Empowered Me!
Wellbeing & Body Empowerment for Early and Primary Years Students

About Karen Keavy

Karen Keavy is an educator, counsellor and lived experience child advocate committed to the wellbeing, safety and protection of children.

Karen’s career in education began twenty years ago and was spent mainly within the Catholic and public education systems. Soon into her career she realized that by including evidence based wellbeing strategies into her learning program, the wellbeing and learning outcomes of her students would improve. As a result, she embraced Positive Psychology and the work of Dr Martin Seligman and the “PERMA” model of wellbeing. Over time Karen has continued to study and refine her practice and knowledge in the area of wellbeing, including Polyvagal theory and somatic techniques to help students self regulate. As an educator and through her own private practice, Karen has gained extensive experience working with children, especially those experiencing trauma and social and emotional challenges.

Karen regularly holds Professional Development sessions for educators, SSO’s and parent communities regarding body empowerment and wellbeing.

All of the programs offered under the Empowered Me! banner are grounded in research, are trauma-informed, include Positive Psychology and evidence based wellbeing practices and are aligned with The Australian Curriculum, Early Years Learning Framework and in South Australia, the Keeping Safe: Child Protection Curriculum.

Karen lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

Programs

Empowered Me! Empowered Me! is a fresh, new approach to delivering Protective Behaviours Education and marks a shift away from fear based learning to a position of empowerment! This shift in emphasis is a significant difference in not only the way we teach body safety, but marks a difference in the way children learn and understand about their bodies and how to keep them safe. Educators love Empowered Me! because it makes things so easy and best of all the program is fun to deliver! Empowered Me! is delivered to educators in a one day, in-person session, and includes links and activities to Literacy, Numeracy, Health & PE and evidence based wellbeing and Positive Psychology practices.

Miraculous Me! Teaching students the anatomically correct names of the private parts of the body can be a sensitive area for educators. This one-hour trauma informed session is specifically designed for educators and addresses how to explicitly teach Early Years students the anatomically correct names of the private parts of the body, inappropriate touching, and what to do and where to go if they need to disclose abuse. Miraculous Me! is all about body positivity, inclusivity and celebrating a child’s uniqueness and gifts they bring to the world!

Supported Me! This program is designed to help educators and SSO’s know what to do in the event that a student discloses abuse. The one-hour session includes;