Children draw on art to lessen sting of abuse

Kimberley McGee

Friday, July 27, 2001 | 4:08 a.m.

The hand-drawn bright yellow suns and blue clouds of the art that hangs on the walls at Family and Child Treatment (FACT) of Southern Nevada is typical of most school-aged children's drawings.

There are green-leafed trees placed in front of homes with large windows, dogs barking beside red doghouses and black M-shaped birds hovering in the blue sky.

But to the children in FACT's therapy programs, the drawings also represent the pain they have suffered at the hands of an abuser.

FACT provides counseling services and programs to help families, especially children, overcome abuse, neglect and violence.

The nonprofit agency's art therapy techniques help children and teenagers regain self-esteem, respect and boundaries.

The 16-year-old program helps families, children and even abusers move past the inflicted pain and create a strong foundation to build a life.

By speaking out about the abuse, the abuse does less harm. The more a child suffers in silence, the larger the wound can become beneath the surface, Victoria Graff, executive director of FACT, said.

Last year more than 800 clients attended counseling classes at the grey-stuccoed building at 4800 W. Charleston Blvd.

FACT offers comprehensive victim treatment for survivors of abuse and parents of children who have been abused. FACT's family intervention services offer guidance and support to families who may in some way be at-risk.

The counselors treat those who abuse in a three-tiered program designed for offenders to understand and accept what they have done and why.

Most adult abusers began the abusive behavior as children. As they continue they become bolder and more dangerous.

"These are not the kids that act out or say, 'Show me yours and I'll show you mine,' " Graff said. "Abuse is about power, control."

A child may feel important and cared for by the adult who is paying that extra attention to him or her and therefore becomes a willing participant. However, a child cannot always understand fully what is happening and may later suffer psychological scarring.

"The responsibility is on the adult to maintain appropriate boundaries," Graff said.

The abuser is known to the abused 90 percent of the time, Graff said. Only 10 percent of abuse cases involve a stranger. Typically abusers are het-erosexual, white males from a middle-class background, Graff said.

"It breaks down the stereotypes of what people think a sex offender is," Graff said.

To keep children safe, teach them about boundaries and how to say no, Graff said.

"It's OK not to want to hug an adult," Graff said. "You have to give them permission to stand up for themselves."

That is exactly why Ellen (who withheld her last name for privacy reasons) came to FACT one year ago. She had witnessed her ex-husband's abuse of their 11-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, when Elisabeth was under the age of 4.

As Elisabeth grew, so did her questions about the secret that hung over the family.

"I didn't know how much she remembered," Ellen said. "As an adult, I didn't know how to bring it up. Would it hurt her to remember?"

In September she began to work with counselor Hilary Westrom, a marriage and family therapist intern at FACT for the past four years. She and Ellen decided to bring Elisabeth in for art therapy to test her memory.

"I knew that something was wrong, but I was scared to find out," Elisabeth said.

Reluctantly, Elisabeth came to therapy at FACT. It wasn't as scary as she had expected, she said. She was given paper, markers, crayons and chalk and asked to draw.

"I thought it was free time," Elisabeth said. "I drew whatever."

But it wasn't that simple.

"It was evident from the drawings that sexual abuse had registered," Ellen said.

Elisabeth drew a large house with small windows and a tiny door, which can be construed to mean the child felt the need to protect herself from the outside. Among the many drawings and other art techniques, indicators such as those continued to surface.

"There were lots of symbols of not feeling safe," Hilary said. "The art helped (Elisabeth) to express herself."

One year later Elisabeth said the FACT program and the art therapy techniques have helped her understand why she sometimes feels angry or uncomfortable and has given her tools to grow past the pain.

"I learned more about what happened with my dad, and I can tell what was kept a secret out loud," Elisabeth said.

Today the mother and daughter are closer, Ellen said, but still have a lot of work to do for Elisabeth.

"There was a huge wall before," Ellen said. "Now she understands more and can talk about it. It's hard to do, but it's been very good for us."

Bringing the memories of abuse to the surface can be the difficult part of therapy, Westrom said.

"That's why we use art techniques," she said. "It can let the children express themselves in a way that's comfortable to them. More than words (can)."

Colleen Sisley, art therapist with FACT for two years, uses masks as an outlet for teens to express their feelings.

"The mask represents the face they show to the world," Sisley said. "The inside of the mask is how they really feel."

A mask painted last year by a client is particularly telling, she said.

The client said each color on the mask represented her feelings, those that she allowed to slip from behind the face she showed her family and friends.

The face of the mask is bathed in yellow for happiness. The full red lips are her anger. The arching brown eyebrows, the shame. The perfect blue circles she's drawn for eyes, her sadness. The short black lines she's drawn for eyelashes represent the abuse.

"She doesn't like to talk about it so she's drawn them (the eyelashes) small," Sisley said.

Turn the hollow mask over, and the inside appears to be bruised. Red, black and blue paint, which represents the confusion and anger she feels daily, cover the inside, from the eyes to the mouth. Above the swirling colors is a yellow sun, its rays reaching toward the darkness.

Through therapy, the yellow sun eventually gained over the darkness, and the artist has moved on with her life, Sisley said.

"She worked through a lot," Sisley said. "That's what we are here for."

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