the child’s well-being; because a C4C client is above all, a mum; a separated or bereaved mum, but always a mum. C4C loves working with women in
