From helplessness to a renewed sense of agency: The integration of puppets in the Art & Storytelling school-based creative expression program with immigrant and refugee children

Abstract

The distress experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic can add to the already stressful experience of migration for children and their family, having serious short-term and long-term impact on their mental health and meaning-making processes. Since creativity acts as a protective buffer for children and support their adjustment, the implementation of school arts-based interventions can help support the recovery of children and promote their coping and adaptive strategies. Through the case study of a 7-year-old Syrian refugee, this article presents how a young girl invested the Art & Storytelling school-based creative expression program to regain a sense of agency and control in a (post-)crisis context. Based on the images she created during the workshops as well as on the individual and group observational field notes recorded by workshop facilitators, the case study highlights the child’s creative process and its relationship to the creation of meaning and her developing sense of agency. It focuses especially on how the girl integrated puppets into her own creative process to regain a sense of agency and control over her life.