Project Joy and Hope
Current Projects
I. HOPE HOUSE PROJECT
This demonstration project is designed to address the following need:
Sometimes children and families live too far away from medical centers to be able to receive the palliative and supportive care they need. Other outstanding organizations in our community provide housing for families when children are fighting for cures, but dying children are not a part of these programs. Also, young people (over 18-22) are excluded from most programs.
Therefore, Project Joy and Hope provides an apartment within 20 minutes of the Texas Medical Center to any qualifying family to utilize until 30 days after their child no longer utilizes supportive and palliative care services (hospice). This facility is fully furnished by Project Joy and Hope, with a stocked food pantry and linens. Joy and Hope volunteers are available to assist the family with errands and other requests, such as daily injections.
This project has ongoing expenses, including, but not limited to, utilities, telephone, insurance, and supportive supplies.
· Because of the need for this program, Project Joy and Hope is working to add a fourth unit in the near future so that more families may be served. A fourth unit will require an additional funding of $9,200).II. TAPESTRY PROJECT
The death of a child has been described as the most devastating event that can happen in one’s life. The death of a child affects how parents respond to the world as individuals, how they respond to their surviving children as parents, and how they respond to each other as partners.
A child represents promise, providing parents with opportunities for growth and engagement with life. The parent/child relationship provides parents the chance to love unconditionally and to identify closely with someone who is an extension of self. When a child dies, the things that made the parent/child relationship unique are the very things that intensify the grief experience.
After the death, parents may feel an oppressive sense of failure, a loss of power and ability, and a deep sense of being violated. Parents also lose the family, as they have known it, which is forever changed by the loss of the child.
One of the most difficult aspects of parental loss is that it strikes both partners at the same time, confronting each with an overwhelming loss. As a result, each partner’s most valuable emotional resource is taken away. The energy each partner previously had to relate to and take care of the other partner is now in short supply. Partners must deal with the grief of the other; one partner’s pain increases as the pain in the other is witnessed. Although a respite from each other may be needed, guilt for needing this often makes it hard to request and even harder to receive. Normal patterns of relating are disrupted: communication may be avoided, irrational demands may be made, and day-to-day problems may not be addressed. Such problems tend to accumulate until there may be an explosion, resulting in greater misunderstandings and feelings of helplessness.
Each parent is confronting a different loss, despite the fact that they lost the same child. This is because each has sustained a unique relationship with the child, and this relationship is what the parent mourns. The fact that each partner grieves in his or her unique way, which is different from how the other partner grieves, adds to the feelings of isolation.
Impossible as it may seem, from this intense pain, positive responses can emerge. As the grief is processed, a heightened sense of spirituality, increased sensitivity to others, closer relationships, and a commitment to living life can be experienced.
Tapestry: A Couples’ Retreat, is designed to help partners explore their grief in an environment which promotes their individual, as well as the couple’s, grief response.
Please register now for Tapestry: A Mother's Retreat November 16 -18, 2007.
III. H.O.P.E. BEREAVEMENT EDUCATION CLASSES
H.O.P.E. for Bereaved Parents
(English & Spanish classes)
Project Joy and Hope is pleased to announce its parent support services program, entitled H.O.P.E. This program, Helping Our Pain Ease, is designed to assist both men and women who have experienced the death of a child through seven, weekly bereavement support/ education sessions. This program is provided free to the public. Sessions are ongoing. These seven sessions of H.O.P.E., led by licensed counselor Donna Lamb, LMSW-ACP, utilize music, relaxation, guided imagery, and experiential exercises to address issues which are common in parental grief, including anger, guilt, and forgiveness. The H.O.P.E. program also addresses normal grief responses vs. complicated grief responses, and teaches group members tools that can be used to release emotions when ready. The seven-week H.O.P.E. series reinforces parents' positive coping skills, and addresses other factors that facilitate a family's healthy adjustment to the death of a child
Need for the Program: The death of a child, no matter the age, has been described as the most devastating event an individual can face in a lifetime. The pain may, at times, seem overwhelming. After a child's death, parents often find it difficult to fulfill the role they hold in the family: mothers may find themselves unable to be the nurturer, communicator, and emotional hub of the family, and fathers may feel they have failed in their role as protector and provider. Essential to the healing process are finding outlets to express the pain that naturally accompanies grief, and finding a support system that encourages active remembrance of the child.
Additionally, parents may be concerned about their surviving children's reactions to the death, and wonder how to help guide them through this difficult time. For children to appropriately adjust to the death of a sibling, it's important that parents possess positive coping skills, and model to their surviving children appropriate ways of expressing emotions.
Participants: Any parent in the Gulf Coast area who has experienced the death of a child is invited to participate in the program. Family members are encouraged to attend separate sessions. The H.O.P.E. program is available to all parents, no matter the length of time since the death occurred or the age of the child (i.e. adult child).
· We are working to expand this ongoing program to various locations throughout Houston, and to develop our Spanish version of this course.
IV. FAMILY ASSISTANCE GRANT PROGRAM
This program is a basic financial assistance program designed to fill gaps in the budget of families sharing their child’s end of life experience. Many times parents have been forced to quit their jobs, in order to provide the daily care their dying child needs.
This assistance, provided on an individual basis, is available for necessities for the family. Some examples include tires, automobile repair, food, and utility bills.
· Families throughout Texas are eligible for consideration upon recommendation from their social worker.
V. "LEND ME YOUR LAP" LOAN PROGRAM
Children at end of life are often too weak to even sit at a computer system. We provide laptops to the child or adolescent, equipped with appropriate software, for use on a loan basis to the family. Free Internet service is also provided. Equipment repairs are sometimes necessary upon return of a unit.
VI. PARENT TO PARENT SUPPORT PROGRAM
Parent volunteers, whose own children have died, are available to support other mothers and fathers struggling with the reality that there will be no cure for their child. Toll-free and cellular service 24 hours a day is available.
VII. TEACHER BEREAVEMENT MANAGEMENT EDUCATION and TRAINING
Classroom teachers in Texas receive little, if any, training in issues of life and loss transition. Realistically, few students actually go to the school counselor with their problems and struggles in the midst of grief and loss. Most remain in the classroom, with their bereavement undetected and/or ignored by the classroom instructor. Many times this oversight is rooted in lack of knowledge, understanding, and skills in working with the student experiencing grief and loss.
Project Joy and Hope seminars train classroom educators in childhood and adolescent life and loss transition management.
VIII. HOPE SCHOLARSHIPS
In loving memory of Valerie Grace Wheeler
Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is only a vision; but today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of HOPE.
Valerie Grace Wheeler learned that she had cancer when she was barely a teenager, having celebrated her 13th birthday a few short months prior to receiving the harsh news of her diagnosis of metastatic Ewing’s sarcoma.
Words seem inadequate to describe this exceptional young woman. Friends and family called her Val, while many called her “Amazing Grace.” Astounding everyone with her determination, courage, positive attitude, and spiritual strength, Valerie touched hundreds of people in the 28 months that she lived after diagnosis. She died June 25, 1999, before she could begin her sophomore year of high school.
Attending Sam Rayburn High School, Valerie was an honor student, a talented artist, an outstanding athlete, and above all, a person who had true compassion for others.
Because of her faith in God, she believed in the joy and hope that each new day could bring.
The Hope Scholarships, in memory of Valerie, seek to recognize other outstanding young people in Texas who value education, believe in service to others, and have worked hard to overcome obstacles in the course of their studies
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