An Update

Hello,

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving break (and Christmas to come)!

I have started creating the activities book, with feedback and tips from many people. I would especially like to thank Dr. Lopez-Morales, a counselor at my school, who has a degree in and extensive knowledge of child psychology. She has given me a lot of ideas on how to make the activities more engaging and thought provoking to raise the children's self-esteem levels.

For example, one activity for the kids could be collaging. However, instead of just allowing the kids to create aesthetically pleasing pieces, volunteers should ask the children to create a self-portrait collage of who they think they are and what they like. Then, they can ask the kids why they chose to incorporate a soccer ball or a puppy into their pieces. In this manner, the child will get an idea, even if it's subconscious, of who he or she truly is and what he or she enjoys. This self-awareness will ultimately aid them in developing more confidence.

Another concept Dr. Lopez-Morales mentioned which I will look up is "House-Tree-Person." According to Wikipedia, it is a "projective test designed to measure aspects of a person’s personality." I will look into it more, but my understanding is that we can ask the children to draw a house, tree and person and be able to recognize personality traits from the drawings. Not sure if we should implement this because volunteers aren't clinical psychologists, but maybe we can adapt it.

Welcome and a Quick Project Synopsis

Hello, and welcome to this blog! My name is Sharon, and I am a Senior Girl Scout who is currently working on achieving my Gold Award, the highest award a Girl Scout can earn. It requires that I carry out a service project that will improve my community and is sustainable. As you can probably tell from the title, this blog will be focused on enriching the lives of homeless youth through self-expression.

One of the biggest problems our nation faces today is homelessness, as many families have no choice but to give up their houses in exchange for life on the streets. Research has shown that homeless children often suffer from critically low self-esteem levels. Countless federal programs target education, but very few focus on actually raising the self-esteem levels of these children, which studies have shown are most easily gained through self-expression.

My program is focused on using self-expression to improve the self-esteem levels of homeless youth within the Goose Hollow Homeless Family Shelter, which houses homeless families with children while the parents look for jobs and homes. I'm in charge of creating a booklet containing self-expression activities every night of the working week, and finding businesses or stores willing to donate supplies towards this cause. Once the relationships are established, the shelter will take over the continuous requests for supplies.

Having just received the "OK" from my council, I can finally start working on my project! Looking forward to keeping this blog updated,

Sharon