Katey’s book aims to ease teenagers’ worries

A dale taekwondo instructor has used her martial arts discipline to produce a new workbook to help teenagers deal with stress in their lives.

Katey Wallace, of Woodland, created her workbook, You Saw Me For A Reason, after being surprised by the number and variety of worries young people have.

The workbook encourages young people to doodle, draw and write about their feelings.

The idea to create the workbook began about 18 months ago when Katey was invited a secondary school to talk to young people about anxiety ahead of their exams.

She said: “I asked them to write down things they were anxious about. I thought I knew what was coming, but I didn’t. Some of them wrote on two sides of A4 about their worries.

“It was all this big, big stuff. It wasn’t the kind of thing 13-year-olds should be worrying about.

“I came out of there and thought these kids are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and there is nothing there to particularly help them try to manage those emotions.”

Drawing on her 35 years in the martial arts as well as many years of helping her teenage students, she began preparing chapters for her workbook.

Katey said: “In the martial arts world, you learn tools to help you deal with anxiety, confidence and temper.”

Along the way, she was given support by Teesdale Lions Club and Barnard Castle’s Clique charity fundraising group. What was initially intended to be only about 50 pages long, grew to its current 196 pages.

The instructor said: “It is a little bit different from normal books. I want kids to have it in their bedroom to work on it, to doodle in it, to sketch in it, to write their thoughts down, to reflect in it.

“It is meant to be a workbook for them, not a book on a shelf that doesn’t mean anything to them.

“A lot of the stories in there are personal to me, but I want them to make this book personal to them.

“It is a bit different. It is all about them reflecting on their own lives, what they can do to make their lives better, and taking control of their lives to find their path.”

Katey hopes to get a book in the hands of every teenager at Staindrop Academy and Teesdale School, and is appealing to local businesses to help make that a reality through sponsorship.

Businesses who want to get involved can email Katey on hello@yousawmeforareason.com

• The workbook will be launched at TCR Hub in Barnard Castle on Saturday, June 20 from 1.30pm to 3pm.