A schools well-being program aiming to create more resilient young people is gaining momentum.
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A Big Life, which runs at Brauer and Warrnambool colleges, has entered the implementation phase and Warrnambool Student Wellbeing Association president Sean Kenny said the results were already looking positive.
“(A Big Life) is looking at ways it can build capacity not only with the kids but with teachers as well… and a lot of the time it’s families and community too,” he said.
“It’s been running now for nearly two years, it’s a long-term project so it’s pretty hard to evaluate its impact, but the anecdotal impact is pretty good in terms of how the teachers engage with it.
“Some of the positive psychology stuff that’s been coming into the schools from it and really the re-focusing of kids’ attentions around strengths rather than weaknesses, this has been a real positive.”
In the wellbeing association’s annual report, A Big Life co-ordinator Michael Barling said developing the program as a broader school community initiative was the important next step.
The program also has links with Beyond the Bell, an initiative aiming to lift year 12 retention rates.
Mr Kenny said there was a growing need for well-being programs in schools.
“Some people cruise through life and they have great support from families and communities, but an increasing number don’t, they come to school just not ready to learn.
“The education department will fund a school to teach maths, science, English and those sorts of things but they’re not resourced to teach them how to live. Typically, that’s what the family used to do, but for a whole lot of reasons it’s not happening like it used to, so the school increasingly, whether it likes it or not is playing that role.
“What Big Life is realising is that if we can equip our teachers to better understand and support… it just helps them realise that this kid is not actually a naughty kid… then they channel them to programs like this and others and say, well this is an engagement issue and the behaviour is an expression of something else,” he said.
Mr Kenny said the association was also looking at making changes to the way it operates.
“One of the things we’re trying to do with the wellbeing association is really in the next six months look at the way it’s governed in the sense that it brings the principals, the programs and the school councils into a structure that makes it a really holistic approach to well-being and that the money that we raise is put to best use,” he said.
“It’s really quite unique for a town like this to have a community group like this. We raise over $100,000 a year to put into those schools and that means that this stuff can happen when otherwise the schools wouldn’t have enough money, that’s not a political statement, that’s just the reality.”