Boss of My Body

Jayneen Sanders (aka Jay Dale) is an experienced Australian early years educator, children’s book author and publisher.

She began her teaching career in the 1980s as a primary school teacher in rural Queensland, Australia. She then moved to Melbourne, Victoria, and taught at several inner-city schools. In 1985, Jayneen had a change of career and became an educational editor and publisher.

In the early 90s, Jayneen and her partner moved to Japan to work as English teachers. They lived and worked in Japan for over three and a half years, and Jayneen’s first daughter was born there.

On returning to Australia, Jayneen began working as an educational author/packager. Since then, she has authored and produced numerous award-winning titles for the educational publishing industry. Jayneen is also an accomplished children’s book author, writing titles for literacy series such as ZigZags, Totally Kidz, Deadly and Incredible, and a children’s picture book series for Penguin.

Jayneen is currently the lead author of the literacy series ‘Engage Literacy’ published by Capstone, for which she has written over 150 titles.

Jayneen is a mother of three daughters and was a school councillor at her local school for over seven years. This time spent in schools both as a teacher and a parent inspired her to ask the question of her community: ‘What are we doing in schools to protect our children from inappropriate touch?’ When she realised very little was being done, she decided to use her authoring and publishing skills to write ‘Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept’ to help parents, carers and teachers to broach this subject and encourage children to speak up.

After the encouraging response to ‘Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept’, Jayneen realised there was a need to further build upon the idea of prevention education. Jayneen participated in Protective Behaviours professional development and attended numerous conferences on the topic to educate herself in how to keep children safe and provide them with age-appropriate and empowering body safety and consent education.

Jayneen then went on to develop and publish a comprehensive Body Safety and Respectful Relationship Teacher’s Resource Kit as well as writing many more children’s books on the topics of body safety, consent, respect, gender equality, social and emotional intelligence, and diversity and inclusion.

Jayneen currently works with her partner, Mark Sanders, to run Educate2Empower Publishing. Her ongoing passion for the safety and empowerment of children continues today, with new manuscripts and free-to-download resources always in the wings.

Iryna Boiarska grew up in Ukraine, surrounded by books, curiosity, and a love for learning. With a PhD in Theoretical Physics, she began her career in science before discovering her passion for illustration after the birth of her son. She finds great joy in seeing how her illustrations captivate young minds. Through her art, Iryna aims to share important life values and help children better understand the world around them.

Today, she creates warm illustrations primarily in digital media. Inspired by childhood, family life, and everyday magic, she loves telling gentle stories through images that spark curiosity and emotion in young readers.

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