Red Chocolate Elephants
Red Chocolate Elephants is a remarkable resource for children bereaved by suicide. In a world where children are forgotten mourners, this unique combination of text, pictures, and voices - all in the words of bereaved children themselves - is a treasured safe haven for young people to hear their fears, questions, and difficulties put into works by other children just like them.
This book and USB will be an excellent resource for parent and child to use together in trying to face the suicide of a loved one. In writing and production, Red Chocolate Elephants, Dr. Diana Sands has given children everywhere who are bereaved by suicide a wonderful gift for beginning their journey of healing.
— John R. Jordan, PhD, International Author, Professional Advisor Survivor Council of American Foundation Suicide Prevention, Clinical Consultant Samaritans Boston Grief Support
Watch Red Chocolate Elephants video preview below:
To purchase multiple copies, and for purchase outside Australia, please email: dianasands@karridale.org
Why is this an important resource
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This important publication provides a sensitive and appropriate means of engaging with children around the difficult question of death through suicide. Red Chocolate Elephants will be a valuable tool for those supporting children in schools and other settings, and provides an important bridge into exploring this complex and confusing experience. I highly recommend it.
Christopher Hall, MAPS, Director, Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement
Red Chocolate Elephants, with the directness of child-practical tips, and a caring therapist guidance, is an invaluable resource. I would have treasured this as a source of comfort after my mother died by suicide.
Dr. Nancy Rappaport, Assistant Professor, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. Director of School Based Programs in Child Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance
In this moving and beautiful book, children write and draw what it was like losing a parent to suicide. With disarming directness, they offer insights for other children facing such tragedy, for parents, carers and therapists supporting such children, and for anyone responding to suicide or grief and seeking to continue in life. I highly recommend this excellent work, its author and advisory team.
Dr. Michael Dudley, Senior Specialist in Psychiatry, Sydney Children’s and Prince of Wales Hospitals and Chair, Suicide Prevention Australia
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Many aspects of this kind of grief are confusing and don't make sense, and children need support in expressing these bewildering inconsistencies. The Red Chocolate Elephants provides a sensitive, age appropriate way of talking with primary school age children about the difficult questions of death through suicide.
The unique combination of text, children’s words, drawings and voices allows children to hear their concerns and questions put into words by other children just like them, to support them in finding a way to express their own grief.
The interactive activities assist identifying grief responses and provide opportunities for meaning making conversations to help reduce the sense of "I'm the only one this has happened to".
These activities support development of a healthy bond with the deceased, strengthen resilience and build hope.
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The book is designed as an assisted reading activity for an adult to read with a child, a few pages at a time while conversations are developed through the many activities set out with an elephant symbol.
The book and USB data stick can be used in any order. Allow the child to be the guide for what is of interest. It would be useful to have drawing paper, coloured pencils, textas and other art materials ready for use. Children might like to have a book in which they write and draw their own story.
The book provides a range of interactive activities from drawing your own Feelings Bag to making a Talking Stick to help talking about really hard-to-say things, or drawing around your hand, and writing on each finger the name of a person you can reach out and talk with about worries and concerns.
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Title: Red Chocolate Elephants for Children Bereaved by Suicide – Book & USB
Author: Diana C. Sands, PhD
Foreword: Robert R. Neimeyer, PhD
Format: Book - 56 page text and full colour illustrations
Price: Australia: $55 (incl. GST + Postage)
Recommendations
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Red Chocolate Elephants provides a unique way of helping children, often forgotten mourners in suicide grief, cope with the loss of a loved one. No-one expresses it better than children and this is their opportunity to speak. The most important piece of all? Knowing their dads are still with them.
Dr. Michelle Linn-Gust, President-Elect, American Association of Suicidology
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This small book conveys a great deal of wisdom that will assist children as they sort out their feelings when someone they love dies by suicide. Red Chocolate Elephants is a most therapeutic gift.
Dr. Ken Doka, Professor, The College of New Rochelle, Senior Consultant, The Hospice Foundation of America
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This poignant USB data stick and book is a welcome edition to the field of suicide literature. Listening to the voices of the children, we are reminded not just of how suicide affects them, but also of what we can learn about loss from them.
Dr. Susan Delaney, Clinical Psychologist, Bereavement Services Manager, Irish Hospice Foundation
Dr. Sands talks on Open to Hope about helping children bereaved by suicide
Northern Rivers Suicide Prevention and Awareness Community Group - committee
L- R: Scott Veivers, Sam Green, Dot Orchard (Chair), Dr Jenny Dowell OAM JP, Honorary Doctor of Southern Cross University Mayoral Mentor, LGNSW, Jay Gibson
For more information visit: Northern Rivers Suicide Prevention and Awareness Group
Diana Sands supported Anna Wardley’s Churchill Fellowship research Time to count: Supporting children after a parent dies by suicide: www.teamluna.org/research; Samaritans and John Armitage Charitable Trust UK; www.jact.org
Red Chocolate Elephants Resource distributed Child Bereavement UK: www.childbereavementuk.org