Reading with Oliver project is a best-seller
Local charity HOPE is celebrating after securing a grant to develop a new project for children attending their peer support groups.
The National Lottery Awards for All England has agreed funding for 12 months to deliver the Reading with Oliver project at the HOPE group meetings across South Yorkshire.
Families who have suffered a traumatic bereavement when a loved one has been killed in a road traffic collision, fire or drowning attend the monthly peer support group meetings to help process their grief and emotions.
Whilst the adults can support each other through their shared experiences of grief, the children are offered a range of activities, including arts and crafts.
The new project encourages each child to choose a book to sit and read to Oliver, HOPE’s therapy dog. The emotional support that therapy dogs can offer has long since been recognised as contributing towards an improvement in both physical and mental health. The Reading with Oliver project provides a safe and happy environment with an emphasis on the child’s emotional wellbeing. This is also a time for children to process and recover from their own grief.
Carol, who delivers the project for HOPE, said. “Oliver is a great listener and is specially trained to sit patiently with the children. Often children will open up and talk to Oliver, whilst they are reading to him, in a way that they wouldn’t speak as freely to adults. They know he will never judge and that he is always there for a hug and a pat.
“We see children make a beeline for the reading corner when they walk through the door at group meetings. And the children smile and become more energised when reading with Oliver.
“It’s clear that this new scheme is providing benefits to the children taking part and we want to be able to offer it more widely for the children whose families we are working with across South Yorkshire.”
Oliver is enjoying listening to all the stories that the children are reading to him. He will be asked to vote for his favourite book later in the year!
