Moodsters and PlaySpace Team Up to Boost Children’s Mental Health

By Gary Symons

TLL Editor in Chief

The Moodsters Children’s Foundation and PlaySpace Health have unveiled a collaboration to expand The Moodsters to healthcare providers, educators, parents, and practitioners.

The deal, brokered by licensing agencies Becker & Associates and Kaufman Licensing, will see the Moodsters characters included on PlaySpace Health’s HIPAA compliant digital interactive platform. The partners say this collaboration will extend The Moodsters’ extensive portfolio of evidence-based toys, research, storybooks, and Guidelines for Grownups educational content, online.

“For more than 35 years, The Moodsters have been helping children navigate the world of emotions and resilience,” said Denise Daniels, RN, MS, Creator and Founder of The Moodsters Children’s Foundation. “These colorful characters are effective because they speak the language of children – PLAY!

“Our partnership with PlaySpace Health represents an exciting new chapter; the ability to engage with our characters and curriculum in virtual and in-person, digital play therapy environments, Daniels added. “Together, we can reach more children who need help understanding and managing powerful emotions like sadness, fear, anger, love, happiness, anxiety, and hope.”

Based on decades of scientific research on children’s health, emotional well-being, and resilience, the award-winning Moodsters leverage the skills and experience of their clinical experts to provide children with the emotional building blocks to thrive.

Created by childhood development expert Denise Daniels, RN, MS, The Moodsters have been providing accessible, science-based content on well-being for children—and for their parents, caregivers, teachers, and professionals—for more than 35 years. The Moodsters’ proprietary curriculum was developed in collaboration with Marc Brackett, PhD, and Robin Stern, PhD, and aligns closely with the RULER model from The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

That content appears to dovetail perfectly with the mission of PlaySpace Health, which developed a HIPAA-compliant platform that makes virtual and in-person therapy sessions engaging and effective for children, adolescents, and neurodivergent adults.

PlaySpace supports therapists and mental health providers with customizable virtual engagement resources and proprietary content creation tools, including personalized playrooms, AI-powered tools, sand tray therapy, games, art activities, and therapeutic worksheets.

“PlaySpace was built to solve the engagement gap that mental health providers face with children, and The Moodsters are a perfect fit for this Mission,” said Matt Cohen, CEO of PlaySpace Health. “The Moodsters represent exactly the kind of trusted, evidence-based content that therapists, educators, and healthcare professionals need.

Cohen says the plan is to work with The Moodsters Children’s Foundation to create interactive experiences designed specifically for safe, compliant pediatric settings.

“The Moodsters’ interactive content and emotional literacy resources will be woven into animation on the PlaySpace virtual platform, giving children access to fun, age-appropriate, and gamified digital activities that encourage emotional awareness, self-expression, and healthy coping skills,” Cohen explained. “Mental health professionals will incorporate The Moodster characters into customized, individualized virtual therapy and counseling sessions.”

Patti Becker, CEO and Founder of Becker Associates LLC and licensing agent for The Moodsters, says her agency was excited to have a hand in putting the valuable program together.

“We’re thrilled about the opportunity to combine The Moodsters rich multimedia content portfolio developed over decades of clinical work with children in crisis settings, and other assets—including colorful, interactive plush characters, toys, games, books, and therapeutic worksheets—with PlaySpace’s fun, personalized, gamified, online  play therapy sessions,” Becker said. “We will be meeting with potential licensees at the upcoming Nuremberg and NY Toy Fairs.”

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