Family-focused marketing agency Kids Industries (KI) has today announced a partnership with Laura Helen Brown from LHB Illustrations – founder of the My Emotions Activity Book – which, with support from leading online document printer Doxdirect.com, will be now be made available to the 3,750,000 Ukrainian children who have been forced to flee the ongoing violence to help support them with their mental health and wellbeing.
Written and illustrated by financial crime analyst Laura Brown to help her nephew, who was struggling with anxiety during lockdown, the passion project was first launched as a free-of-charge printable resource in March 2021 and has since received rave reviews and downloads from high-profile childcare experts and play teams at Great Ormond Street Hospital, NSPCC, Women’s Aid, and Barnardo’s.
Laura’s mission is for every child in the UK to have easy access to the book, but the need is great outside of this country too. The team at Kids Industries connected with Laura and, in line with their manifesto pledge to support better mental health and wellbeing amongst young people, the book can now be downloaded from their website. They will also be funding the Ukrainian translation. Kids Industries also connected Laura with the team at Doxdirect.com who volunteered to print and post orders of the Ukrainian language version of the printed booklet from Slough, UK, and Krakow, Poland, for free.
The fun and engaging activity book for primary aged children is free to download and is filled with fun animal facts and calming watercolour illustrations. It is designed to be universal and used within a school lesson, as part of a group of lessons or one-to-one between parent, caregiver, or child support worker as a way to generate conversations with children about their feelings and wellbeing.
Laura Brown says: “It’s critical to recognise and support children’s mental health and wellbeing, especially for those fleeing Ukraine. Leaving their homes, families and friends in very difficult circumstances presents children with a number of worries and coping with such uncertainty and anxiety is incredibly tough – let alone adapting to new environments.
“I’m incredibly grateful for the support Gary and his team have shown. Making the book available free of charge to as many children as possible is key.”
Gary Pope, CEO and Co-Founder at Kids Industries and Children’s Commissioner for Products of Change, commented: “As a family focused marketing agency, we see it as our responsibility to support initiatives like Laura’s – where we can help make a difference to young people’s lives directly. Her book is beautifully illustrated and written in a way that children can relate to, helping to nurture their emotional literacy.
“We hope this can be a thoughtful way for children who have arrived in the UK and within Europe to access a resource to aid conversation as and when they are ready to do so. If you can help at all to get this resource to even more children, we’d love to hear from you.”
Tom Griffiths, CEO at Doxdirect, adds: “Supporting children’s education and wellbeing is a big part of what we do – and Laura’s book was a natural fit with our community programme which also includes help with over 150 thousand free maths test packs along with missing pet posters and Online Safe Spaces [the Royal Mail programme helping victims of domestic violence obtain support].”