Reflection Pond: Nurturing Wholeness in Displaced Children

Reflection Pond is a meditation on identity, culture, and healing in children separated from family. Among the numerous causes for these displacements are poverty, abuse, neglect, natural disaster, epidemic, immigration, incarceration, addiction, war, genocide, oppression, and child labor and trafficking. In the face of such loss and trauma, our children have the power for healing and growth within them. Every aspect of their lives is affected by an often solitary quest for beauty and belonging. We who raise and serve these displaced young, through our embrace, are a vital factor in their ultimate healing. Jaiya John has shared time with thousands of uprooted children through his global rehumanizing mission and freedom work. Reflection Pond offers us his personal meditation, a looking glass for what these youth have whispered into his spirit. They have shared their need for reflection ponds: people, places, and experiences through which their own beauty and purpose are reflected back to them. Reflection Pond is an invaluable resource for MSW programs, staff development, parents and caregivers, social workers, counselors, therapists, community leaders, youth justice, foster care, adoption, homelessness, policy and lawmakers, legal & court, child welfare, educators, advocates, and mentors.