Children living in institutional care environments may face challenges in emotional expression, confidence-building, and social interaction due to limited opportunities for safe and structured emotional engagement. While many children’s homes are able to provide essential care and daily support, there is often limited access to dedicated emotional learning environments that encourage children to express themselves comfortably through creative, interactive, and child-centred experiences.

Heartventure was created to address this gap by transforming an existing space into a structured emotional learning environment designed specifically for children in care settings. The project introduces a modular 5-zone experiential system that supports different emotional functions such as calming, creative expression, storytelling, social interaction, and reflection. Through guided and non-pressuring activities, children are given opportunities to gradually explore emotions, build confidence, and participate in safe social engagement.

The purpose of Heartventure is not to provide and create consistent and supportive opportunities for emotional participation and positive emotional experiences over time. The project also aims to support caregivers by providing a structured and transferable system that can continue beyond the initial implementation phase.

Supporting this project is important because emotional wellbeing and confidence-building are essential parts of a child’s overall development, especially for children growing up in institutional care environments. With support from My Starfish Foundation and the wider community, Heartventure can create a more emotionally supportive environment for children while also developing a reusable and scalable system that may benefit other children’s homes and community spaces in the future.

Safe Zone

Help children recognise emotions in a safe environment

Activities

• Emotion boxes with coping tools
• Feeling cards
• Soft toy comfort corner

Art Zone

Encourage participation, expression and achievement

Activities

• Drawing & painting
• Collage making
• Colour-and-feeling activities

Creative Play Zone

Support children in exploring identity and personal experiences

Activities

• Create-your-own character
• Storytelling & roleplay
• Clay and costume

Game Zone

Foster connection, inclusion and positive social interaction

Activities

• Team missions
• Matching & puzzle games
• Building challenges (blocks/lego)

Grow Zone

Allow children to make choices express themselves freely

Activities

• Sharing circle
• Progress photo display
• Journey tracking

Heartventure aims to create a positive and sustainable impact on children living in institutional care environments by improving their opportunities for emotional expression, social engagement, and confidence-building. Through a structured and child-centred 5-zone emotional learning system, the project provides a safe space where children can explore and express their emotions in a gradual and non-pressuring way.

At the individual level, the project hopes to support children in developing greater emotional awareness, communication skills, and willingness to participate in group activities. By offering different modes of engagement such as creative play, storytelling, reflection, and calming activities, children are given multiple pathways to express themselves in ways that feel comfortable and accessible.

At the community level, Heartventure aims to strengthen the capacity of caregivers by providing a transferable and structured system that can continue beyond the initial implementation. This helps create a more supportive and consistent emotional environment within children’s homes, rather than relying solely on one-time interventions.

In the longer term, the project also hopes to contribute to wider community awareness about the importance of emotional wellbeing in child development, while offering a replicable model that other organisations and community spaces can adopt or adapt.

Overall, the intended impact is not only immediate engagement during activities, but the gradual development of a more emotionally supportive and expressive environment for children in care.

How we will measure?

Metric 1: Growth Journey Reflection Record

Measures children’s sense of growth, confidence, and independence through personal reflection and self-recorded progress in the Grow Zone. The zone allows children to freely document their experiences, achievements, and emotional journey as evidence of their personal growth.

Metric 2: Social Interaction

Social engagement is evaluated by observing the frequency of collaboration, sharing, communication, and participation during group-based activities and experiences.

Metric 3: System Transferability

The project also evaluates how effectively the system can be adapted across different spatial environments, institutional settings, and care contexts while maintaining its experiential structure and emotional objectives.