Coronavirus – helping children to stay safe

Many children are worried about the coronavirus, and as parents, other family members, or children’s and youth workers we are likely to be worried about how to keep them safe.

Much of the information circulating at the moment is scary and over-hyped and sensationalised and this can really upset children, especially children with additional needs who may struggle to comprehend what they are seeing and hearing. Image what they are thinking when they see people fighting over toilet rolls!

Here are some resources that you can use to help the children that you are in contact with, as well as some information that as adults gives you some background data.

For children (1):

A really helpful social story* resource has been put together by the Triple A Alliance (@TripleAAlliance), a social story that helps us to explain more about how to stay safe from Coronavirus to children:

*As with all social stories, those that have been written by others should only be used as a template. Every social story should be personalised for the people they are being written for if possible. If you want to find out more about how to create social stories, visit my friend Lynn McCann’s site here.

For children (2):

For some really great and useful information, social stories, and symbols/graphics from the Widget website about Staying Safe from Germs and Washing Your Hands, click here for a free printable pdf download: Widget washing-your-hands

For adults:

As adults we need some facts that can inform and help us to help the children we are caring for, and so the folk at Information Is Beautiful have put together a coronavirus infographic data pack, gathering the best scientifically-sourced charts in one place (all sources provided) and adding some of their own. This information is dated 11th March but updates are available from their website.

Click here for high quality version of these graphics.