listen to a silent voice

Before I begin my story, allow me to state: I am no art therapist. However, I have a powerful story to share. In this story a child used their silent voice, by communicating through drawing, and I listened.
About three weeks ago, I developed a lesson about line. Within that lesson the children were learning the difference between outline, contour and gesture. To assist in their understading, I had a small activity using each line listed. For the gestural lines, one that capture the motion and movement of the body, I had the students watch a 2 minute segment from the movie Fantasia and draw their impression of what they saw. (Specifically where hippos are dancing ballet.) This activity is very fast paced and as I walk the room I am checking for students' progress. Often times, children will cover their work, unsure of themselves. I do not pressure the student to show me the work at that time because I review the work and I do not wish to call attention to an already concientous ego.
In preparation for upcoming Parent/Teacher conferences, I began compiling all student work two weeks ago, collecting all assignments for each student up to this point. While I was in the middle of this process I stumbled upon an image that was clearly "off-task". I closely examined the image, since it looked nothing like the gestural drawings I had asked for. The image was clearly of a stick figure "adult" hitting a stick figure "child". The adult's facial expression was distinctly angry and the child's face was distinctly sad with tears. I pulled the image and immediately sent an e-mail to the child's classroom teacher, the school counselor and the principal, requesting that they review the image.
The counselor came by to view the image a few days later and wrote a detailed note that this child had been removed from the home within the last year and was currently in foster care. Then about a week ago, the vice-principal asked if anyone had been by to honor my request. I said yes and explained the note from the counselor. The VP then replied, "I have a meeting this morning, but then I will stop by your room. I would like to see it myself." When the VP saw the image, she was concerned and asked if she could make a photocopy of the image so that she could show it to the child's case worker. The VP also explained the child's situation in greater detail and felt that this might be in response to a current event during a visitation.
Finally, on Friday, Oct. 17, 2008 I was sent an e-mail by the principal thanking me for paying attention to this child's drawing. A meeting had been called of our school's principal, vice-principal, the child's previous principal (who was very familiar with the situation) and the child's case worker. Upon consultation, they did believe that this image was about a relatively current situation and that the case worker was going to investigate further. The case worker had requested the principal to send a personal thank you for bringing the image to his attention.
All of this I share to remind us to pay attention to all forms of communication. I have briefly spoken of visual literacy on this website. Images are a way of communicating. Sometimes the images say what a child can not(either because of lack of vocabulary, trust or fear). Provide your student's opportunities to communicate to you through images, and expressive outlets beyond the word and text. I was extremely proud of myself and felt appreciated by the administration in their understanding of my role within each student's life.