Happy Fall, Vashon Families!
Hope you are settling into this colder season with some cozy activities and time for connection. DOVE is excited to share a new resource for families, our Care and Share Family Activity Book! Part coloring book, part discussion guide, the goal of Care and Share is to help you and your family start and continue having conversations about Body Safety and Consent.
This has been a big project with so much great input from our Planting Seeds family participants, community partners like Vashon Kids’ Dalinda Vivero, Vashon youth and beyond. We are so grateful for the time, support, and beautiful Spanish translation by Patricia Bañuelos to make this book a resource for more families.
Our goal for Care and Share is simple: We want children and grown-ups of all ages to feel valued in their identities and respected and affirmed in their boundaries and consent. We can work to build stronger, healthier, and safer communities by starting these conversations young!
Starting conversations about Body Safety, Consent, and Boundaries at an early age helps children build knowledge, confidence, and trust in the support of their Trusted Grown-ups. If children feel open and able to talk about body safety with their Trusted Grown-ups, we are setting an early foundation that encourages trust, belief, agency, and safety from harm.
How Care and Share Works: We have covered 15 topics related to positive self-identity, boundaries, consent, and body safety. For each topic, you will find a “Care & Share” information page that corresponds with a coloring sheet for you and your child to do together.
Each “Care & Share” contains more details about these topics, why they are important, and questions you can use to start a conversation with your child.
This can be done at your own pace and in whatever order makes most sense for you and your child. Our topics are ordered in what feels like a good sequence for the children’s programming we do at DOVE, but do what feels right for your family! Jump around, follow in order, or find whatever works best for y’all to dive into these topics.
We hope this book is a starting point for many great conversations and check-ins between you and your child. Talking early and often about these important topics helps us all create safer community!