The author of Children’s Art Therapy: Creations from Post Disasters, Gina Rock, is seeking stories that she could include in her book. Gina is hoping to collect stories from children that have been through a hardship so they can express their feelings by writing or annotating their story to heal and help others heal from a terrible experience. Do you know of anyone between the ages of 7-18 that have been affected by a hazard or natural disaster in the US and want their experience published? Some of the stories will be put up on her website to be shared with other victims to help them heal. Some of the stories will be chosen to get published in the book. Stories from adult experiences will also be excepted.
Gina's first deployment as an engineer for FEMA was for Hurricane Katrina in 2005. If you have any experiences to share from that event, it would be great.
If you, or a child you know, would like to share a story, please feel free to contact me at FlyingTink@yahoo.com. If you have a disaster declaration number to add to your story that would be very helpful.
Gina was asked about her book in an interview, and this is what she had to say about it.
"About four years ago I was at an inspection and started to interact with a little boy of about the age of seven. I asked him if he had any crayons and paper. When he returned with the art supplies, I asked him if he would like to draw a picture of his house being flooded and how his experiences made him feel. The boy was all excited and drew his interpretation of the flooding for me. I was thrilled and impressed with how his drawing turned out. I started asking children to draw pictures for me of their experiences with the disasters. The children varied in age from four to sixteen. Right now I have four books full of about 250 of these children’s drawings of their experiences. I call the collection of hand-drawn pictures Post-Disaster Art Therapy, which is now copyrighted. My job sites and collected pictures with children cover six different states. One of my favorite sketches was drawn by a little boy in 2013 of a helicopter scooping his family up in a basket to take them away from their flooded home in the mountains of Colorado. Another favorite is one drawn also in 2013. I was in Alabama in an area where the kids didn’t have any crayons to color with, so they used a pencil. These pictures turned out to be amazing because of the detail. All these pictures inspired me to create and share a book about my experiences with the children's sketches in a post-disaster situation. It is my hope that these drawings will help children express their feelings, and cope with difficult times. Every child has a story and a different experience that I want people to share, and give them a way to heal. My book is called Children’s Disaster Art Therapy: Creations from Post Disasters. I will be honored to contribute these creations produced by children affected by natural disasters."
If you would like to send a story to her for consideration, please email FlyingTink@yahoo.com
You can also visit her website www.FlyingTinkerBell.com
Here is an excerpt from her book.
