See the "Documents Section" to access this form

If you are not a Registered Member please email the Rainbows National Director for details:

sue.rainbowsgb@btconnect.com

See "Documents" section to access this form. (You must be registered to access this information).

I am very pleased to announce that following due process and with the approval of the Charity Commission, Sue McDermott is now our National Director.

Sue's contract is for seventeen and a half hours a week for 38 weeks a year, generally around school terms.

Sue’s contact details remain the same:

sue.rainbowsgb@btconnect.com

Rainbows Tel: 01302 359017

Rainbows Mobile: 07725340623

The Trustees and Management Committee are delighted that Sue has accepted our offer of this post and wish her well in this important role.

<sup>Below are the latest (2011 - 2012) order forms in PDF Format for those who do not have access to the Documents Section of this web site.

Page 1 :</sup>

^{http://www.rainbowsgb.org/documents/UK%20order%20form%202011-12%20p1.pdf}

^{Page 2 :}

^{http://www.rainbowsgb.org/documents/UK%20order%20form%202011-12%20p2.pdf}

^{Copy and Paste the above links into your web browser.}

Two new Order Forms addedto the Documents Section.

2011-12 Page 1

&

2011-12 Page 2

New "Commintment Form" added to Documents Section of the Web Site.

National Director of Rainbows Bereavement Support GB.

We are delighted to announce that we now have an Acting National Director.

Following the unsuccessful search for a new National Director (ND) the Trustee’s together with the Chairman of the Management Committee, considered various options to resolve this issue.

After much debate it was decided that the best option would be to try and appoint an acting National Director for a 13 month period. This would give the opportunity to review the results of the Independent Research Project which is currently being undertaken. This project is examining:

·         The “impact” of Rainbows GB programmes on vulnerable children, young people and adults in prisons.

·         The effectiveness of different models of organisational practice in Rainbows GB

The results of this important research will be available in May 2011.

As the results of the project may influence the role of National Director, a temporary appointment was considered the best option. The Trustees agreed that Sue McDermott, a well-respected Rainbows Development Worker for Rainbows South Yorkshire, who has been actively involved with Rainbows for over fifteen years, should be approached and asked to consider the position.

Sue has warmly accepted the role of Acting National Director for the period suggested. Thankfully, Rainbows South Yorkshire Management Committee agreed to release Sue on secondment to the ND role for a thirteen month period.

The Trustee Board have also gained the approval of the Charities Commission for this appointment. This was granted as we have satisfied the Commission that there is no conflict of interest with any Trustees and that we have good reason for making this appointment.

The Trustees, Management Committee and Registered Directors would all like to thank Sue for taking on this important role.

The Trustees of Rainbows Bereavement Support GB

This Youtube Clip on parental separation is part of a research project run by Liverpool Hope University which seeks to discover children and young peoples own views of parental separation and divorce.

The target group are those aged between 14 to 22 years.

Using dramatised case study scenario of three siblings experience of their parents separation, children and young people are invited to complete an on-line questionaire which asks them for their views on the Youtube clip and about their own experiences. When collated these responses will form a body of knowledge which will inform practitioners working with this group.

All responses are entirely confidential.

Link :    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ZCGtOwF_g

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Deacon Rev Nigel Bavidge on 17^th August 2010 in Overgate Hospice, Elland, aged 66.

Had it not been for Nigel, Rainbows would surely not have touched the lives of so many children, young people and adults in this country.

He has been friend, guide and counsellor to many and we thank him for his inspiration, enthusiasm and passion for Rainbows, especially during its early growth into Great Britain. Nigel was diagnosed with cancer eight months ago. He died peacefully on 17^th August surrounded by his wife, Liz, Fiz his son, and Gabrielle his daughter.  We offer our love, prayers, sympathy and thanks to his wife Liz, Fiz his son, his daughter Gabrielle and James her husband, and his two grandsons who were his delight.

Rainbows was represented at the Requiem Mass held in St Mary’s Church, Halifax on 26^th August by Frank McDermott and Sr. Philippa.

May he rest in peace and rise to new life in Christ.

A number of new Rainbows Posters have been added to the UK Order Forms and the Kit Prices revised to include the new Posters, (See Order Forms Page 1 & 2 in the Documents Section).

A new  "Sunbeams" Bear by the name of Jasper is now available. Many thanks to Rainbows South Yorkshire for sourcing him.

They will be in stock soon and available to order.

A new section has been added to this website.

RainbowsGB relies on donations to be able to continue its work.

So now people can make a donation directly via this website.

Just click on the "Make a Donation" tab on the left and click on the "Donate" button.

Thanks

Two new order forms for 2010 have been added to the Document Section of this site :

UK Order Form 2010 p1 & p2

The forms have been completely redesigned to allow for the amalgamation of religious & secular items. Also Vat has been changed, and some prices have been lowered and new items added.

What can Rainbows Do ?

John’s father asked him to cut the lawn but, being a teenager, he wanted to meet his friends and do the grass tomorrow. So John’s father cut the grass and had a heart attack, dying before John came home. For years, John lived, not only with his grief, but with a sense of guilt that he had caused his father’s death.

Six year old Katy puzzled her teachers by refusing to sit at the same table as another little girl. Her teacher could not see any reason and quietly questioned her. After a long silence, Katy burst out “She’s got my daddy!” Her father had left home and gone to live with another mother on the estate.

Chris had looked forward to the day when he would be old enough to go fishing with his father, like his older brother, but his father died unexpectedly and Chris felt cheated of the happy times that he and his father would share.

All of these young people were suffering from bereavement, from a life altering loss. Because the grown ups in their families were busy dealing with their own feelings, they did not have time to see the depth of suffering in their children. They were comforted by friends who assured them that children are resilient and would cope. Even if they had seen the extent of their suffering, they would not have had the emotional strength to deal with it. The young people themselves, seeing how upset their parent was, kept their feelings to themselves so as not to cause any further upset. John, Katy, Chris and thousands of other young people suffering loss, bottled up their feelings.

Sometimes, the feelings of hurt, bewilderment and pain show themselves in unacceptable ways such as anger, becoming withdrawn, getting into trouble, trying drink or drugs, doing badly at school when they had previously been model students. It can take years before the cause of the problem is identified and the person helped to come to terms with what happened and the way it changed their lives for ever.

What they need is the chance to talk about their feelings, to begin to accept what has happened and eventually move on with their lives. In the “old days”, when families were larger and lived close together, a kindly aunt or uncle or grandparent might have seen what was happening and offered a listening ear and loving support. In our contemporary world, families are smaller, live further away from one another and people lead busy lives.

This is where “Rainbows” comes in. Rainbows is an international, not-for-profit organization that fosters emotional healing among children grieving a loss from a life-altering crisis. Staff in school are trained to run support groups for young people who have suffered such a life altering loss. Two members of staff run a group for five or six children, following a structured programme that allows plenty of time for talking and coming to terms with the normal feelings of grief:

1. DENIAL                      This can’t be happening
2. ANGER                      Why me?
3. BARGAINING            If only… (I had cut the grass/ kept my room tidy etc)
4. DEPRESSION          What’s the use?
5. ACCEPTANCE        Beginning to leave the past and look to the future

 It helps children to know that they are not alone, that others are suffering in similar ways. It helps to know that they can say how angry or sad they are in a supportive, non-judgemental environment, without someone saying “You mustn’t feel like that”. The rationale of Rainbows is to come to terms with the normal feelings of grief, to understand the normal stages of grief and to go through the four tasks of mourning:

1. To accept the reality of the loss
2. To experience the pain of grief
3. To adjust to an environment in which the deceased is missing
4. To withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it in another relationship

As a teacher for over 36 years, 15 of them as Head of two very different schools, I have seen many children struggling with loss of one kind or another. I remember the 5 year old who kept looking in the kitchen cupboards for Daddy, who had died on the operating table while she was at school. She was stuck in “Denial”- it can’t have happened.

I remember the model Year 6 pupil, who changed personality completely when his parents went through a very messy separation and father moved out. He was eventually excluded from school at 15 because of his violence and I have no doubt of the cause.

I remember the seven year old whose mother died of leukaemia and who just “gave up”. He was stuck in depression.

I wish that I had known about Rainbows so that I could help these children more than I did, hard though I tried.

It was only when I retired and had spare time that I was approached and asked to train as the Registered Director for the Catholic Diocese of Southwark in order to introduce Rainbows to Kent. I completed my five day training in Hull and learned more about Rainbows. It was begun in the States by Suzy Yehl Marta, a Catholic woman     whose own three boys had told her many years after her separation from her husband that they had not coped with it, as she had thought. She realised that there must be thousands of young people, needing help and she trained in counselling and psychotherapy and eventually devised the Rainbows programme, which is now run world wide in Catholic and non-Catholic schools, using a Catholic or secular programme.

I have been going into schools, at their request, for three years now. It depends very much on whether a school sees the need for Rainbows and whether it has members of staff who are prepared to do this work on a voluntary basis. There are now 13 schools in Kent, where I have been to train the staff to run Rainbows. I have also trained family Liaison Officers to work in smaller schools where there might be only one child needing support. I have given staff meetings and staff awareness raising sessions.

The Rainbows programme runs for 13 weeks but it is possible to continue to support young people who need it after the 13 weeks are over. Parents of children in the group also say how much it has helped them too because the children come home ready to talk about their feelings and share ideas for dealing with them that they have learned at Rainbows.

The groups are for helping young people through the normal stages of grief, thus preventing problems in later life caused by unresolved grief.  Helpers are not trained as Counsellors but as sympathetic, supportive listeners. Some young people may need professional counselling and Rainbows can never provide that. What it does provide is friendship, support and acceptance at a time of life when there is a struggle to accept a complete change of direction. We are all faced at some time with something that changes the direction in which we thought our lives would go and how we deal with that will affect us for the rest of our lives. Do we become angry, bitter and closed in on ourselves or do we learn to accept and move forward, becoming more sympathetic to others in the process?

If you would like to know more or would be interested in running Rainbows in your school or parish, please contact me for further information without any commitment.

Lyn Coyle
Registered Director Rainbows GB

The Trustees of Rainbows GB have appointed a new Company Secretary.

The new post holder is Gemma Norris, a Registered Director of Rainbows GB. Gemma takes over the position from May 2008. The trustees have extended their welcome and thanks to Gemma for accepting this important role.

The Trustees would like to extend their thanks to John Lynch, retiring Company Secretary, for the excellent work and support he has given to the charity over the years. Thanks also to Pat Lynch for her invaluable support and help.

John has now joinned the Board of Trustees.

The new registered address for Rainbows GB is:

12 Cranleigh Road,

Pakefield,

Lowestoft,

Suffolk,

NR33 7EX

Please note the Resource Centre and Rainbows Office addresses remain unchanged.