How FELT came to be...
Hi! I’m Evelynne Whittaker Hatchard, and the founder of FELT.
FELT was born from my world as a communication designer and, most importantly, as a mother of three, passionate about emotional learning.
The Problem I Couldn’t Ignore
The journey began during a “Business By Design” class where I was challenged to identify a problem I felt passionately about and create a viable solution. For me, the problem was immediate and personal: there was a significant lack of good quality social and emotional learning resources available for families to use together at home.
We teach our children the names of basic human emotions—Yucky, Happy, Sad, Angry, Scared—early on, recognizing that communicating how we feel is crucial for connection and processing. However, once my children began formal schooling, the focus abruptly shifted to academics and peers, and emotional education was sidelined.
Their emotional struggles grew more complex, and I saw that simple reassurances—the cuddles and soothing words that used to work so well—were no longer adequate. Emotional struggle too quickly turned into a crisis. Like so many parents, I found myself scrambling for answers online or speed-reading parenting books, often feeling inadequate. I knew in my heart, “There has to be a better way”.
The Solution: FELT
Armed with my design skills and the determination to remedy this frustration, I created FELT: Fostering Emotional Learning Together.
My mission became clear: to equip parents—the greatest resource a child can have —with all the tools they need to help their children successfully navigate inevitable struggles. The idea was to teach emotional skills preemptively in a fun, progressive way that simultaneously strengthens family bonds. Our ultimate vision is grand: to create a society of families who value, apply, and perpetuate emotional intelligence for generations.
Our Beginning and Our Commitment to Access
After months of research and prototyping, we released our first product: Angus the monster. Angus’s job was to provide families with quick, fun, and meaningful activities for coping specifically with anger. Angus proved to be incredibly popular, not just with families but also with teachers who are using him in their classrooms.
This successful start was followed by a key partnership with Dr. Justin Coulson’s Happy Families, where we offered weekly digital downloads. However, our commitment is to ensure emotional learning resources are accessible to everyone. To fulfill this core value, we are ending the exclusive partnership and launching our own FREE subscription.
My ultimate goal is to become the go-to brand for social and emotional learning resources, offering everything from physical products to digital content like online programs, animations, and printables. The next phase is launching our hub, felteducation.com, which will serve as both our pay-per-product online store and a centralised resource library for our new free subscription members. The more resources we have, the more families we can equip with these vital emotional skills.