Let’s be Emotion Friends to Children Affected by Earthquakes… With the “Supporting Children Affected by Earthquakes” Project, Hundreds of Children Will Be Reached.

Turkey Emotion Coaching Institute, which contributes to psychosocial support activities for children living in earthquake-stricken areas and affected by earthquakes through Emotion-Friendly Play Centers, aims to establish these centers in the region’s official institutions and non-governmental organizations’ working areas such as Play Tents and/or schools, where various official institutions and civil society organizations carry out their work, in order to reach thousands of earthquake-affected children.

The Emotion-Friendly Play Center, developed within the Emotion-Friendly Kids program, which is a preschool education program based on emotion coaching approach, includes scientifically proven educational materials that support children in understanding their intense emotions, calming down, and feeling safe, meeting their basic needs. In these play areas, which serve as emotion regulation centers, children are thus able to manage their emotions, develop their social and emotional skills, and receive support in emotion regulation.

The main goal of this project is to enable children to focus on the situation they are experiencing without suppressing their emotions, especially when they are not feeling well, experiencing intense emotions, and/or having trouble focusing. Children who play with the materials in the Emotion-Friendly Play Centers will try to find ways to cope with negative emotions by focusing on emotions.

This project aims to reach twenty schools and hundreds of children in the provinces of Adıyaman, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Şanlıurfa, and Gaziantep. Any school in the earthquake-stricken region can apply to the project until the end of the year. They can contact Doç.Dr.Nalan Kuru, the Chairperson of the Board of Directors, on behalf of the Emotion-Friendly Education Research Counseling and Emotion Coaching Studies Association at emotioncoachingturkiye@gmail.com or @emotioncoachingturkiyeadres.

About the Association: The Emotion-Friendly Education Research Counseling and Emotion Coaching Studies Association is a non-profit civil society organization that operates through science and education to support individuals, organizations, schools, and civil society organizations engaged in activities aimed at promoting awareness and informing the public about various topics in the field of educational sciences, increasing awareness of socio-emotional learning, organizing educational programs, establishing units for academic studies in identified areas, generating projects, promoting, researching, developing, and disseminating the Emotion Coaching approach. The association, founded and chaired by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nalan Kuru, a faculty member in the Department of Preschool Education at Bursa Uludağ University’s Faculty of Education, has been operating since 2021.