An All About Me exercise which helps children and young people to think about the different places they’ve lived.
Places I Have Lived
Many of the children and young people we engage with have lived in different homes, with different families and may have had different carers. It is very helpful for them to consider, comment on and understand the physical journey of their lives and to make sense of the meaning behind the changes.
Often children and young people will blame themselves for the changes in their various moves and so this section can witness their thoughts and feelings around the places they have lived. It is a vital part of the All About Me approach, where unspoken shame, guilt, blame and confusion often resides. This section features a number of ideas and tools that you may find helpful to use.
Activity One: The House Exercise
Approaches and creative ideas to help you facilitate this session,
Ask the child or young person to draw a picture of a house. This could be their current home, a home they’ve lived in before or a fantasy home. Then ask the child or young person to add the address or area.
They could write, draw, add photographs to it, and identify who they live/ lived with or would like to live with.
Complete this for every house they might wish to draw.
This resource was developed by Blue Cabin, Professor Richard Rose and South Tyneside Council.
We are grateful to have received core funding from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Segelman Trust and the Sir James Knott Trust.
