Cuddly Archie helps kids handle their feelings
WELLBEING: Youngsters at Footprints Girls Centre on the launch of ‘Archie’s Adventures in Feelings’
A NEW well-being ebook and useful resource for kids has been launched to assist kids handle their feelings.
‘Archie’s Adventures in Feelings’ was designed by Playboard NI, the lead organisation for the event of youngsters and younger individuals’s play, alongside kids from Footprints Girls’s Centre in Poleglass.
The modern kids’s ebook and accompanying exercise playing cards promote emotional intelligence by way of play. Readers are guided on a jungle journey with Archie Bear and his jungle associates as he explores feelings. Navigating a variety of emotions, the ebook goals to equip kids with the abilities to grasp and handle their feelings in a enjoyable and playful means.
The youngsters’s story is accompanied by a useful resource of easy play actions which can be utilized by mother and father at dwelling or by these working with kids in settings, in teams or on a one-to-one foundation.
Designed as a component of PlayBoard’s Areas to Be programme, the brand new useful resource continues PlayBoard’s work in supporting kids’s psychological well being and well-being by way of a play-based strategy.
Areas to Be is delivered as a part of the OUR Technology venture. OUR Technology is funded below the European Union’s PEACE IV Programme, managed by the Particular EU Programmes Physique (SEUPB), to construct optimistic relations and emotional resilience in communities impacted by 4 a long time of the Troubles/Battle throughout the island of Eire.
Match-funding for the venture has been supplied by the Government Workplace in Northern Eire and the Division of Rural and Group Improvement in Eire.
Talking on the launch of the well-being ebook and useful resource, PlayBoard Chief Government, Alan Herron, stated: “We’re delighted to affix Footprints Girls’s Centre as we speak to share our new well-being useful resource.
“Youngsters attending the childcare setting have been instrumental within the improvement of the useful resource by way of participation in an activity-led focus group. Following a preview of the story, the kids shared their suggestions which enabled us to make enhancements and guarantee each the ebook and actions have been child-friendly.
“The well being and well-being of youngsters and younger individuals is on the core of what we do, and thru our play-based programmes equivalent to Areas to Be and our assets, we proceed to attempt for the perfect outcomes for all kids and younger individuals throughout Northern Eire.
“We hope that Archie’s Adventures in Feelings will help mother and father and people working with kids to speak about feelings and psychological well being in a playful but impactful means.”
Lisa Maclean, Chief Government, Footprints Girls’s Centre, stated: “Our Household Empowerment Mission, sponsored by BBC Youngsters in Want, gives a holistic service to households and kids within the Colin Space. Key to our service supply is recognising the power and worth of working in partnership with different child-centric organisations and our partnership working and co-delivery with PlayBoard NI has proved an enormous success.
“We’re happy to have labored collectively to advertise optimistic play and construct resilience by way of the Areas to Be programme, and the OUR Technology venture since 2022. The cross-community programme appears at variety and distinction, specializing in similarities and customary objectives. There was a spot out there for a kids’s emotional well-being useful resource and the kids helped make this occur.”
Footprints additionally ship a CHAMPS programme (Youngsters Therapeutic by way of Artwork Music Play and Smiles) offering kids aged 5 to 10 years with a protected area for improvement and confidence constructing by way of enjoyable play actions.
Maelíosa Cahill, Footprints Household Empowerment lead, added: “Participating the kids within the improvement of a useful resource for kids and households to advertise optimistic emotional well-being has been a welcomed alternative. The voice of the kid is crucial in growing assets for kids.
“We’re very happy with our CHAMPS group in serving to to develop Archie’s Adventures in Feelings and look ahead to utilizing it with future teams.”