Families and educators can provide these consistent safety messages through a range of Protective Behaviours resources.  Below are a few recommendations that focus on PBs, body safety and consent.

Picture Books

Lottie’s Big Feelings by Christine Camp

A storybook about FEELINGS and meeting new FRIENDS.  This first book from the Little Adventures Series is based on topic one of the Protective Behaviours educational program.  Lottie Lamb discovers that she has big feelings, calm feelings and feelings can change when we ask for help.

Kaylo’s Amazing Body by Christine Camp (Coming Soon!)

What are our bodies telling us through our Early Warning Signs (EWS) or Body Signals? In book 2 of the Little Adventures Series, Kaylo Koala discovers he needs to listen to the body signals (EWS) in his body and recognise why his body is reacting to scary situations.  Kaylo learns that everyone feels uncomfortable EWS and asking for help and sharing our worries can help us feel calm again. 

Christine Camp shop

No Means No! by Jayneen Sanders
Teaching children about personal boundaries, respect, and consent.
Check out books and other resources by Jayneen Sanders e2epublishing Shop

Matilda Learns a Valuable Lesson by Holly-ann Martin
Matilda learns that if you feel unsafe, you need to tell a trusted adult.  Children also learn to keep seeking help until they feel safe again. 

Hayden-Reece Learns a Valuable Lesson that Private means ‘Just for You’ by Holly-ann Martin
Miss Martin teaches her class the difference between Public and Private and explains that no one should see or touch their private body parts without their consent and that Private means ‘Just for you’.

Someone should have told me by Holly-ann MartinA book for adults to share with children.  It uses colourful, fun illustrations and simple statements prefaced by “Someone should have told me…,” to help adults talk to children about potential online and face-to-face dangers.

Check out Holly-ann Martin’s book, games, posters, and bundles. I highly recommend the feelings Bingo! Safe4Kids Shop 

The following books are available online, please check out Amazon, Booktopia, Book Depository and other online book stores for availability and prices.

My Body Belongs to Me by Jill Starishevsky
The rhyming story and simple, friendly illustrations provide a way to sensitively share and discuss the topic, guiding young children to understand that their private parts belong to them alone.  The overriding message of My Body Belongs to Me is that if someone touches your private parts, you need to tell a trusted adult.

Only For Me by Michelle Derrig
Endorsed by one of Australia’s leading child protection agencies Act for Kids, and a resource of the Child Protection Unit at Sydney Children’s Hospital.   A rhyming book that gently introduces children to critical information that they need to know, to protect themselves.

Everybody’s got a Bottom by Tess Rowley
This book uses correct anatomical terms and emphasises that you can always talk about your body or any concerns you have with your parents or another trusted adult. It is a story about Ben and his brother and sister learning and talking together about bodies.

The Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside
A funny and reassuring look at dealing with worries and anxiety, to be used as a springboard into important conversations with children about managing big worries.

My Body Belongs to Me from My Head to My Toes by Created by Pro Familia, Illustrator Dagmar Geisler.
An educational tool to help instil confidence in children when it comes to their bodies. The narrative of the story is led by a girl named Clara, who encourages kids to say “no” if they are uncomfortable with physical contact.

RESOURCES

Talk Soon. Talk Often Healthy WA
An age-appropriate guide for parents talking to their kids about sex.

Yarning quiet ways Yarning quiet ways is based on the Talk soon and was developed in consultation with Aboriginal families. It gives tips to parents of young Aboriginal people to help make yarning about sex and relationships a little easier.

Access the documents here.  Free hardcopies bulk orders (Western Australian schools and organisations) can be made via www.dohquickmail.com.au. Register with an organisational email.

SUPPORT ORGANISATIONS

Kids Helpline – Kids can talk confidentially anytime for any reason with a trained counsellor. 1800 551 800 https://kidshelpline.com.au/

WACCS – WA speciality provider of Protective Behaviours, Cyber Safety and Child Protection Literacy programs and resources.

PB West – WA provider specialising in Safeguarding children and strengthening communities and offering resources and support education training and programs for adults, teachers, families, and children.  

* Do you have a PBs picture book or activity resource you are using and would recommend? Share the resource and your thoughts on my FB page: (PB) resources for early years children feel free to add other age-appropriate PBs resources.

This blog is updated with new resources and available support.

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Protective Behaviours (PBs) provides a range of skills and strategies to help prevent and reduce child abuse and violence in the community. PBs is mandatory in Western Australian schools and consists of age-appropriate topics beginning in the early years of school.^[1]https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/p-10-curriculum/curriculum-browser/syllabus/health-and-physical-education-overview/glossary/protective-behaviours

Protective Behaviours (PBs) is a universal empowerment program

As a holistic approach for everyone, the PBs program is integrated into the school curriculum, reinforced at home, and delivered in communities to educators, professionals, and families.

For children, Protective Behaviours education focuses on personal safety, which enables them to assert their right to physical and psychological safety and to seek help from trusted adults if they feel unsafe.

This universal framework consists of themes, strategies, and concepts that develop personal body safety and life skills.  It teaches children emotional literacy, assertiveness, resilience, persistence, optimism, to problem solve and be adventurous in safely risking on purpose.

In Australia, the origins of PBs served as a child abuse prevention program.  Although the PBs program applications have universally evolved over the years and are known by other names, the fundamental foundations as a body safety program remain consistent.

Protective Behaviours educational program

Just like any framework, Protective Behaviours (PBs) education follows a pattern of topics.  The teaching of these topics in chronological succession equips children with foundational knowledge of the themes and strategies that are recalled and built upon as new key learning topics are introduced.  As children progress through the topics, they are developing a language of safety and provided with strategic skills to make decisions about their personal safety and wellbeing. 

Protective Behaviours is reinforced by two core themes:

We all have the right to feel safe at all times.

We can talk with someone about anything, no matter what it is.

Key learning PB topics

• Theme 1 – ‘We all have the right to feel safe at all times’ and Feelings
• Early Warning Signs
• Safety Continuum and Problem Solving – Risking on/for purpose
• Theme 2 – ‘We can talk with someone about anything, no matter what it is’
• Networks – Network hand or Safety Networks
• Safe Surprises and Unsafe Secrets
• Persistence
• Body Awareness/Ownership/Safety
• Public and Private
• Personal Space and Consent
• Assertiveness – The Right to Say ‘No’
• Theme reinforcement

Protective interruption is any action taken to interrupt a potentially unsafe situation. This includes keeping children safe from making inappropriate public disclosures.  It protects both the child disclosing and the participants.  It is a strategy that prevents a child from disclosing in front of other children.  It provides the child who is disclosing with the opportunity to disclose in a safe, confidential, and private space. 

*Most schools have a designated PBs program to teach the educational program to students.  PBs Topics may have different names and be in a different sequence of teaching. 

There are many recommended PBs Picture books, games and resources to teach the PBs program.  Check out this blog Resources to teach children Protective Behaviours.

^[2]https://www.protectivebehaviours.org/what-does-protective-behaviours-mean

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At my book launch of Lottie’s Big Feelings in February 2022, Andrea Musulin, Protective Behaviours author and trainer revealed an overwhelming statistic that 20 children had been subjected to interviews about child sexual abuse (CSA) from December to early February 2022 in the local police district.  Andrea also revealed that sadly many of those interviews and disclosures would not go anywhere because the children were not empowered enough to give enough evidence to allow police to move onto the next level.

We don’t know what will happen to these children, but it is a wakeup call that unless communities empower children with their right to feel safe, we are going to hear of many more children who will be traumatised by child sexual abuse and not receive the support from an institution that wants to investigate further but simply can’t because children are not empowered with the knowledge.

So, what can be done? 

In the home, parents/carers and significant family members are the first and ongoing educators.  Through those shared experiences and daily interactions, children can learn and develop age-appropriate body safety skills.

Teaching Protective Behaviours (PBs) at home

• PBs related storybooks that engaged discussions about body safety
• Identify Early Warning Signs (EWS), the signals in a child’s body that make them feel yuck inside.  Wobbly legs, heartbeat fast…
• Identifying what they feel, who they can talk to about anything no matter how awful and who are those trusted adults.  Don’t assume who they are, let your child decide.
• Identify their personal space and decide who they want in their personal space.  Allow them to say no to hugs and kisses from family members and friends, and instead encourage them to use a high five or fist bump.
• Empower them that they are the boss of their own body.  Identify their private and public body parts, that private is just for ‘them’.  No one has the right to touch their body i.e., private parts without their permission, which may be a doctor or nurse for health reasons.  And they are not allowed to touch other people’s private parts.
• Discuss safe and unsafe secrets.  Safe secrets are like surprises, unsafe secrets can give them their EWS and they need to talk to someone they have identified as a trusted adult.
• Share the Kids helpline 1800 55 180 https://kidshelpline.com.au/.  Take a look around the site, there are different age-appropriate sections. 
• Become an advocate of the PBs program and when children share something about the PBs program that was taught at school, allow those opportunities to open discussions to further reinforce the PBs language of safety. 

PB parent resource WA Department of Education:

This resource is designed as a guide to protective behaviours for parents and carers.

Protective behaviours Parent resource
Schools and parents working together to help keep children safe

Protective Behaviours in Schools

The Protective behaviours (PBs) educational program is mandatory in WA and other parts of Australia. In WA, teachers in all schools are to teach the PBs program to students from early years to high school. 

Teachers have access to a range of protective behaviours educational resources to teach the program.  Protective behaviours education focuses on teaching students how to identify and avoid a range of potentially unsafe situations, including sexual abuse.^[1]https://gdhr.wa.gov.au/-/protective-behaviours

As with all aligned curriculum subjects, the learning and development of PBs education can provide children to establish a solid foundational beginning in the early years.  These age-appropriate learning concepts are embedded during the school years, providing students with the acquired knowledge to become effective and assertive in using these PBs concepts to keep themselves and others safe.

As Australia moves from a reporting (CSA) perspective to a cultural shift involving an – all of school, community approach to child safe (focused) organisations, ^[2]https://christinecamp.com.au/2021/11/13/children-are-our-future-what-the-hell-happened/ the PBs education program is going to play a pivotal role in changing social norms; those unwritten rules of what has been acceptable in silencing children and preventing them from disclosing.  When we empower children to break the silence, ask for help, give them the knowledge to speak about why they feel unsafe and support them, we are enabling them with the right to feel safe.

The PBs program is one of many programs that enhances the safety and wellbeing of children.  It’s not just a one-off conversation, it’s learning a new language that is socially embedded at home and implemented into the school culture.  If we are playing our part as an educator and advocate in whatever role we have in a child’s life, can you see how it will impact that child?  How it will impact a family, a classroom, a sporting team, and a community?  Can you see it?

Check out this blog What is Protective Behaviours.

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The handwritten notes describe their hell stories and agonise over those that didn’t make it within the failed systems in our nation that are supposed to protect and empower children.

And I share their grief of the hell that is this still happening in our nation with the statistics that most abused children (96%) are abused by someone known and trusted by them, with 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 7 boys experiencing child sexual abuse before the age of 18. ^[1]https://gdhr.wa.gov.au/-/protective-behaviours

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RCIRCSA) 2013 – 2017 was Australia’s longest-running public inquiry:

• The former Prime Minister, the Hon Julia Gillard MP, announced the decision to establish the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on 12 November 2012.
• There were 42,041 call handles, 25,964 letters and emails received, 8,013 private sessions and 2,575 referrals to authorities, including the police.
• The Final report delivered on 15 December 2017 consists of 17 volumes and 409 recommendations that aim to make institutions safer for children.
• The cost was 342.3 million

More than 4000 individual institutions failed children across many decades in Australia.

What’s the future of children in Australia?

Out of the RCIRCSA 17 volumes, volume 6 ^[2]https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/making-institutions-child-safe lists a road map for moving forward in creating a safer Australia for all children. This volume looks at the role community prevention could play in making communities and institutions child safe with 10 child safe standards ^[3]https://childsafe.humanrights.gov.au/national-principles that will make institutions safer for children. 

While the focus is currently on schools, the national child safe standards are recommended for all businesses and organisations that engage in child-related work. These organisations that implement the standards will demonstrate their leadership and commitment to child safety and wellbeing and will be known as ‘organisations of choice’, because children, young people, families, and communities will feel confident that they provide safe environments for the rights of children. ^[4]https://childsafe.humanrights.gov.au/national-principles/about-national-principles

As we turn into the fifth year of the RCIRCSA and the implementations of the report’s recommendations, many schools are implementing ‘prevention education’ with the inclusion of Protective Behaviours education to be delivered on a national scale, as the RCIRCSA report’s recommendation, 6.2 b) states ‘prevention education delivered through preschool, school and other community institutional settings that aim to increase children’s knowledge of child sexual abuse and build practical skills to assist in strengthening self-protective skills and strategies. The education should be integrated into existing school curricula and link with related areas such as respectful relationships education and sexuality education. It should be mandatory for all preschools and schools.’ ^[5]https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_recommendations.pdf

In WA, all schools are required to deliver to student’s appropriate protective behaviours education aligned with the WA curriculum.

Protective Behaviours education focuses on developing the skills of empowerment, communication, self-esteem, resilience, social skills, and other life skills to prevent abuse, reduce violence and promote life-enriching rather than life-depleting experiences. It encourages students to:

• assert their right to feel safe
• listen to what their body tells them
• follow up by taking action to either solve problems on their own or to seek assistance from other people. ^[6]https://gdhr.wa.gov.au/-/protective-behaviours

In Australia, the origins of PBs served as a child abuse prevention program.  Although the PBs program applications have universally evolved over the years and are known by other names, the fundamental foundations as a body safety program remain consistent.^[7]https://christinecamp.com.au/pbs-consulting/

What can we do to help the future of the children in our communities?

• If your business or organisation is child-related, work towards becoming a child safe organisation.
• Is Protective Behaviours education mandatory in schools in your part of Australia? If not, visit your local member and ask why not?
• Is PBs education being delivered to students in the school where your child/children attend? While it may not be mandatory in all parts of Australia to implement PBs education into the school curriculum, those schools that are already moving towards creating a safe environment for children could be considered ‘schools of choice.’

‘Message to Australia’ gave those who bravely told their story to the Royal Commission an opportunity to share a message with the Australian community about their experience and hopes for creating a safer future for children. These messages were published in a commemorative book that was handed over to the National Library of Australia during the final sitting of the Royal Commission on 14 December 2017.

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In 1993 as the WA Police Liaison Officer for Protective Behaviours (PBs) state-wide, Andrea joined Protective Behaviours WA. It was the perfect fit as a positive channel to release her passion for helping children.

In an interview with Andrea Muslin, she revealed that while being inducted into the inaugural WA Women’s Hall of Fame was incredibly special, her greatest achievement has been her ability to teach large numbers of teachers, services providers and parents the PBs program. And, her joy has been teaching children and giving them a voice to protect themselves.

An extract from the ‘Starfish Singers‘ Andrea Musulin – A Mission to Protect and Service

The conversations of the last few people still finding a seat in the crowd hush.
I feel a shift in the room and lean forward in my chair. Maybe it was Andrea’s police officer’s uniform. Or maybe they sense how serious this is, too?
Andrea catches and holds a few gazes before continuing.

“Most children are abused by someone they know. We must empower children with the knowledge to protect themselves. Who can tell me what a pederast is?”
My heart starts to race and I slowly raise my hand. “A man who desires sex with teenage boys.”
“And who taught you that?”
“You did,” I say and fold my hands over my stomach to prepare for the story. Even though I’ve already heard it, I know the impact of it will be the same the second time. Some things never get easier.

Andrea nods and returns to the podium. The growl in her voice as she starts the story isn’t aggression; it is an assertion of her authority on the subject, alerting adults to the motivations of sex offenders and the great lengths they will go to in gaining access to a child. Andrea has witnessed the horrors of what pedophiles can and will do to children.

I look across at the row of men and women in front of me. Faces are ashen. Heads are bowed. The events being described are raw and sickening.

Listening to Andrea is like training with a heavyweight instructor. Knees begin to buckle. Hearts grow weary hearing her extensive knowledge of predatory behaviours and horrific stories of child sex abuse. But we stay and bear the burden. We are also challenged to speak out against the apathy in society. Children are taught to trust and respect adults and conditioned to do as they are told. No wonder there’s an epidemic…

In 2015, Andrea was invited to take up the position of Safeguarding Project Coordinator for the Perth Catholic Archdiocese in WA. Accepting the role, Andrea resigned as Executive Officer from PBWA.

Excerpt from the Starfish Singers Book by Christine G. Camp – A Mission to Protect and Serve

Andrea Musulin is also the Founder of the WA Child Protection Society.

Photo by Jamie O’Brien. Used with permission.

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