U of M Dearborn Students Design Art Projects for Grieving Children at Angela Hospice

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These U of M Dearborn students presented a total of nine projects for Angela Hospice's social work and bereavement team to engage with young clients.

Through a collaborative grant from the Ford Motor Company Fund, students from U of M Dearborn designed therapeutic art interventions aimed at helping children and teens who are coping with grief. On December 6, they demonstrated the projects for Angela Hospice staff, and presented custom project kits for Angela Hospice’s social work team to use in completing the activities with grieving children and teens.

These students created a drum. The drum can be 
decorated in the color(s) of the client's choosing
and can be played in different ways to express
different emotions.
“The art projects that the students presented on were extremely creative,” said Sara Waters, a social worker in Angela Hospice's bereavement department. “Working with kids and teens, oftentimes they use art as a way to express their feelings. I am planning on using the art supplies with the kids and teens that I work with to help them understand their grief, create healthy ways to cope, and engage in activities to remember their loved one.”

The students completed these projects through a Ford Community Corps project, whereby the Ford Motor Company Fund enables non-profits to connect with colleges and universities to develop service-learning initiatives for students to use the practical skills and knowledge they have gained in a real-world setting. The goal of the Ford Community Corps is to create real value for both the students and the nonprofit organizations involved.

This "Blackout Poetry" project using  a newspaper 
article and decorative paper was designed to be
used with teens.
Professor Mary Kraft of U of M Dearborn’s Health and Human Services Department led the project as part of her class “Death, Dying and Bereavement.”  She said students in this class are pursuing a variety of human service-oriented majors, including education, psychology, social work, and sociology.

"I was really impressed with the students' creativity," said Angela Hospice Development and Communications Coordinator Lisa Norton. "We're so grateful to them for all their work, and to the Ford Motor Company Fund for this unique opportunity."

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