Abstract: Submission #96

Abstract Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused poor mental health, parental loss and food insecurity in children. At the pandemic's peak, context-relevant and child-friendly COVID-19 tools for child counselling and education were limited in low-income communities. Researchers and social work practitioners created the Uhambo Lwami storybook in isiZulu to initiate conversations with children about COVID-19. Using the Afrocentric framework, the authors present evidence from interviews with 13 purposively selected community-based social workers and child and youth workers who integrated the storybook into child counselling during the pandemic. The central theme discussed is the value of using the storybook to educate and support children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicated that the storybook could be helpful for grief and bereavement counselling and communicating COVID-19 information in a child-friendly way. The storybook further promoted child engagement and participation in sessions, strengthening the school's response to support children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper suggests that well-designed Afrocentric storybooks are a cost-effective communication tool to support counselling with children.