Carol Wood has been an Educational Psychologist for over 17 years and has worked with children and families in Australia, North America and the UK. She began her career as a Maths and Science teacher but found many children in her classes were unreceptive to learning because of emotional and behavioural issues. She then retrained as a Guidance Counsellor in order to assist and support these children.
During the course of her counselling she found many children who found it difficult to open up and express their feelings just by talking it over. As Carol is also an Artist she started using Art Therapy in her counselling sessions to help the children feel comfortable and also to help them express their feelings.
She found that teaching children emotional and social intelligence/literacy was the key to helping them feel good about themselves, be more in charge of their life and be more receptive to learning.
Due to the lack of practical resources in the area of creative therapy Carol combined her talent as an artist with her extensive experience working with children to design the Rainbow Planet Connection programs and products.
Rainbow Planet Connection resources help children to explore and express their feelings through art, creative writing, drama and other creative expression activities. They can be used by those working with primary school children either in a teaching or counselling role.
Carol has delivered training courses to teachers, child-care workers and parents in Australia, America, Canada and the UK to enable them to implement emotional and social well-being programs for children. The programs and resources that Carol has developed are fun and easy to use and offer lots of ideas and activities to support children in developing skills in this area.
Carol would like to link in with other organisations and individuals who are passionate about supporting children’s healthy development. Please contact her if you’re interested and would like to find out more.
Karyn Nash brought her teaching, computer and communication skills into the Rainbow Planet Project. She has worked mainly in primary schools, dealing with children with learning challenges particularly in the last five years of her teaching career. As she interacted with these children it became apparent to her that the emotional wellness and self worth of these children needed to be addressed in order to unblock their learning difficulties.
The success that Karyn had with these children resulted from getting to know them on a personal level, valuing them and allowing them to express their feelings.
Meeting Carol and becoming involved with this project was a blessing for Karyn as she felt it addressed an area that was not dealt with effectively within most Educational settings.
Karyn felt that helping children to feel good on the inside would be a major key in enabling them to be more receptive to learning
