Calm Down Power Safety Sign
Kidpower's International Safety Signs
For Everyone, Everywhere
As part of our Bridges to People Safety Initiative, we have created Kidpower’s International Safety Signs to help teachers, family members, and other caregivers teach “People Safety” skills and concepts to individuals with very limited or no speech.
These Safety Signs were developed for people who have difficulty speaking due to developmental delays and other disabilities. However, toddlers and preschoolers also really enjoy and use the Safety Signs. In fact, we are finding these signs useful for anyone who wants an easy way to remember key People Safety ideas and skills.
Thank you to the Special Hope Foundation
Four Keys to Success in Learning About Safety
Using the Safety Signs – Includes Free Downloads
Safety Signs Survey – Your Feedback is Needed!
My child used to explode in fits of rage. I would get frantic, which made things worse. Now, as soon as I see him start to get upset, I remind him, “Joey, Calm Down Power!’ I make the Calm Down Power sign and so does he. And we both calm down!
Thank You to the Special Hope Foundation for Funding This Pilot Program!
The Special Hope Foundation is dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities. They seek out projects that are "unique, innovative, and that challenge the prevailing attitudes" toward people with special needs. We are honored to have their three-year support for this important project that will help people with little to no verbal speech learn skills to be safe.
For many years, we have had great success teaching People Safety skills to people of any age with limited verbal skills. Parents, teachers, and other professionals have watched and said, "Please show us how to do that!" This project is our response to their requests.
Thanks to the Special Hope Foundation and other partners including the Cisco Foundation, Kidpower is developing written, audio, and video materials to empower professionals and parents to teach people with limited verbal skills how to keep themselves safe from violence and abuse.
Four Keys to Success in Learning About Safety
For everyone, the four keys to success in learning about safety are:
- Simplicity – complicated ideas and skills are hard to remember
- Consistency – conflicting information leads to confusion
- Repetition – practice is the best way to learn to use skills
- Relevance – the context needs to make sense in someone’s life
These keys are even more important for individuals with disabilities or other life challenges. During our needs assessment, we found that teachers, family members, and other caregivers were often using different gestures and words to try to explain personal safety concepts and skills, which resulted in a great lack of consistency at home, at school, and in different programs.
Kidpower’s International Safety Signs provide a solution by defining important concepts and skills through very simple gestures and words that can be used quickly and easily and that can be adapted to fit someone’s specific situation.
Using the Safety Signs – Includes Free Downloads
Each of the Safety Signs uses a simple gesture to indicate a basic “People Safety” rule or skill. We use the term “People Safety” to mean people being emotionally and physically safe with people.
These gestures are easy to do and repeat, allowing for ongoing practice and continual skill development. These Safety Signs can be put onto illustrated cue cards and charts to show what the skill is and when to use it to prevent and solve different problems.
The Five Safety Plan Signals are important to review before going out – out of the house, out on the schoolyard, or out in the community. They are: Stay Aware, Stay Together, Check First, Move Away, and Get Help.
The Ten Safety Powers are useful in developing a common language and understanding about core skills. Instead of defining power in terms of strength, power is defined as taking charge of what you say and do. The Ten Safety Powers are: Calm Down Power, Mouth Closed Power (or Safe Mouth Power), Hands and Feet Down Power, Speak Up Power, Listening Power, Stop Power, Move Away Power, Get Help Power, Trash Can Power, and Thank You Power.
Since this is a pilot program, we really need your feedback! We are asking everyone who uses our downloads to please take a few minutes to tell us whether the Safety Signs are useful and how to make this information better. Please go to our Safety Signs Survey and help us improve our program.
FREE PDF DOWNLOADS: Here are Kidpower’s International Safety Signs as well as specific directions on how to teach them to others.
Directions for Five Safety Plan Signals
Directions for Ten Safety Powers
Posters for Safety Plan Signals
You may download the Safety Signs for your own personal use and to use in your work or classroom environment. Please use the PDFs as they are or contact us for permission to use in other ways. Again, please also answer our Safety Signs Survey if you use this information.
Acknowledgements
In addition to the Special Hope Foundation mentioned above, we want to thank the Cisco Foundation for funding the videos we will be creating for this project.
We also want to acknowledge our Advisors whose help with our Needs Assessment and with Field-testing are essential to the success of this project. Special thanks go to:
People with limited verbal skills deserve to learn how to use their power to be safe.
- John Luna-Sparks, LCSW and Kidpower Senior Program Leader and exceptional instructor, whose guidance has been essential at each phase of this project;
- Marcy Mock, talented and dedicated Special Education Teacher for experimenting with different ideas in her classroom; and,
- Marie Galay, a compassionate and wonderful expert working in the Duchess Group Home, for her insights into the needs of staff working with adults with developmental delays in a group home setting.
We also want to acknowledge Irene van der Zande for creating the Safety Signs concept, Patrick Heaviside for drawing the signs, Amanda Golert for putting the drawings into our cartoon style, and Chantal Keeney for writing the Directions.
Bridges to People Safety
To learn more about our work with people with special needs, please go to Bridges to People Safety (coming soon) or email us with questions or comments.