Poo Goes to Pooland

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS FT

About this app

Children who suffer encopresis often begin to feel that there is little more to them than the problem itself. In 'Poo Goes Home to Pooland', the problem is embodied in a troublesome character and placed externally to the child. This process aims to place some distance between the child and the blame and the shame of soiling. This helps to free them from their fears and may mobilise previously beleaguered resources within the child and their family.

'Externalising' stories have proved valuable in engaging children in behavioural treatment programmes within a family therapy context. However, you may find them useful in combination with your chosen therapeutic style.

The style and content of 'Poo Goes Home to Pooland' was designed to suit the cognitive development stage of children up to around seven years of age. Individual illustrations and accompanying text are intended to promote understanding of toileting mattersand to relieve anxiety. They cover topics such as sharing unhappy feelings and how to recognise when you need a poo.

Talking about 'Pooland' might help you to engage a child in getting control of their poo.

Ratings and reviews

Great story! The app could use some patching though. A lot of users don't know to swipe, so maybe it needs a prompt on the first page. The home page music is a sensory irritation (sounds too sharp). Poo's dialogue is ineligible, so I have to repeat it to my child. The play button currently allows sounds to overlap; this ability messes with functionality. I recommend a play button on every page for dialogue to use when ready and a separate sound effects button somewhere on the pictures.

So it's a terrible app, cheaply made, full of bugs with horrible audio and horrible animation. If people had made apps in the 90s, they would have been just like this. But kids love it and the concept is good. It's just a shame no-one is going to invest in improving it.

Amazing when it worked. It now gets to one page and loses all audio. This app was absolutely amazing for the day it worked but now all I'm hearing is "Mum when will the Poo app work again?" It did help my daughter incredibly with actually getting onto the loo when it worked.

What's new

Accessibility improvements