Beyond Words

About 

Books Beyond Words are award-winning word-free picture stories, covering themes such as physical and mental health, life skills, relationships, abuse, trauma, grief and bereavement.

Widely used in community, health and social care contexts for many years, an increasing number of both mainstream and special school settings have more recently adopted our resources and approach to support learners to understand appropriate relationships, to stay safe and healthy and to be more empowered decision makers.

Amid rising mental health needs among children and knowing that Social, Emotional and Mental Health was becoming a curriculum area in all schools in 2021, Beyond Words ran a study into how their visual stories could support the SEMH curriculum. The Open Book Project proved that our word-free resources consistently:

• empower children and young people to take control of their own feelings and behaviour
• facilitate greater and deeper understanding of self and social context
• build pupils’ emotional repertoire, insight and empathy
• broaden pupils’ vocabulary and language skills
• capture imagination and improve engagement in the classroom.

Find out more about how to bring the Beyond Words approach to your school by clicking here.

Word-free Stories and Refugee Comunities

Word-free stories can be helpful for people in refugee communities because they are not language-dependant. Many refugees will have no words to describe the trauma they have been through in their own language; let alone in the language of whichever new country they find themselves in.

Being forced to flee your home and leave behind everything you know is terrifying and confusing. For someone with learning or communication difficulties the situation is amplified beyond comprehension. This is a huge challenge for the local organisations working with them, including interpreters, who often have very little experience of working with refugees with disabilities.

Beyond Words have produced A Refugee's Story, a word-free book which can help people to tell their own story or understand the stories of the refugees they meet. 

The charity has also produced a short resource, When the War Came, to help those fleeing the unimaginable circumstances in Ukraine to begin to tell their own stories and talk about their feelings. The pictures may also build understanding and empathy amongst children and adults living in countries that are welcoming refugees. 

For further information, please contact admin@booksbeyondwords.co.uk or phone 01372 234100