The partnership between Kids Industries and LHB Illustrations will see the My Emotions Activity Book made available to 3.75m child refugees.
Ukrainian child refugees fleeing the war with Russia will have help with processing their emotions from the turmoil thanks to a partnership for an activity book.
The tie-up between family-focused marketing agency Kids Industries and Laura Helen Brown from LHB Illustrations – founder of the My Emotions Activity Book – with support from online document printer Doxdirect.com, means the book will be now be made available to the 3.75m children to help support them with their mental health and wellbeing.
Financial crime analyst Laura Brown originally wrote and illustrated the book to help her nephew who was struggling with anxiety during lockdown. The project was first launched as a free-of-charge printable resource in March 2021, to help children around the UK, 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.
The team at Kids Industries connected with Laura and, in line with its manifesto pledge to support better mental health and wellbeing among young people, the book can now be downloaded from the agency’s website. Kids Industries will also be funding the Ukrainian translation and has connected Laura with the team at Doxdirect.com which volunteered to print and post orders of the Ukrainian language version of the printed booklet from Slough, UK and Krakow, Poland for free.
The activity book for primary aged children, which is free to download, is filled with 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, author and founder of LHB Illustrations, said: “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, 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, said Laura’s book was a natural fit with Doxdirect’s community programme which also includes help with 150k plus free maths test packs.
