Heartfelt
Dolls
Unlocking trauma from children’s
bodies through sensory exploration
Children live in a world of the senses, and they are natural explorers. They love colour, texture and playful ideas that create a sense of vibrancy and magic in their worlds.
And our research has shown us that exploring children’s senses through toys and games helps to unlock the trauma held in children’s bodies.
However, we found that there were very few sensory toys and games available that met the needs of our specialised approach to helping children’s healing, so we developed our own range of sensory dolls for use with children in counselling.
Some of the soft toys are designed to allow children to create their own personal stories and they take them home as a permanent reminder of the good experiences and positive relationships they have formed through the program.
The Heartfelt Dolls we keep for all children to use as needed in our counselling centres. Each character has specific themes of experience and healing integrated into their design, including identity, emotion, nurture, sensation awareness, calm and relaxation, containment and transformation. Morton the monster supports children to explore their identity, Ollie the monkey encourages exploration of nurturing through feeding, Sleepy Susan is designed to help children feel calm, and Ellen the caterpillar represents themes of transformation and containment.