August 15, 2024

Meet Christina: Sunflower House’s Bilingual Education Specialist

 

As a bilingual education specialist, Christina Sell works to teach children, families, professionals and the Hispanic community about personal safety through different interactive programs in Spanish.

Christina said learning a new culture and language can be stressful, so teaching children about safety in their first language makes learning easier.

“Being able to understand and process personal safety information in their primary language, within a dual language presentation, allows children to clearly understand the concepts being taught as well as the proper English terminology,” she said.

When she’s in a classroom, Christina has Happy Bear by her side. Happy Bear helps teach children about welcome and unwelcome touches, practice resistance skills and how to report abuse to a trusted adult. She said that asking for consent is so important when it comes to touch, so practicing and seeing it with Happy Bear is a great way for younger children to understand personal boundaries.

Education is one of the most important tools when it comes to protecting children and making a community safer for them. By teaching younger children about personal safety in a school setting, they learn how to find someone they feel comfortable reporting abuse to.

“Because our lessons are tailored to each grade level, children learn about personal safety in a developmentally appropriate way,” Christina said. “Children will find trusted adults in the school environment with whom they feel comfortable to report. Educators are the eyes and ears who receive disclosures, or through observation, can suspect and report abuse.”

Last year, Sunflower House used bilingual education to teach thousands of children in Johnson and Wyandotte Counties about personal safety in their primary language. Christina said she sees how this helps children feel empowered to tell an adult about abuse they may be experiencing.

“Once, after presenting, a student shared with her class that it was important to know that abuse does happen to children, to believe children when they say say it has, and that it isn’t the child’s fault,” Christina said. “I was amazed by her confidence and resiliency.”