The power of puppets: New toolkit helps kids process 'heavy feelings'

Emily Wicks with UConn's Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry noticed the pandemic-era disruptions to kids' social-emotional learning and development, and reached out to Sandy Chafouleas at the university's Neag School of Education.

Together they developed Feel Your Best Self, a puppet-centered program aimed at helping "strengthen the emotional well-being of elementary-aged children."

This hour, we hear from Wicks and Chafouleas about their hopes for the toolkit's application where we live.

Through a series of videos, kid puppets CJ, Nico and Mena help children acknowledge that they have complex emotions, modeling how to express and process them.

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Students at Natchaug Elementary School in Windham piloted a puppet-centered program called Feel Your Best Self, developed by experts at UConn's Neag School of Education and Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.

Emily Iovino / UConn's Neag School of Education

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Emily Wicks with UConn's Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry says the Feel Your Best Self production "involved a mix of outside professionals, UConn students, and UConn alumni." Pictured, left to right: Heather Asch, UConn Puppet Arts Program alumna, Cedwan Hooks, Stoph Scheer, UConn Puppet Arts graduate student, and John Cody, UConn Puppet Arts alumnus.

Feel Your Best Self

The Feel Your Best Self team is working with the Connecticut's Statewide Family Engagement Center to help bridge the divide between the home and classroom.

Veronica Marion with the Center says the program is a "win-win" at a pivotal moment. "We see the numbers currently in regards to social-emotional learning, it’s off the charts. Students are really in the need of something."

With puppets in the room, Marion says, "children will talk more, they will open up more, just the fact that there’s a distraction, just the fact that there’s something else that they’re focusing on."

Plus, we hear from Ximena Marin, a teacher at Natchaug Elementary School in Windham who piloted the program in her bilingual classroom.

GUESTS:

• Emily Wicks: Co-founder, Feel Your Best Self Collaborative Project; Manager of Operations and Collections, University of Connecticut's Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry
• Sandy Chafouleas: Co-founder, Feel Your Best Self Collaborative Project; Neag Endowed Professor, Department of Educational Psychology at UConn's Neag School of Education; Co-Director, UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health
• Ximena Marin: Third-grade Teacher, Natchaug Elementary School
• Veronica Marion: Manager of Family-School Partnerships, Connecticut's Statewide Family Engagement Center
  

Cat Pastor contributed to this episode which originally aired January 6, 2023.

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