St. Dominic School Focuses on Reaching Students at Deeper Levels

As published in the Southington Citizen, March 16, 2012

"Children are a most precious gift, carrying a message of hope and the continuation of life." These are headline words of "Rainbows," a program added by St. Dominic School which is under the direction of Stacy Marchionni, who has been the school’s Student Counselor since August 2011.

The Rainbows program is based in Chicago where it was founded 29 years ago when it piloted its curriculum in local private schools. Since then, Rainbows states that they have become the nation’s largest not-for-profit organization dedicated solely to helping families cope with loss, and that they have served nearly 2 million youth throughout the U.S. and 17 countries.

A conversation with Principal, Patti Tiezzi and Stacy Marchionni, brought out the fact that when children experience the loss of a parent. grandparent or other close member of the nuclear family, either through death, divorce, disabling illness, etc., they are left with the absence of one of their primary sources of love, trust, even discipline, and orientation. Such a loss can leave a child without an anchor to life itself. It can be that serious. Moreover, it’s difficult for children to put their pain into words. When they attempt to articulate their feelings kids may find parents too burdened by their own grief to effectively help them cope with their feelings. Sometimes children outwardly appearing to be coping are struggling inside with conflicting emotions. The goal of Rainbows is to get out these feelings as one step in learning that their feelings matter and that notwithstanding a loss, they still belong to that family so that they may feel physically and emotionally safe.

The children at St. Dominic are currently placed in two age-appropriate support groups of no more than five. Marchionni reports visible progress in getting the children to express themselves and to develop trust in new relationships as they reach out to each other in a safe place to talk about what is going on. The student counselor’s responsibilities include a range of additional programs directed at the development of individual social and empathy skills .

There’s now in place, a Peer Mediator group of four 5th graders who are trained and under the supervision of the counselor in meeting with students in trying to help them resolve conflicts. Tiezzi pointed out that kids need to learn that the violence they see and experience on TV and in media games is not reality and that such behavior is never appropriate in resolving disagreements in a supportive environment. The school is also preparing 4th graders to assume the responsibility of 5th graders who will be graduating in June.

There’s also a Second Step program that addresses violence, resolution of conflicts through empathetic use of social skills and being a good listener, for example. Children are the center of the universe in their homes but in school they need to grow into healthy members and good citizens in the world they are meeting outside of the home culture.

Tiezzi commented that the school faculty and staff are on board with the counselor and Rainbows and social skills teaching programs. Through their own training and experience they relate to the benefits these curricula provide the students, the school and themselves as teachers.

While the importance of these programs should be self-evident, the strength of them is in the support of principal, faculty, the School Board and parents with the full endorsement of the pastor of St. Dominic. Fr. Ron May, and the fact that Rainbows provides curricula, materials, training, site support, follow up, continuing education and research and evaluation of the entire process.