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Overview
Zippy’s Friends is a school based mental health promotion programme for five to seven year old children. The programme aims to prevent the development of serious psychosocial problems later in life, including suicidal behaviour, through expanding children’s range of effective coping skills. It is designed to help all children, not just those who have difficulties or who are considered to be at risk. Zippy’s Friends usually runs for 24 weeks, with one 45-minute session each week. The program is built around a set of six stories. Zippy is a stick insect and his friends are a group of young children, and the stories show them confronting issues that are familiar to young children – friendship, communication, feeling lonely, bullying, dealing with change and loss, and making a new start.
Zippy’s Friends was developed and tested in the contrasting settings of Denmark and Lithuania. The program was found to have positive impacts on coping strategies, improved social skills (cooperation, empathy, assertion and self-control). One study also found significant decreases in externalizing behaviours. A large randomized controlled trial in Ireland replicated these findings and the first quasi-experimental trail in North American, testing a French version of Zippy’s Friends, found positive impacts on internalizing behaviours, improved cooperation, autonomy and perceived social support.
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