Foster Care Training

This training will introduce participants to the use of sandtray. Children living in out of home care have experienced multiple losses and traumas which they are unable to process initially through more cognitive methods and as a result their behavior and learning are negatively impacted. Sandtray is a nonverbal and verbal modality which provides an external arena through which children and adolescents can safely express internal events. They generally eagerly engage in sandtray. Healing is encouraged through the soothing, safe tactile experience of sand and through the freedom to create stories using miniatures in the contained space of a tray. Through the stories, previously unexpressed traumas and losses come into consciousness and are often verbalized in metaphorical form.