The Monique Burr Foundation for Children (MBF) is pleased to announce that we will soon offer Pre-K Lessons as a part of our MBF Child Safety Matters® prevention education program.
After over a year in development in collaboration with early childhood educators and child abuse prevention experts from CAPS, The Source, and Campus Center for Young Children in Elkhart County, Indiana, we are thrilled to finally pilot these research-based, age- and developmentally-appropriate safety lessons for preschoolers that include fun and engaging activities for children, as well as additional optional activities that can be incorporated for reinforcement at home with parents. The MBF Child Safety Matters-Pre-K lessons are currently being piloted in 4 and 5-year-old preschool classes in Indiana, Florida, and New York, as well as in 1-on-1 home visitation settings with Healthy Families America (HFA) facilitators in Indiana. Healthy Families America is one of the leading family support and evidence-based home visiting programs in the United States.
Longtime partners of MBF, The Source, CAPS, and Oaklawn in the Elkhart County, IN, have been implementing MBF Programs in their community for some time now, including MBF Child Safety Matters in elementary schools, MBF Teen Safety Matters® in middle and high schools, and MBF After-School Safety Matters® in many after-school programs. They are the epitome of a community that is taking a comprehensive approach to child abuse prevention, anti-victimization, and personal safety education for children and youth, and they have been wonderful partners to MBF. When MBF Preschool lessons were requested, we had to, unfortunately, tell them we didn’t have them. But being the dedicated partners these organizations are, they stepped up and offered a team of early childhood experts to help us with the development. Over the past year, they have delivered on their promise, and we cannot thank them enough.
“We had several people on our team involved in early childhood education and child abuse prevention who were excited to participate in this process. We met every other week and put together a scripting workgroup to help write the lessons and test them with some of our team members’ preschool-age children. It was truly a collaborative effort, and we knew we were building something special with MBF,” said Rebecca Shetler-Fast of The SOURCE.
Prevention happens in partnership, and this has been an incredibly productive partnership. The MBF and Indiana teams worked together to write the lesson scripts, develop fun activities, and ensure we were introducing the topic of personal safety to young children in a developmentally appropriate way. We engaged with illustrators to bring the lessons to life with a look and feel like children’s books preschoolers are used to. We are grateful for our illustrators, Karen Kurycki and Michael Slayton, both of Jacksonville, Florida, who did an amazing job on the visuals, and we hope kids love them. They really make the Pre-K program special.
The newly developed Pre-K program includes 5 lessons based on the MBF 5 Safety Rules©:
Lesson 1: General Safety Information & Safety Rule #1 – Know What’s Up
Lesson 2: Safety Rule #2 – Spot Red Flags
Lesson 3: Safety Rule #3 – Make A Move & Safety Rule #4 – Talk It Up
Lesson 4: Safety Rule #5 – No Blame | No Shame
Lesson 5: Introduction to Bullying and Digital Safety
MBF will incorporate feedback from the pilot this spring and plan on a full release of Pre-K for the 2022-2023 school year. To learn more about the Monique Burr Foundation for Children and MBF Prevention Education Programs, please visit wwwstaging.mbfpreventioneducation.org/mbf-child-safety-matters-pre-k/.
We know many of our partners are waiting on Pre-K lessons and many other organizations and schools will be thrilled to have access to these lessons. To register to receive updates on the Pre-K Lessons including the official release date, CLICK HERE.
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