Calming Overwhelming Present Emotions: C.O.P.E Study - An opportunity not to be missed.

I am a PhD student at the University of Canterbury. As part of my ​thesis I designed a brief electronic application (app) to teach children ages 7 - 11 a set of emotion regulation strategies that they can easily engage in when they are experiencing heightened emotive states. 

Development of the app was funded by the Child Well-being Research Institute at the University of Canterbury. The strategies vary from mindful breathing to psychoeducation and have been chosen based on theory and evidence-based research. 

We are interested in this particular age group as the research identifies pre-adolescence as a vital age for teaching positive emotion regulation strategies. 

We are currently recruiting for an 8-week study to test the efficacy of the emotion regulation strategies within the app. Attached to this article is an advertisement providing information about this study. 

Some feedback from children who tested the app for focus group included: "It makes me feel comfortable when I have someone to tell how I'm feeling” and “I don't usually share my mood with people but a lot of the app kind of made me feel comfortable to share my mood.”

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me at tessa.donaldson@pg.canterbury.ac.nz or my supervisor Dr Seth Harty seth.harty@canterbury.ac.nz

This project has been reviewed and approved by the University of Canterbury Human Research Ethics Committee, and participants should address any complaints to The Chair, Human Ethics Committee, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch (human-ethics@ canterbury.ac.nz). 

Tessa Donaldson

Check out the attached document for more details.