INTRODUCTION

To enter the world of Beachbrook as created by Dr. Joan Prideaux is to enter a zone of Shalom. I think of it as “the way the world should be, but all too often isn’t.” It is a world of both freedom and security where children experience themselves to be fully known and completely accepted.

With artistry and understanding Dr. Prideaux creates a nurturing environment that allows children to speak their word, to sing their song and ultimately to live their lives in healthy and hopeful ways.

I write as a parent whose child literally learned to speak her word in response to Joan’s listening ear. When our daughter entered Beachbook’s therapeutic nursery at age three, she had no speech and found if difficult if not impossible to enter a room filled with strangers. She seemed to feel that the best possible use of her arm was to shield herself from the world’s gaze. Her “official” diagnosis was retardation with an overlay of autism.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Beachbook proved to be a “lifeline” for both our daughter and her parents!

For a number of years, my wife and I have urged Joan to share her experience, knowledge, techniques, and artistry with a wider audience. We have seen her at work as the catalyst in the transformation of the lives of children. We have observed her teaching others to be healers. As parents, we learned from her new ways of interacting with our daughter that moved us beyond merely coping to positive participation in our daughters emerging selfhood.

As Joan tells the story of Beachbrook, we hear not only the story of children healed and families strengthened. We see and hear, and discover ways of listening, speaking and acting that all of us can learn to appropriate towards a saner, more life-giving way of being in the world. Shalom.

The Rev. Norman Kolenbrander, Pella, Iowa.

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BEACHBROOK THERAPEUTIC NURSERY SCHOOL