All About Me

What it is for

Most of what gets written about a child is about events. This sheet is about the child. It asks their favourite colour, what they are good at, who is important to them — questions a child can answer easily and usually enjoys answering.

That makes it a good sheet for a first session. It builds something before it asks for anything, so that by the time you reach the last box — “who can you talk to when you feel worried, sad or upset?” — you are asking a safeguarding question inside a conversation the child is already enjoying.

Using it in a session

• Start anywhere. It does not need doing in order, and letting a child pick the box builds the sense that the sheet is theirs.
• Draw or write, their choice. Every box offers both. A child who will not write will often draw, and the drawing is not the lesser answer.
• Linger on “I am good at”. Children who have had a lot of professional attention are often fluent in what is wrong and short of practice at this.
• Read the last box carefully. Who a child names when asked who they can talk to — and who they do not name — both tell you something worth sitting with.
• Ask before you keep it. The sheet belongs to the child. If they are happy for you to, a copy on file is their voice in their own hand.