Big Changes
Bring Brave Bart Home to Help
Written by Caroline H. Sheppard, MSW & Derek S. Allen, MA
Illustrated by Bethany Goforth
Caroline H. Sheppard and Derek S. Allen
Big Changes Bring Brave Bart Home to Help
Written by Caroline H. Sheppard, MSW & Derek S. Allen, MA
Illustrated by Bethany Goforth
Introduction
Brave Bart has been providing help to children, families, schools, therapists, social workers, counselors, hospitals, and first responders across the world since the first book, Brave Bart: A Story for Traumatized and Grieving Children, was published in 1998. The story, written by Caroline H. Sheppard, was inspired by her years of experience working with children and families in need as a school and clinical social worker. In 2014, Sheppard brought Brave Bart back in her story, Brave Bart and the Bully, to address the issues surrounding bullying.
Today’s Coronavirus crisis brings with it so many unknowns and unexpected changes for children, parents, students, and teachers, that Sheppard was inspired to again bring Brave Bart back to provide a non-threatening, helping character. The goal being to acknowledge and normalize feelings, which opens the door to help children with their worries and fears.
The use of Brave Bart, a non-threatening character for children to identify with, has proven to be helpful many times over. This newest story includes feelings associated with what children may be experiencing now with the effects of the Coronavirus. The story is purposely simple, leaving open-ended areas that will encourage questions, imagination, and conversation in a way that puts the focus on the non-threatening characters, whose feelings reflect those of the story readers or listeners.
When Brave Bart was a young kitten, he had something very bad, sad and scary happen to him. With the help of Helping Hannah, Bart learned how to find help for himself and others.
Caroline H. Sheppard and Derek S. Allen
The last time Brave Bart went home to visit his old neighborhood, there was a problem with bullying, and he was able to help everyone learn how to get along better.
Now, Brave Bart has heard that his neighborhood is having a new problem, so he has gone back to help again.
But this time is different. A virus that makes people sick has changed just about everything that we all do every day. Schools have closed and so have a lot of places where grownups work. This means many moms, dads and grandparents are working from home or not able to work at all, and kids like you are learning from home.
Caroline H. Sheppard and Derek S. Allen
The changes make everything feel different. School is different for kids and work is different for grownups.
With change comes things we do not understand or that are different, and are things we have never had happen to us before. Like not knowing when school will start again. Or, when will the grownups be able to go back to work?
We all get used to what we do every day. We get up in the morning, eat breakfast, brush our teeth, and go to school or work.
Caroline H. Sheppard and Derek S. Allen