It is vital kids know how to keep themselves safe in an emergency.
Resources to help you talk with kids about the Silver Rail Elementary School tragedy and other school shootings.
Burton’s book helps give words to the deep fear and isolation that can happen in tragedies, and how to look for the helpers and know you are safe.
Slumberkins provides kids and adults resources for identifying, understanding, and processing different feelings. Their article, “In the Wake of Another School Shooting” provides help on talking with kids about school shootings.
Dr. Jaclyn Schildkraut is the leading researchers on school active shooter incidents and lockdown drills. Get a scientific, evidence-based understanding on the most effective protocols in schools.
For more trusted information on how to talk with children about violence, like the Silver Rail Elementary School tragedy, follow the link to their resources on “Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Families and Educators.” They provide concrete, expert advice on talking with kids in honest, psychologically safe, and developmentally appropriate ways. These are some of the toughest conversations, and we wish no one ever had to have them.
We can help.
Sammy & Friends stories highlight key actions kids can take, like lockdown or evacuation, without fostering fear.
Books contain supportive content for adults on how to have big discussions and guide the conversation when children are focused on particular threats or hazards, such as a bad person at school or a fire in the building. This can help adults recognize and honor any fears, then redirect the conversation towards helping kids feel like empowered experts in safety.
Teaching kids that other people, or in this case, forest friends, practice safety helps normalize safety practices like emergency drills. Having age-appropriate, psychologically safe conversations allows kids to pose questions that might not otherwise get answered. This can help to lift the veil of fear and trauma, which can so often accompany emergency drills.
Using a safe, engaging, and friendly approach helps kids better engage with the material using their thinking brain rather than their stress brain.
Easy To Use Resources
Each of the buttons below gives access to an easy-to-use resource to support parents and families in their school safety efforts. Want to have new resources sent directly to you? Keep scrolling and sign up to join our Forest Friends list below!
Within the first few pages, kids are taken away to a magical land, teaching them how to feel safe in a very calm and peaceful way. This book is a wonderful resource for preschool and elementary teachers, as well as parents, to help facilitate those difficult but real conversations needed about staying safe at school. As a mom of five young children and a school teacher of 16 years, I know that this will be a book that my classes will read over and over to help students feel open to having discussions and feeling prepared knowing the steps to follow in such an event. This will be a book I will have in my own home so my children can feel safe and knowledgeable when they are at school as well. Thank you for writing a story that brings up tough conversations, in a kid friendly way, without scaring children.
Lindsay Omeg, Mother of Five and Teacher