Whilst creating and finalising the content of the Creative Approaches when Working with Children Online, I came across Bitmoji Therapy Rooms. I initially did not think it applied to the therapeutic work we do as it was more referred to as Virtual Classrooms. As I am not a teacher with a class, it did not feel so relevant. I did a little more exploration and I am now completely sold on the idea that these virtual rooms are amazing and so helpful in planning our work with children.

Are you running out of ideas when working online with children?

Not sure what else to do to keep children engaged in online therapy?

Finding the whole online process tiring and exhausting?

Virtual therapy rooms is probably what you need. I really think it could revolutionise ways of working as a therapist.

What are Virtual Therapy Rooms?

You create rooms in Google Slides or Powerpoint and insert your Bitmoji in the presentation. There are a few technical hurdles associated with getting the technology right initially, but it does then become second nature and designing the rooms become easier. I made mine in Google as I have a Google Drive, it seemed easy this way.

Videos on YouTube and professional Facebook groups have shared resources to get you started. Therapists are also selling their rooms on TeachersPayTeachers to help you. I decided I really wanted to design my own as it can be personal as you design your rooms, depending on the type of work you mostly do, presentation and needs of children and families, and also your own creative style. It is so much fun thinking about it all and bringing it together.

Yes you have to be particularly creative. This is what is so exciting! Who does not like a bit of interior designing!

I share in this post the photo of my first room. You can see a room with me and many objects in my room. All the objects are linked to other Google slides or web links. You can link worksheets from your Google Drive to the presentation. This is what is amazing!

All your therapy resources in ONE Google Slideshow!

Here is another example of a room about feelings where each of the big emojis lead to a different room with links about these different emotions.

You can have as many rooms as you want, depending on children’s needs. I have designed a few now: feelings’ room, doll’s house, chill out room and a Take a Break room, to name only a few. You could also have a Parent Room where you have lots of top tips and information.

How to Use the Virtual Therapy Rooms?

In sessions, you present the slides, show rooms, using the shared screen functions. You can give remote control access to the child so that one has control over visiting rooms and clicking activities or the child can tell you where to click on the screen. This way you discover together different activities, rooms and resources. If a child is talking about a specific topic, you can direct the conversation to the room where information is shared on the topic.

The most amazing of it all is that you can share your Google Slides with clients with the Share button so they can revisit rooms or look at them in advance. You can also create a PDF and all links remain. You can then send a room to parents in an email with all the links you covered during the session.

What Does Not Change?

All your skills as a psychologist are still needed, including clinical judgement, knowledge of the discipline and scientist-practitioner, all your essential competencies. This is just a way to store all your resources in one place, increase engagement from children in sessions and support communication with parents.

Could Bitmoji Therapy Rooms Revolutionise the Online Therapy World with Children?

I am such a visual person and also a creator-designer, love art work so this type of approach is completely revolutionary for me as a child psychologist but also for training! I love that it keeps all the resources in one place. Even when we go back to face to face work, this resource will still be useful for videos, web based resources and communication with parents. You could still use a room during a face to face session when you want to share a video with a child for example.

I have now created over 30 therapy rooms and completely beside myself on how amazing these work. It feels such a long way since March 2020 when many moved to working online, scared and anxious about the prospect.

This resource has to be a life changer for therapists!

You can join Creative Approaches when Working with Children Online where these rooms will be discussed and shared. You will have 10 rooms with links and resources you can then tailor to your needs.

We set up free live events and the recording is now available with links and resources. Here is the link to register. https://learning.3ppsychologies.com/courses/free-live-event-virtual-therapy-rooms-2-an-amazing-resource

We also set up a Creating Virtual Therapy Live Workshop and the recording is also available for viewing at a low cost of $20 (AUD) https://learning.3ppsychologies.com/courses/virtual-therapy-rooms. With this training, 5 rooms, links and resources will be shared with you. If you are interested in a live workshop, get in touch and I will do what I can to arrange this.

You can also register for the 2 courses as a bundle https://learning.3ppsychologies.com/bundles/creating-for-children-online

I am also happy to offer specific tailored training for practitioners and workplaces/practices who would like this training for a number of practitioners. Get in touch with me, we can arrange something together.