Whilst COVID-19 has meant a slower pace of life to many, to others it spelled out a bigger workload and more creative means of keeping busy. Educational psychology practitioner Doriette Grech found her hands full when she tried to find a way to help parents explain the trials and tribulations of this pandemic to their children. Her efforts have certainly paid off, as her book The Mighty Creatures Lost Their Crown, found its way on the International School Psychology Association (ISPA)’s list of global tools for school psychologists.
Ms Grech, who has been practicising educational psychology since July 2019, shortly after completing the Masters of Psychology at the University of Malta, spoke to Newspoint about how her story came to be.
Like most professionals, when last March, the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in Malta, Ms Grech had to stop meeting clients at the clinic, and was unsure of what was to come. “I felt obliged to support my clients and wrote the story for them. I emailed it to their parents to be used as a conversation starter.” Once she received very positive feedback from the parents, she decided to share the resource for free online, for other children to enjoy.
In the meantime, she sent the story to her supervisor, Prof. Paul A. Bartolo from the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, who also liked the story so much he sent it to the ISPA when they made a call for resources. “It was just a mere coincidence and right timing, I guess.”
The book is a visualisation of Ms Grech’s image of a puffed round object with spikes coming out of it, brought to life by being attributed the characteristics of being mighty and royal, who ruled the world and our mere existence, but as a result of social distancing and hand washing, these creatures lost their crown. It is a message of encouragement to children to follow the measures as advised by the health authorities, and a lesson of hope to parents that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
“It all started with an image. I imagined a creature being trapped in all the bubbles, from all the soap brought about by hand washing. I jotted down the idea on paper, the rest just followed. It only took a few minutes to write, and some correction time”.
After the writing process, came the creation of the illustrations, which her partner Henri Mattocks created digitally. That took over 12 hours straight, but was an important touch to the book.
Ms Grech says writing therapeutic stories was one of the number of skills her training at the University of Malta equipped her with. “Working under stress, juggling practice and the heavy load of academic work has taught me to find a balance, organise my time in an efficient way and that everything is possible if you set your mind to it. All these qualities came in handy in our partial lockdown. Notwithstanding the rigorous training, no one was prepared for the COVID-19 situation, and working online with young clients is challenging”, she says.
Although not directly related to the book, Ms Grech’s thesis, which tried to answer the question: “How do primary school children make sense of their diagnosis of dyslexia?”, researched children’s views on making sense of their diagnosis, and used a creative approach to collecting data by using creative techniques such as storytelling, drawing and improvisations.
The results of the thesis showed how meaning making is a process, and that whilst in the initial phase, children are scared and want to keep their diagnosis a secret, by time, if they find support, they will embrace their diversity in learning. What Ms Grech also found out is that children are hopeful.
According to Snyder’s theory of hope (1994), hope is not leaving everything to chance but work hard to overcome the obstacles. “The resilience and positive attitude towards life of these young participants, was very inspiring to me and still is until this day”, concluded Ms Grech.
The book .
The list of resources made available by ISPA is also .
Ms Grech’s thesis is not yet available on the OAR page, but Ms Grech’s Higher Diploma thesis is .
