Activities & Downloads
The activities are not intended to be used in a particular order. But do try to start with Activity One (Let’s find out what we already know first!). This will give you an idea of how familiar the young person you are working with is with the themes in the stories and provides a good starting point for working together.
Use the activity list guide which gives the name and short summary of the activities, or take some time to have a look through the worksheets and guidance notes to familiarise yourself with them. You can then decide which activities might be best to start with, or are most relevant to the young person you are working with. Our Training & CPD can support you to familiarise yourself with the resources.
You may choose to look at the activity overview with the young person you are working with to let them choose. If you feel a set of the six books in hard copy would be more accessible for some of your young people, please visit our online shop.
1) Let’s find out what you already know!
This activity introduces the themes in the stories and establishes what the young person already knows and thinks about the them.
Do this with the young person you are working with before reading any of the stories.
2) Creating a shared language / glossary
This activity reviews the themes in the book and the young person’s knowledge and understanding of the themes now they have been introduced through the stories.
Do this after the young person you are working with has read or listened to one or more of the stories.
Instructions for supporting adults
Glossary for supporting adults
3) Identifying places and spaces linked to feelings
This activity is about the idea that we have different thoughts, feelings and memories associated with different places and spaces.
This activity can be a good one to do when you start working with a young person as it can be a good way into talking about the themes surrounding abuse.
4) Create a map of your world
This activity connects to the illustrated map of the characters’ world that is used throughout the books and website. It also builds on activity 3. This activity involves asking the young person to create a map of their world and explore the feelings associated with different places.
This activity should be done after activity 3 which asks a young person to identify and think about the feelings associated with different places, as this activity builds.
5) Positive and negative aspects of relationships
This activity introduces the idea of positive and negative aspects of relationships and asks young people to identify them within the stories.
This activity can be a good one to do when you start to work with a young person to support them to identify negative aspects of relationships and therefore where they may be experiencing abuse.
6) Explore the different roles people have
This activity explores the idea of roles and responsibilities within families, and what is appropriate for young people – or not – in this regard.
This activity can be a good one to use if you feel a young person may be showing signs of taking on additional responsibilities, such as looking after siblings, doing lots of household chores or seeming overly worried about ‘adult’ responsibilities.
7) Thinking about loyalty and feeling conflicted
This activity explores the complex nature of domestic abuse and how a young person experiencing difficult things at home will often feel conflicted about the people involved.
It is better to do this activity once you have spent a bit of time exploring the themes in the stories and resources.
8) Drawing emotions
This activity is about how we feel emotions in our body and how what we may be feeling in our body is connected to how we are feeling emotionally.
This activity can be a good wind down activity at the end of a session. It is useful to help young people identify feelings and emotions in themselves and others as there may be things they are feeling but are unable to articulate.
Instructions for supporting adults
Instructions for young people (character)
9) Appearances vs reality
This activity explores the idea of appearances versus reality. This is a theme across all of the stories.
This activity is good to do once you have already done some work with a young person around abuse as it requires some insight into what abuse is.
10) Word collage
This activity uses collage to explore what is happening in the stories.
This is a creative making activity which can be useful as a wind down activity after other more discursive activities.
It can also be a useful activity to create an opportunity for discussion if the young person is reluctant to engage in some of the more obviously discursive activities.
11) Scene drawing
This activity involves drawing scenes from the stories, as a way of introducing the themes in the stories.
This is a creative activity to engage young people with the stories in general, rather than looking at a specific theme. This can be a fun and creative introductory activity if a young person is reluctant to engage with the themes in the stories or a gentle way to introduce the stories.
12) Supportive and self-soothing activities
This activity is about self-soothing and supportive behaviours. It is a good way to talk about the things young people can do to gain comfort and support during difficult times.
This can be a useful activity to do after activity 8 where you may have identified the challenging feelings a young person can be experiencing when things are difficult at home.
13) People being supportive and not
This activity uses creative writing (in the form of text and in person conversations) to explore how others may or may not offer support.
It can be a good activity to follow on from activity 5 on positive relationships or activity 12 on self-soothing behaviours.
Pay what you can
Please support our work by paying what you can for using the resources and stories we have developed.
We want our resources to be accessible to everyone, which is why we have chosen a pay what you can model for the digital resources and stories. Any financial contribution that you choose to make will support our continued development and provision of resources (including our capacity to maintain and further develop this website) as well as our delivery of learning and training opportunities designed to transform the way people think about gender stereotypes and relationship behaviours.
Small change, big difference
We know that the prospect of talking about tricky themes with young people could feel daunting, even with a full set of resources and guidance notes to support you. And we are here to help. Whether you and your colleagues can set aside a day, a half day, or you can only spare 90 minutes at the end of the day, we can provide Training & CPD to help familiarise you with the Sometimes it Hurts stories, themes, resources and creative approach. Creating a space for a young person to realise they are not alone, it isn’t their fault, and it is okay to express their thoughts and feelings about tricky things happening at home, could transform their wellbeing and life outcomes. If you would value a helping hand to empower you and your team to create this space for the young people you work with, get in touch to find out our rates and availability.
FAQs
Take a look at our answers to some of the frequently asked questions, designed to address any worries or concerns you may have.
Will the content be upsetting or triggering for young people?
We have made lots of effort to ensure the content is not upsetting or triggering for young people. We have done this by thinking about the language we use, ensuring we don’t give detailed or graphic descriptions of abuse, and ensuring the stories and resources contain and highlight elements of hope and positivity. However, if a child or young person has direct experience of abuse, especially if it is recent or ongoing, the content may be triggering for them.
The stories offer a way into talking about challenging themes without having to share personal experiences. We have found this to be useful for young people with direct experience of abuse.
While it can be hard to know about a child or young person’s past experiences, we recommend checking for this against any information or records you have for a young person. We also recommend using one of the benchmarking activities as a way to introduce the themes to the young people you are working with and paying close attention to how they respond to look out for any potential triggered reactions.
We also recommend creating time and space for young people to come to you or a suitable member of staff if they need additional support or feel triggered by the content. This can be the opportunity to leave the room or sit in another part of it during the session for example. Or having a named person, to go to discuss the themes in the session.
What age / developmental age is the content suitable for?
The content is suitable for key stages 2 and up, as part of this project we developed a wider set of illustrations for the stories to appeal to younger children. With young people being able to bring their own experience and understanding to the activities and topics. While some very young people may find some themes more challenging due to their level of emotional development, all the activities are suitable for a range of ages. With sensitive and non-graphic language used throughout ensuring there’s no inappropriate content for younger children.
How do you talk about or refer to abuse in the stories and resources?
We do not use explicit or graphic language on the website, resources or in any of our work. We use words like hurting rather than violence for example. Although sexual abuse is experienced by some young people, it is not one of the types of abuse referred to in this set of stories. We do not describe instances or acts of abuse in the stories or resources in detail either, however, there are references to arguing, shouting, feelings of anger and hitting.
What if a young person makes a disclosure when we are using the resources?
The content of the resources and stories may illicit disclosures. If this happens, you should follow your normal safeguarding policy and process. We recommend refamiliarising yourself with this policy and process if you are using these resources with young people. Safeguarding policies vary by setting but would normally involve contacting your organisations designated safeguarding lead who with make a safeguarding report.
We would also recommend ensuring there is no immediate danger to the young person, and if you feel there may be, taking steps to contact the police and specialist support services.
Can I use the resources with a group of young people?
The resources, activities and stories can be used with groups of young people. We do understand that it is not always possible to work one-to-one with young people in a busy role. This can be a good way to explore the themes in the stories and connect to other work on healthy relationships. However, you should bear in mind the dynamics within the group and that this a sensitive topic. If you know a young person within the group has direct experience of abuse, talking about the themes in a group setting may be triggering for them.
How can we support our staff team when doing this work?
The themes of the resources and stories can be challenging for both staff and the young people they work with. Staff can be supported in a number of ways:
- Ensuring you have an up-to-date safeguarding policy and process, so they know when and how to make a safeguarding alert. This supports staff to feel confident going into doing this work and know they are doing the right thing when dealing with tricky situations.
- Supporting individuals through line management and supervision processes to share experiences of this work and offer an opportunity to debrief on sessions.
- If you have the staff or budget, you may want to offer staff the opportunity to have supervision with a specialist.
- Team debrief sessions can be useful to talk about the successes and challenges of delivering this type of work, sharing approaches.
- Creating a sharing and open atmosphere in the workplace so staff are able to share any concerns or express when they may feel uncomfortable delivering work on certain themes.
- If staff have direct experience of abuse, or are themselves triggered by the work they are doing, you could support them to access specialist support. Details of this can be found on the specialist support page of this website.
- We can provide Training & CPD to give your staff / colleagues confidence to use our resources.