This session presents a group art therapy elementary school-based curriculum for recently immigrated and refugee children. The aim of the program is to remediate stresses and harms experienced, pre, during and post-migration. CBT, DBT, attachment, existentialist, bibliotherapy and narrative approaches are skillfully interwoven with provocations that value wonder, authenticity and connection.
Dawn Olson is an art therapist and counsellor in private practice, with over 15 years experience in mental health settings, including intake, eating disorders, post-secondary counselling and inpatient children’s psychiatry, Dawn designed and, for several years led, an art therapy program for immigrant and refugee children in Victoria, BC. She is presently writing about this for publication.