Little Big Chats

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, before moving to Melbourne, Victoria, where she taught at several inner-city schools.

In 1985, Jayneen transitioned her career to become an educational editor and publisher.

In the early 90s, Jayneen and her partner lived in Japan for over three and a half years, working as English teachers. Her first daughter was born there.

Upon returning to Australia, Jayneen began working as an educational author/packager, authoring and producing numerous award-winning titles for the educational publishing industry. She is also an accomplished children’s book author, contributing to 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 ‘Engage Literacy’ series, published by Capstone, for which she has written over 150 titles.

A mother of three daughters, Jayneen served as a school councillor at her local school for over seven years. This experience, combined with her teaching background, inspired her to address child protection in schools. Realizing the limited efforts in this area, she utilized her authoring and publishing skills to write ‘Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept,’ a book designed to help parents, carers, and teachers discuss inappropriate touch and encourage children to speak up.

Following the positive reception of ‘Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept,’ Jayneen recognized a need for further prevention education. She engaged in Protective Behaviours professional development and attended numerous conferences to enhance her knowledge of child safety and age-appropriate body safety and consent education.

Subsequently, Jayneen developed and published a comprehensive Body Safety and Respectful Relationship Teacher’s Resource Kit and authored more children’s books focusing on body safety, consent, respect, gender equality, social and emotional intelligence, and diversity and inclusion.

Jayneen currently collaborates with her partner, Mark Sanders, to run Educate2Empower Publishing. Her dedication to the safety and empowerment of children remains strong, with new manuscripts and free resources in development.