When author Maurice Sendak first sketched out the story of a rambunctious little boy sent to his room without supper, there’s no way he could have known his rollercoaster tale of childhood imagination would still be speaking to the hearts of wild young things more than six decades on.
Published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are’s enduring ability to give safe expression to the turbulent emotions of childhood made it a natural choice when Spare Parts Puppet Theatre came to adopt a framework – developed by The Kids Research Institute Australia – that seeks to maximise the capacity of the arts to enhance children’s social and emotional wellbeing.
Using the book as the centrepiece for the first of Spare Parts’ 2024 Puppet Playtime sessions, a performer brought the story to life before leading toddlers and caregivers through activities – including story stones and puppet making – designed to provide a healthy outlet for their wild emotions.
The session was inspired by Expressing Emotions – one of a range of critical wellbeing factors identified by the Social and Emotional Wellbeing through the Arts (SEW-Arts) project led by the Institute over the past three years, in close partnership with Healthway and Edith Cowan University.
“We’ve always known the arts can have a positive effect on mental health and wellbeing but how that relationship works has never really been understood,” The Kids Senior Research Fellow and SEW-Arts lead Leanne Fried said.
“The SEW-Arts framework, developed in consultation with psychologists and young people aged 12–17, identifies wellbeing factors the arts can tap into and provides evidence-backed resources and guidance to help arts organisations intentionally target those factors when working with children and young people,” Ms Fried said.
Since developing the framework Ms Fried, fellow researcher Sarah Falconer and their team have worked with 33 visual arts, drama, dance, music, circus and other arts organisations throughout WA to adapt their programs, with Healthway providing additional funding to organisations willing to adopt and build on the framework.
“Arts organisations have contributed significantly to development of the framework and are helping us adapt it to diverse populations,” Ms Fried said.
The SEW-Arts team has also helped train teaching artists and arts administrators in how to implement the framework and has developed training modules that can be delivered independently, as well as tools to help organisations evaluate their progress and impact.
“The framework has provided a language for arts organisations to talk about SEW and identifies important key messages to convey to young people,” Ms Fried said.
“The goal is to have organisations that work with children and young people really focused on promoting SEW in addition to their main core practice. There is no reason why the framework can’t be applied to other organisations beyond the arts.”
Next steps
- A recent funding increase and extension will allow the SEW-Arts team to expand the number of organisations they work with, including more regional and some local government arts organisations
- They will also use the funding to develop professional learning for teaching artists working in schools, and to help arts organisations embed the framework in an ongoing way
- The team is working closely with its Aboriginal Reference Group to ensure the framework is suitable for Aboriginal people to use
Taking SEW-Arts to the next level
Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is so far the only arts organisation focused on the early years to adopt the SEW-Arts framework, with staff adapting its wellbeing factors and key messages to be developmentally appropriate for their younger audience.
The Expressing Emotions wellbeing factor, for example, was adapted into Expressing and Naming Emotions for the Where the Wild Things Are session, with caregivers also given a take-home resource.
“The caregiver resource told the parents something that blew my mind when I first heard it, and that is ‘toddlers experience peaks and troughs with their hormone levels that are way more intense than pubescent teenagers experience’,” Spare Parts Learning and Engagement Officer Naomi Corteen said.
“The mood swings, the emotions seeming to come out of nowhere suddenly make so much more sense. So we offered ways to address sensory needs that will help your child regulate those emotional peaks and troughs – that in turn makes expressing emotions easier.”
Spare Parts’ initiative in adding value to the framework led Healthway to offer them a larger grant which will help them turn the SEW factors – originally tailored to older children – into a new framework specifically targeted at the early years.
“It’s turning into a whole new program, which is very exciting,” Ms Corteen said.
She said that although Spare Parts had always existed to promote wellbeing, the SEW-Arts framework had provided valuable structure and background material informed by psychologists.
“The other exciting thing about the framework is it can be used as a tool to convince people of the importance of the arts and to hopefully to lobby for change when it comes to how they’re valued in schools, educational and other settings.”