“If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else up.” – Booker T. Washington
The joy of Storytime is one that many of us can empathise with, whether as a child eagerly awaiting an adventure story before bed, or as parents and carers trying to adopt ridiculous voices, much to the bewilderment of our children. Grandparents Plus Project Worker, and kinship carer, Maxine Campbell heard that one of her group members read stories to her friend’s young children. This was a lightbulb moment for Maxine as she thought “why not use this to get older children to read to little ones at night.” This not only encourages children to read, but gives younger children a kindred voice during this period of nationwide isolation.
Maxine is a kinship carer to her niece Faith, (who calls her Mum), aged 8. Being a keen reader Faith was eager to take up the challenge and share a story with other children. Faith recorded herself reading stories for younger children, and Maxine shared these across her support groups. Faith and Maxine, keen to spread this act of kindness, asked other kinship families in the support group to record their children reading stories so that the joy could spread far and wide.
We are calling on other kinship families to get involved, to record and share themselves reading stories, so children can hear the voices of other children. If you are part of an existing support group why not give this a try amongst yourselves? If not, why not reach out to friends and family and give it a go?
You could also get creative – if your children love to write, why not encourage them to make up a story and share that?
If you’d like to find out more about our support groups and how to join or start one, please visit our support page.
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