Singing to the Lions: A Facilitator’s Guide to Overcoming Fear and Violence (Documents and Webinar Link)

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has released a new tool based on principles of psychosocial resilience, cognitive psychology and narrative therapy. Singing to the Lions is a guide for facilitators, to enable them help children and youth develop skills to resolve the impact of violence and abuse in their lives and to heal. The guide describes the steps in running a workshop for participants aged 11 to young adults. By the end of the workshop described in this guide, participants will learn that they can transform their lives and no longer feel dominated by fear. Although developed for young people, and including games, art and songs, the Singing to the Lions workshop can also be used with adults to help them manage their own anxiety, take action on aspects of their lives that cause fear, and in so doing, become better parents and caregivers. A supplement and data entry sheet, which are intended to be used with the guide, and a handout about the workshop are also available to download.

In a webinar on February 28, 2017, Dr. Jonathan Brakarsh and Dr. Lucy Steinitz presented background on the tools development, an overview of the sessions and an example of how it works. A recording of the webinar can be found here.