“Kelisha (not her real name, and not the child in this photo) is doing so well. She is fully engaging with life as a 10 year old should.” That was one of the comments Leo made in our last team meeting. Not knowing the back story it might seem like a pretty simple comment … so let me give some of the back story.
I had not even heard the term “dissociation” before Dr. Jeanne Williams started visiting Jamaica and training us in working with children affected by trauma. Essentially, it the state of being disconnected from yourself and the world around you. We don’t know all that happened in her young life, but when Kelisha first came to kids club she demonstrated a level of dissociation that we had never seen in any other child we have worked with. So, 5 years ago she took part in the first set of Restorative Play Times. Within days she began to re-engage with life in a new way … but to know that the transformation continues 5 years later is truly remarkable.
Interventions like this can have a significant long term impact (as shown in a long term study by the Caribbean Institute for Health research), which is why it is so important to release more workers on the ground who can provide training in approaches that make a real difference. With your help, this is exactly what the Fusion Jamaica team are doing.
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