Gamified therapy sessions: psychologists dress up as magical characters to help Ukrainian families overcome trauma

What is the problem?

Childhood is a crucial time when a person's worldview, body, and nervous system develop. Psychologists say that personality is formed between the ages of four and nine. However, harmonious formation is possible only in conditions of security and stability — which Ukrainian children are lacking because of the war unleashed by Russia.

Children from front line areas suffer from high levels of anxiety. According to experts, many of them have communication disorders: fear of making new acquaintances, being confident in their opinions, or even just speaking with peers. This is particularly evident among children from Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson regions, where classes in kindergartens and schools mainly occur online, and children do not receive group socialization, which is important for healthy development.

What is the solution?

Since the full-scale invasion, the Kharkiv NGO "Possibility. Motivation. Media" has implemented psychological support projects for children. One of them is Chest of Miracles, an online social project for young Ukrainians that teaches children how to take care of their mental health.

Classes take place in a specially developed, free app. While having fun talking with the fairy-tale character Morkvynka, who, in fact, is an experienced teacher-psychologist, children improve their communication skills, teamwork, and empathy and learn to manage their emotions and feelings. 

Anastasiia Svoboda, head of the Chest of Miracles project and practitioner of narrative communication techniques, told Rubryka about how Morkvynka helps children and their parents cope with the daily challenges of war.

How does it work?

Before the full-scale war, "Opportunities. Motivation. Media" had a media school for children in Kharkiv with a close-knit team. Each year, more than 100 students participated in psychological and TV projects, a media house near the center of Kharkiv, and even its own film series. All this ceased to exist on February 24, 2022, like many other projects for children.

When the war started, many Ukrainian children spent their days shocked and confused. Most children didn't want to talk, get out of bed, or eat. They often cried and, just like adults, absolutely did not know what to do. Adults at that time did not understand how to support children and how to move on in general. Many families also had to move, creating additional stress for the children and the family. 

Seeing the need, the organization decided to help their pupils — support chats were organized for teenagers, classes were resumed, and a lot of attention was paid to adaptation to new conditions and emotional intelligence and free expression of one's feelings. To help the younger students, they began to organize calls on behalf of the character Morkvynka — a psychologist dressed as a carrot, trying to distract the children from the terrible events of the war.

Friends from the MaPanda team developed a special app to visualize Morkvynka – an effective name for the animated carrot, or "morkva" in Ukrainian. Initially, with the help of the calls, the creators of Morkvynka wanted to give children a friend with whom they could talk about their fears and significant events and share emotions or impressions. At that time, the initiative team consisted of five people: they called children, created scenarios on the go, collected feedback, and simultaneously improved the technical side of the application. At the same time, the calls continued for about 50 children from Kharkiv — pupils of the media school and children from large families, who were also included in the project. 

The results of the first three months of the initiative showed that online conversations with children had a positive effect. Morkvynka, establishing a warm emotional connection with the children, became a confidant and role model. Therefore, the project organizers began to put a deeper meaning in the following communication scenarios: not just communication, but the acquisition of knowledge and the development of socially essential skills and habits.

In August 2022, the initiative of enthusiasts began receiving support from the German Government, which made it possible to scale the team from five to 30 specialists, who could now provide psychological support to 250 children.

This is how the Chest of Miracles project was born, aimed at children aged four to nine and their parents, and guardians. The main goal of the project is to instill children and families with the habit of taking care of one's psycho-emotional state.

In the conditions of the war, the online format of the project turned out to be a successful solution. About 30% of the children to whom Morkvynka calls through the application are residents of the front line areas. It is often difficult to hold offline events there due to the danger of shelling. Another third of the small participants of the project are abroad. For them, Morkvynka is not only a source of psychological support, but also an opportunity to immerse themselves in a Ukrainian-speaking environment, despite Russia's efforts to impose its language and rules there.

The most important advantage of the project is that the child does not know they are having a therapy session, and they don't suspect that Morkvynka is actually an experienced teacher-psychologist. Morkvnka becomes the child's friend. She lives in the magical world and has various adventures, and also, sometimes troubles. This orange friend is not perfect and sometimes quarrels with relatives, get sad, and makes various mistakes — that's what makes her interesting.

From the child's perspective, they are simply playing with a friend — not suspecting that they are actually tapping into their psycho-emotional state. "This is possible only online, and only with the magic character of the application," says Anastasia Svoboda.

The head of the project explains that taking care of one's psycho-emotional health is always a difficult task, even for adults. It is necessary to approach this confidently and responsibly to have a result. Such work requires discipline and understanding the "art of small steps." It is quite difficult to imagine a child who would readily join a Zoom session to chat with an unfamiliar adult, even more so an intimidating psychologist. Therefore, Morkvynka becomes a bridge between a child and a specialist. Besides, it reminds the children: "A magical world exists, and everyone can create it themselves!"

• Ten calls through the application, using an innovative method based on positive psychology.
• A Good Habits Tracker and games made by the developers.
• Exciting stories and activities that will help instill the habit of daily mental health care in the form of a magical game.
• Children who successfully complete the entire project are guaranteed to receive a free gift package — the Chest of Miracles.

The MaPanda application is the main tool of the project. An adult must install the application on their device, and project administrators will help choose the day and time of the calls. Then, twice a week, the child receives a call from Morkvynka at the specified time. Together, they play and complete digital interactive tasks that help improve communication skills, emotional intelligence, empathy, and stress resistance.

Through simple plots, Morkvynka explains topics about personal boundaries, behavior in conflict, the ability to forgive, admit one's mistakes, control one's emotions, and talk about one's feelings to the child. Through games, children learn self-reflection, self-control, and stress resistance. Thanks to additional tools (tracker, piggy bank), the importance of taking care of your own psycho-emotional state is made into a habit.

Each call has a separate plot and purpose. During each meeting, the child helps Morkvynka escape from all the troubles by playing story games. This is a method of narrative communication. The functionality of the MaPanda application allows you to use various modern animations, display bright elements, and even draw on the screen.

Before the first call, the child's relatives are sent detailed instructions on understanding the project's methods. For example, parents need to print out the tracker in order to monitor the child's mood both during and after participating in the project. 

Before participating in the project, adults must fill out an orientation form to help psychologists learn about important nuances that allow them to approach each child individually. The final questionnaire helps to collect feedback and qualitative results from participation.

Calls from Morkvynka are possible individually and in groups. This format is often used by teachers in schools, kindergartens, foundations that care for internally displaced children, and in hospitals. Communicating with Morkvynka in a group develops communication skills, helps children's social adaptation, and introduces a culture of caring for mental health in the circle of peers. Children learn to respect other people's feelings and boundaries, build their own, learn to express themselves in a team, express opinions, and solve complex issues.

Does it really work?

Svoboda says the project program's first versions were aimed specifically at children. But later, it turned out that after the end of participation in the project, the positive influence on the child gradually decreased. It became clear that for the technique to continue to work, it is necessary to involve adults. To "feed" daily skills to the child, they must use the same methods that Morkvynka shows them.

Children start by coming to the meetings with a fairy-tale character together with a close adult, playing games and drawing together on the screen, and sharing their feelings. For children, such calls become a real adventure, and adults are given practical tools, games, and routines that support the harmonious emotional development of the child. The importance of such interaction is that the adult personally feels the benefit of the method.

In October 2023, when project organizers surveyed project participants from the past year, it turned out that 66 % of families had continued to use Morkvynka's methods at home, and the overall positive effect of the program was rated from 94 to 97%. This indicates that the project helps children and adults survive the challenges of war and creates a basis for harmonious growth in any conditions.

Project participants come from every region of Ukraine and 13 countries worldwide, where they are currently in temporary forced emigration. In 2022 and 2023, Morkvynka reached more than 2,000 children, and about 600 of them come from families of fallen soldiers. The team plans for more than 3,500 children to participate in the project in 2024.

Children's parents speak first of all about the effectiveness of the method. One of the participant's mothers recounts a story about how Morkvynka's advice helped her son overcome his fears. When the boy had to attend his kindergarten class in an underground shelter for the first time, he was very worried and afraid and did not want to go. Following Morkvynka's advice, the mother suggested that he leave the fear in the box at home. While the boy was away, mother replaced his fear with candy. Returning home, the boy found a reward for his bravery. 

Now, the organizers of the initiative are doing everything to make it possible for the project to provide support to children permanently. Their goal is to organize a "Magical Carrot Call Center" where every child can talk to a magical friend who will help them overcome the daily challenges of war and harmoniously experience trauma, loss, or coming-of-age crises.

Even more useful solutions!

Recently, specialists of the "Opportunities. Motivation. Media." developed another project format — one-time calls to children as part of Mental Health Care Week.

The format appeared after the Record of Joy — on August 1, 2023, their team set a record officially registered by the National Register of Records of Ukraine. On this day, 500 children simultaneously received a "call of happiness" from 500 Morkvynka volunteers. International volunteer organizations, all-Ukrainian charitable foundations, students of 40 universities of Ukraine, entrepreneurs, psychologists and teachers participated in this event aimed at psychological support for children.

The main goal of Mental Health Care Week is to sow the habit of building family traditions. The child's family is the main source of support for the little one, and according to the project's founders, such traditions will contribute to increasing the amount of time spent in the family circle, and help support the mental health of each family member.

There will be six such weeks in total. During Mental Health Care Week, each participant can receive one call from Morkvynka.

The team was initially worried that adults would ignore such a format and children would come to the call alone – so they encouraged adults to be present as well. The percentage of children who came to Morkvynka's call without adults as part of the Mental Health Care Week is only two per cent, or about ten children out of 500 participants.

The most important problem today is an underdeveloped culture among Ukrainians of caring for their psycho-emotional state. The statistics of referrals to mental health support specialists in Ukraine are still quite low. Especially during the war because most families have a lot of daily household challenges, and they hardly have time or energy even for trivial family communication in the style of asking "how are you?".

You can also try working with Morkvynka by signing up here.