In my role as child protection mentor I travelled to the five most tsunami-devastated zones of Aceh, including Nias which was hit by an earthquake in March 2005. Together with the World Vision child protection manager, I co-facilitated the ‘psychosocial education’ training offered to the child protection teams. Simply print and cut out the different images. Then gather some stones or pebbles and some form of glue, ideally PVA. Then coat the stones in some glue, place the image over the top, then add another coating of the glue to create a seal. Then you've got an interactive resource for your children to use to explore and discuss their emotions with some emotions activities. Recently I discovered that the Stones…have feelings too! cards are an excellent resource in supervision with staff. They were really useful in helping a worker to articulate how she was feeling about her planning, goal setting and current work with a family. She then selected the stones she wanted to relate to and the feelings associated with these cards. On her latest trip, Kristen spent three weeks in the village of Rakanda, located on a remote island in the Duke of York Group. Kristen tells us, ‘This village had not had a white woman stay with them before, so it wasn’t long before I had a trail of children following me wherever I went. I stayed with a family with five children, sleeping in their hut and learning to manage without running water or electricity, and cope with an average daily temperature of 36 degrees and the continual onslaught of mosquitos.’

Rolls of cheap paper can be used to create a life timeline. The client can place stones along the line to mark particular moments of significance, including change-points, powerful emotional memories, etc. You or the client might take photographs to create a record of the work. This opened up a new conversation about the worker’s current strengths and ways that she can use them to enable a shift towards the ‘preferred stones’. This flowed on to what the worker decided she could do to enable this to occur and new plans for the family intervention and her overall practice. It was a real ‘ping’ moment!As one client said, the very fact that the therapist is willing to take part in the lending of the stone, and could understand the symbolic importance for the client in their (temporarily) regressed state, can be a large part of the healing power of this intervention. Siblings of children who have a life-limiting illness can often feel isolated and alone. So we developed a pilot program for 8-12 year olds to help them connect with one another, have some fun and feel special. The Wrong Stone was the perfect story to use for a series of art-based activities. Children identify with the stony characters immediately, and there are so many ways you can play with stones!

This year, the Cars ‘R’ Us cards have been colourfully displayed in Susan’s office (‘my roads started on the wall!’) and she has also been using The Bears. Students made feelings books using The Bears as their starting point, while other activities have been developed using Strength Cards for Kids. Anne McCrea and Lyn Browne, Social Workers, Hunter Child Protection & Family Counselling, Newcastle, NSW Related products For another activity, we created a spectacular stone wall (based on the one in the book) and used it as a setting for a puppet show. The children used the puppets to express what it’s like to have a brother or sister who has (or had) a life-limited illness. Surrounded by all the stones celebrating difference and uniqueness, the puppets were able to ‘speak’ freely from their places along wall.Simply arranging stones without any plan or particular intention, can lead to interesting and unexpectedly deep work. (This can be particularly the case with HSP (Highly Sensitive) clients). When a client begins without a plan or intention, and simply creates a satisfying arrangement of stones, themes may emerge that seem to come up from the deep unconscious. It’s a bit like free-association or dreamwork. Saujani points out that crystals are used to improve the function of many everyday objects, like watches, plugs, hospital equipment, and lasers.