My Nonprofit Reviews

My personal experience at Jeff's Place is in the role of Facilitator in the group of children grades one through three. I am in my second year of volunteering.
My interaction with the young children is assisting with art projects allowing our group to discuss emotions and feelings. The children express how they feel through various art mediums such as painting, clay, decorating memory boxes as the children work through their personal grief process. Stories are read about how children are feeling during a significant death loss in their family and discussions follow the stories to share experiences and emotions. Children learn how different families react and cope with the process of grief. The experience is not the same for all families.
Children feel safe at Jeff's Place as they know anything that is said during group sessions is confidential. The children learn to trust each other by listening and respecting each child as they begin to share a feeling or experience. The children interact with each other in group during carefully selected activities and projects by the professional Program Coordinator at Jeff's Place who is trained in Art Therapy. Group activities are created or chosen by the Program Coordinator to be age appropriate and to be entertaining as well as engaging all participants to share and promote discussion within the group.
My volunteer experience at Jeff's Place has been extremely rewarding for me as I help the young children learn to express their feelings and learn coping strategies for issues they struggle with in their everyday life. These support group sessions were not available to me when I was a young child who experienced the significant death loss of my father. Now I understand how important it is to have a children's bereavement program available for all and why the services provided at Jeff's Place is so important for the emotional needs of young children and their families.

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