NEWS DESK
High fives for bestselling children’s author By Chris Brennan BESTSELLING children’s author Julie Davey of McCrae has created a mobile phone application that is being hailed by parents and educators as a “breakthrough tool” in helping guide young people through early life challenges. The FabFirst5 app is an interactive program that provides children with step-by-step coaching on how to “shift their focus from problems to possibilities, and frame their day more positively,” Ms Davey said. Released last week, the app teaches children aged 5-12 “emotional reframing techniques” and encourages them to adopt a more positive outlook and build betting coping mechanisms. Ms Davey is well known on the peninsula for her numerous schools visits and workshops as well as attending Mornington and Red Hill markets to promote her acclaimed children’s psychology book A for Attitude, which has sold more than 40,000 copies. She’s is a member of Rosebud-Rye Rotary Club’s youth committee and has received backing from the organisation for her “positive attitude” education crusade. Ms Davey said the app would enable her to spread her work to a wider audience, helping teach children, teachers and parents around the world the importance of resolving anxiety and building resilience in young people. She said the app’s title referred to the premise that “everyone can achieve positive possibilities from a positive outlook in the first five minutes of their day”. “For children to thrive, it helps if they can release worries, giving them the head space to consider other possibilities and solutions,” she said. “I believe this app helps kids and parents become more responsible, resilient and conscious of opportunities available to them. “Many kids feel more comfortable communicating through the screen and the app is an ideal tool to enhance the teaching and counselling of
experienced staff and parents as they reach out to kids and work through issues together.” She said one of the app’s most popular features was the “PossibiliTree”, a visual tool that encourages users to “turn worries into wishes and problems into PossibiliTrees”. “By inviting the young user to record their personal challenges onto leaves of the PossilbiliTree, the program demonstrates examples of how to manage problems and work through steps to consider more positive outcomes.” Ms Davey’s skill at simplifying adult concepts and using colourful illustrations and graphics to deliver simple, easy-to-follow positive thinking techniques for young minds has seen her popularity grow across the world. She started working life as a nurse, witnessing the power of positive attitude and how it affected both physical and mental health. She saw the need to teach young people techniques to build self-worth. This led to her writing and illustrating A for Attitude, which was self-published in 1998 and is distributed in 14 countries. She still finds time to engage with young people in her own area and recently visited Boneo, Rosebud, Rye and Tootgarook primary schools. Rosebud primary teacher Heidi Kerr has been trialling the FabFirst5 app in her classroom for the past few weeks. She said the program had already had a positive impact on pupils. “The program is very good for my students. We have been putting our worries away in the morning by posting them on our PossibiliTree,” she said. “The kids have responded in a very positive way and remind me when we haven’t ‘done our tree’ in the morning. “I have some pupils who come from very sad family lives and they are finding the tree a good way to focus on the positives in their lives and have a good day at school.”
No problem: Julie Davey with Boneo Primary School Prep pupil Clementine Rowe.
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Western Port News 22 October 2013