Resources to teach body safety
Resources to teach body safety
Teaching children and young people about body safety is an important part of keeping them safe from child sexual abuse. It can be hard to know how to start these conversations, so we have developed a range of tools and resources to support you.
My superhero voice storybook
We developed a children’s storybook as a culturally inclusive and safe resource for adults to start conversations with the children and young people in their lives about child sexual abuse. Written by Yvonne Sewankambo and illustrated by Nea Valdivia, My superhero voice follows Nour as she learns different cultural practices that help the people in her life speak up and get help when something makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
The storybook is available in e-book format, and has also been translated into 10 languages.
- ‘My superhero voice’ – English
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Arabic صوت بطلي الخارق
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Chinese simplified 我的超级英雄声音
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Chinese traditional 我的超級英雄聲音
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Farsi صدای سوپر قهرمان من
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Hazaragi صدای ابر قهرمان من
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Khmer សំឡេងកំពូលវីរបុរសរបស់ខ្ញុំ
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Korean 내 슈퍼히어로의 목소리
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Punjabi ਮੇਰੀ ਸੁਪਰਹੀਰੋ ਜਿਹੀ ਆਵਾਜ਼
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Thai เสียงอัศวินในใจฉัน
- ‘My superhero voice’ – Vietnamese Tiếng nói siêu anh hùng của tôi
Body safety books and resources
We partnered with Jayneen Sanders, author and publisher at Educate2Empower Publishing, on a range of tools and resources to help you start conversations with children and young people.
In the video below, Jayneen speaks about how age-appropriate body safety education is empowering for children and young people, and can be taught in a supportive and relaxed way.
Read the transcript
My name is Jayneen Sanders. I'm a children's book author. I'm an educator. I'm an advocate for body safety and consent education. And together with my husband, Mark, we publish my books under the imprint Educate to Empower Publishing.
I understand that many adults find this topic confronting. I mean, it is confronting, but your fear may well be putting your children at risk. Perpetrators rely on secrecy. They rely on our fear. So the more we talk about child safety and child sexual abuse, the safer our kids are going to be.
Body safety education is age appropriate, and it's really empowering for your child. And remember, if you have these conversations from a very young age with your child, your child will know you are a safe person, you are a trusted person, and an empowered child is an empowered teenager is an empowered adult.
Books are such a wonderful way to start these conversations because children are visual learners. They love an illustration. And when you sit down with your child and you snuggle up on the couch and you have these conversations, it is just such a lovely way to teach kids in a supportive and relaxed way.
Parents can go to the ChildSafety.gov.au website and my website Educate2Empower Publishing For more resources and books and the child safety cards which we've developed together.
If parents are really concerned about these conversations, I would like to say to them to put your fear of this topic aside and to educate yourself and your child.
Jayneen also speaks about how books can be used to start conversations about body safety. Jayneen has published many children’s books on the topics of body safety, respectful relationships and gender equality, including her Little BIG Chats series. You and the children in your life can watch Jayneen reading five of the books from this series – Consent, Private Parts are Private, My Safety Network, Secrets and Surprises, and My Early Warning Signs - by following the link below.
Little BIG Chats readings
To support adults to teach children the concepts from the Little BIG Chats books, we worked with Jayneen to develop activities and resources that can be printed out, discussed and completed with children and young people.
Other helpful resources
Our website has more information and resources to help you learn about child sexual abuse and have conversations. This includes information about child sexual abuse, guidance for having conversations, and activities for building a safety team.
Educate2Empower Publishing has a range of resources including posters, lesson plans and activities.
The Daniel Morcombe Foundation website has a number of resources, including their My body clues activity.