Be the Difference

This engaging book provides over 40 powerful ideas on how kids and the people who love them can make a difference. Using kid-friendly text and beautiful illustrations, the focus is on three key areas: empathy and kindness, racial and gender equality, and caring for the environment. We know from research that ‘doing good is good for you’. The participant benefits both mentally and physically. Encouraging a mindset of giving and being part of positive change when a child is young, benefits both the child and their future. The aim of this book is to introduce kids to the many positive things they can do, both personally and collectively to make this world a kinder and more caring place. This book can be read over a number of sessions by children or to children by parents and caregivers, or integrated into a classroom setting. There are also further discussion questions/ideas included at the back of the book.

Jayneen (aka Jay Dale) is an experienced early years educator, author and publisher. She started her teaching career in the 1980s as a primary school teacher in rural Australia. She then moved to Melbourne and taught at a number of inner-city schools. In 1985, Jay had a change of career and became an educational editor and publisher. In the early 90s, Jay and her partner moved to Japan to work as English teachers. They lived and worked in Japan for over three and a half years. In fact, Jay's first daughter was born there. On returning to Australia, Jay began work as an educational author/packager. Since that time, she has authored and produced numerous award-winning titles for the educational publishing industry. Jay is also an accomplished children's book author, writing a number of titles for such literacy series as ZigZags, Totally Kidz, Deadly and Incredible, and a children's picture book series for Penguin. She is currently working with an educational publisher as lead author of a literacy series. Jay has written over 100 titles in that series. Jay is a mother of three daughters and was a school councillor at her local school for over seven years. This time spent in schools both as a teacher and a parent inspired her to ask the question of her community: 'What are we doing in schools to protect our children from unsafe touch?' When she realised very little was actually being done, she decided to use her authoring and publishing skills to write Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept to help parents, carers and teachers to broach the subject of self-protection and to encourage children to speak up. After the encouraging response to Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept, she realised there was a need to further build upon the idea of children not keeping secrets about unsafe touch. Jay participated in Protective Behaviours professional development and attended numerous conferences on the topic to educate herself in how to keep children safe and provide them with prevention education. Jay then went on to develop and publish a comprehensive Body Safety and Respectful Relationship Teacher's Resource Kit as well as writing several more children's books on the topics of Body Safety, consent, respect, body boundaries and gender equality. Jay's ongoing passion for the safety and empowerment of children continues today with new manuscripts and free-to-download Body Safety resources always in the wings.

Cherie graduated from Loughborough University in 2005, completing a degree in Illustration. After leaving university she started freelancing within the greetings card industry, designing for all kinds of giftware products. Three years later she returned to her main passion - story telling. In 2008 she joined The Bright Agency (London) where she could grow as an illustrator; continuing her greetings work, but also branch out into children's book illustration. She works in a wide variety of styles, and adapts her work to suit a range of age groups. She views each commission as a new and exciting challenge. As well as illustrating, Cherie also writes her own books including the recently released 'Peter's Pebbles'.