What is a ‘helping hand’?
A ‘helping hand’ is a way for kids to visualise and name the trusted adults in their life.
Who is a trusted adult?
A trusted adult:
- never asks your child to keep secrets
- respects your child’s rules and makes them feel safe
- listens to your child and takes them seriously
- believes your child
- does something to help your child.
A trusted adult isn’t necessarily the person your child feels closest to or someone in a particular role.
If your child is in an unsafe situation or with an unsafe person, their body will let them know with warning signs like butterflies in their stomach, jelly legs or a racing heart. Talking to your child about warning signs like these can be part of talking about child sexual abuse.
Why are trusted adults important for children?
Trusted adults can be part of keeping children safe.
If something doesn’t feel right, children cope better when they know there are trusted people in their lives who will listen and help them.
It’s best if your child has more than one trusted adult and has people in different parts of their life. This means that they’ll always have someone to talk to. It’s also important that at least one of their trusted adults is outside their home.
What is a helping hand activity and how does it help kids understand trusted adults?
In a helping hand activity, your child names the trusted adults they can go to for help and then writes these names on the picture of a hand.
This activity can help your child:
- know what to do if something makes them feel sad, worried, unwell, unsafe or uncomfortable
- see that there are many people in their life who can help them when something doesn’t feel right
- learn who to go to for help in different parts of their life – for example, at home, at school and in the community.
What you need for a helping hand activity
- A plain piece of paper
- A marker, crayons or pencils
- Optional – photos or drawings of the people your child names
How to do a helping hand activity with your child
Talk about trusted adults
- Talk about what makes someone a trusted adult. For example, they listen to your child, your child feels safe to tell them things, and they don’t ask your child to keep secrets.
- Talk about places in your child’s life – for example, home, school, sports clubs, and the community. Is there a trusted adult in each place?
Make the helping hand
- Place your child’s hand on the paper and draw around it with a pencil or marker.
- On each finger, help your child write the name of a trusted adult. Try to let your child choose these people themselves, but help them if you need to. Try to include at least one person outside your home.
- If it helps, your child can stick on a photo of each person or draw a picture of them.
- Let your child decorate and personalise their hand so it feels like theirs.
- Keep the helping hand somewhere your child can see it, and come back to it as things change.
Use the helping hand to talk about safety
Once your child has added people to their hand, you can use it to talk about what to do if something ever feels wrong.
For example, you could ask questions like these:
- ‘Who could you tell if something doesn’t feel right?’
- ‘What if that person is busy or doesn’t listen? Who else could you tell?’
- ‘How will you know if something isn’t right? What are the clues?’
Key messages for your child
- ‘No-one has a right to touch you. This includes people you know well.’
- ‘You can say no to physical contact.’
- ‘It’s not your fault if something happens.’
- ‘There’s always someone you can tell.’
- ‘Keep telling people until someone helps.’
It’s good to talk with your child about who they can go to for help in an emergency if they can’t contact their helping hand adults. For example, if your child is lost in a shopping centre, they can approach someone like a police officer, a shop worker in uniform or another parent with children.
How to adapt a helping hand activity for children of different ages
Younger children
If your child is young, they might need help working out who to put on their helping hand. You could ask them to think about grown-ups who listen to them and help them when they need it.
Your child might also need help writing names or drawing. It might also help to use photos or drawings of their trusted adults.
Older children
If your child is older, they might want to do the activity more independently. As well as naming people, they might need to think about how to contact their trusted adults and what to do if the first person can’t help.
How to adapt a helping hand activity for children with diverse abilities
Here are ways to adapt this activity for children of diverse abilities.
Autism, cognitive disability, developmental delay and language disorder
- Use photos, real objects or simple picture cards instead of writing.
- Keep the helping hand somewhere easy to see, and do the activity again at key times, like starting school or moving to a new class.
- Use clear, simple language and concrete examples.
- Include your child’s carers or support workers if your child wants to, but try to let your child choose.
Physical disability
Your child might need help to draw their helping hand. Or they could use digital tools or a device to draw it.
This activity works well alongside a circle of friends activity, which helps children think about their boundaries with the people in their lives.