Families
Content with Resource audience Lower secondary .
Families
Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul
A collection of short stories, anecdotes, poems and cartoons which present a positive outlook on life (8 to 12 years). Topics: courage, hope, laughter.
Family Planning Victoria (FPV)
Provides reproductive and sexual health services throughout Victoria. Includes a section on school programs.
Girls like that and other plays for teenagers
Fiction
'Girls Like That' explores the pressures caused by technology when a schoolgirls naked photograph goes viral.
'Banana Boys' is about the challenge of being on the school football team and being secretly gay.
'Holloway Jones' is a about with growing up with a parent in prison.
'Pronoun' is about two childhood sweethearts dealing with the fact that one of them, Isabella, has come out as transgender.
Kids Helpline
Kids Helpline is Australia's only free, private and confidential, telephone and online counselling service specifically for young people aged between 5 and 25. The website also provides lots of valuable information for kids and parents.
Let's talk about where babies come from
Non-fiction
Comics and cartoons outlining: similarities and differences between girls and boys, growing up, reproductive organs, how babies are made, what sex is, what is love, same sex attraction, conception, pregnancy, different types of birth, genetics (e.g. hair colour), different kinds of families, keeping safe (consensual touch), HIV (but not other STI/BBVs). A book that parents/teachers can read to younger children, or older children can read themselves.
Book review by Cath Hak 4min 36sec.
Age: 7 to 11 years.
Reachout.com
Information, support and resources to help young people improve their understanding of mental health issues, develop resilience, and increase their coping skills and help-seeking behaviour.
RESPECT Counselling Service
Free 24 hour national counselling service for people at risk of, or who have experienced physical or sexual violence.
Safe4Kids
Safe4Kids provides training and resources in protective behaviours (child abuse prevention education). Services include: Teacher PD, student workshops, parent workshops.
Secret boys' business (2nd Ed.)
Topics: puberty
Non-fiction
A puberty resource for boys, families, schools and community groups to explain the physical and emotional changes of puberty.
Age: 9 to 13 years.
Sexual Health and Family Planning ACT
Provides reproductive and sexual health services throughout the ACT. Includes schools education programs, training and workshops.
The Freedom Centre
The Freedom Centre supports young people (under 26), families and communities to be healthy, happy and informed about diverse sexuality, sex and gender. They host drop in spaces and peer support for young people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer and Questioning.
The Paper Bag Baby
Fiction. 240 page novel. Edward, the school wheeler-dealer with dreams of becoming a millionaire by the time he's twenty, who finds a baby wrapped in a paper bag in the park. Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. (12+ years)
Welcome to consent
Non fiction book: A frank, funny and honest guide to navigating consent and respectful relationships that helps young people understand the invisible rules governing consent and how to say yes, no and everything in between. Explores topics that young people need to know about consent from going to the doctor for the first time, working up to a first kiss through to sexual consent. Includes first-person anecdotes from real teens. https://booksfromaustralia.com/book/welcome-to-consent/