Rainbows (charity)
Rainbows for All Children is an international grief support organization in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Guam, Singapore, China and beyond. Rainbows runs peer support groups for children and teens who have lost a parent due to death, divorce, deportation, deployment, separation and other traumatic changes. It also works with those suffering from the aftermath of large-scale crises and disasters, such as school violence, war and natural disaster.
Rainbows was established by Suzy Yehl Marta in 1983, after she was unable to find any resources to help her three young sons cope with her divorce. The organization began with three pilot sites in the Chicago area. Today, Rainbows has a global network of 6,500 community-based program sites and 40,000 trained volunteer facilitators who work directly with grieving children and teens throughout the United States and in 17 other countries.
The group's National Honorary Chairperson is the actress Roma Downey, and Jade Kenny, Miss Teen International 2006, is the Rainbows Teen Spokesperson.
Programs
Grief support aims to address the emotional pain of families in transition. The "Sunbeams" group is for children, ages 3 and 4, "Rainbows" is for children in kindergarten through eighth grade, and "Spectrum" is for adolescents in ninth through twelfth grade. "Prism" is a program for the parents and guardians of grieving children.
Rainbows also runs "Silver Linings", a community crisis response program with editions for children, teens and adults.
Pilot programs include "Child-to-Child", which aims to help children living with a mentally ill parent, "Luminaries", aimed at developmentally disabled adults with loss and transitions, and "MVP" (Message on Violence Prevention), developed for the DeAngelo Hall Foundation and used at workshops for at-risk adolescents
Bibliography
- Marta, Suzy Yehl; Healing the Hurt, Restoring the Hope: How to Guide Children and Teens through Troubling Times of Divorce, Death and Crisis Rodale Books 2003; re-issued SawRobin Press 2006, available from Rainbows.
- The Hues, published quarterly, available electronically