The safe-adult hand

Twenty minutes. No preparation. Something the child keeps.

What to do

Put the child’s hand flat on the space below and draw around it.
On each finger, write the name of a grown-up they could talk to if something worried them.
At least one should not live in their house — a teacher, a coach, a neighbour, an auntie, a grandparent.
Ask: “If this one was busy, who would you go to next?” That question is the point of the whole activity.
Send it home, or fold it and let them keep it. Do not put it on a wall.

Trace the hand here

Say this while you do it

“You can tell any of these grown-ups anything. And if one of them doesn’t listen, you tell the next one. And the next one. Until somebody helps.”

Notes for the grown-up

Why more than one name. Sometimes the unsafe person is close to home. A child with one route to help has no route at all if that route is the problem. Five names is a system; one name is a hope.

Why it goes home rather than on the wall. A child’s safety network is private information. Displayed on a classroom wall it tells any visitor exactly who that child would turn to.

If a child names nobody. Do not push, and do not treat it as a failed activity. Help them think of adults they see regularly — at school, at a club, in the family. If it still stays empty, that is worth noticing quietly and following your setting’s safeguarding procedure.

If a child discloses during the activity. Stop the activity. Listen calmly, do not question them, do not promise secrecy, and follow the law and your organisation’s reporting procedure. In Ontario, reasonable suspicion that a child may be in need of protection triggers a legal duty to report directly to a children’s aid society.