Hello Day!: A children's book to normalize and validate feelings around trauma

This book supports children (age 3-12 yrs) who experienced different types of trauma. It is a therapeutic tool for clinicians to work with children in the therapy room to help normalize and validate their feelings. It can be used by the clinician to facilitate engagement of parents in the treatment process. Guided by the clinician, parents can take this book home and use it with his/her child when he/she is in distress due to traumatic reminders of the event.

My book supports children who experienced chronic, complex and generational trauma in unique ways to normalize and validate their feelings. It provides a therapeutic tool to clinicians to engage with the child while doing the trauma work in the therapy room.

This book is for children who unfortunately experienced diverse types of trauma and as a result, they developed maladaptive emotional and behavioral reactions. In some cases, the child demonstrates extreme avoidance to address the traumatic experience. Therefore, this book will support the therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the child by validated their feelings and providing an understanding that the trauma does not define the child. This book will benefit the child by starting the therapeutic work to restore the child's well-being. Furthermore, this book facilitates the therapist in recovering the child's inner strength, hope and optimism for the future.

Hello Day! is based on cognitive-behavioral principles used widely by many therapists. Another therapeutic approach applied in this book is based on Humanistic principles. They emphasize the active listening without judgment to the child's comments and accept and contain them. CBT has been demonstrated in EBP as an effective and safe treatment modality to reduce trauma symptoms.

This book facilitates the inclusion and engagement of parents or caregivers in the treatment process. It is available in both Spanish and English.