VUSC News

A message from the Student Wellbeing Team

Hey VUSC community! My name’s Siobhan and I’m VUSC’s new Mental Health Practitioner. I’m a qualified social worker and I’ll be working alongside the Student Wellbeing Team to provide additional mental health support for students across both campuses. You can read more about the Mental Health Practitioner initiative here. 

 

I am excited to be in this role as I am passionate about promoting the mental health of young people and supporting a healthy and safe learning environment. I’m available to provide direct counselling to VUSC students with mild to moderate mental health issues, primarily individually and in small groups where appropriate. 

 

I can help with things like managing anxiety, stress and low mood, creating and maintaining healthy routines, developing healthy coping strategies, building confidence and self-esteem and much more. Above all, I can provide a safe space for VUSC students to talk about whatever is going on in their lives. 

 

As part of my role I will also contribute to whole-school approaches in mental health prevention and promotion. If you’d like to inquire about referring your child for counselling with me you can contact me via email at siobhan.neyland@education.vic.gov.au or you can call me via either of the school campus offices.  

 

And while I’m here, I wanted to drop a note about the news. As I'm sure you're all aware, there has been a lot of bad news in the world at the moment, most notably war in Ukraine and devastating floods in Queensland and New South Wales. In light of this, I wanted to share with you all a few resources from Reach Out that relate to coping with bad world news. There's one for young people, 'how to cope with bad world news' and one of parents and carers, 'helping your teen cope with bad world news'. These websites provide strategies for navigating, making sense of and coping with everything that's going on in today's complex world. I encourage students and parents to have a look. 

 

Stay well everyone, 

 

Siobhan Neyland

Mental Health Practitioner

 

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National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence - Friday 18 March

Our College community once again this year has engaged in Australia’s key bullying prevention initiative for schools, celebrating 12 years of action this year, connecting schools and communities to find workable solutions to prevent bullying.  

 

You can read about the School Wide  Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) framework and the College Bullying & Harassment Policy & Procedures on our school website; all committed to providing a safe and caring environment and culture, which enables positive relationships to be formed amongst all students and staff. Bullying and harassment in any of its forms are not tolerated at Victoria University  Secondary College.

This year, the National Day of Action (NDA) Committee have compiled  tips and conversations starters that families may find helpful to talk about, to discuss a shared understanding of  what bullying is and how to respond to bullying in a  constructive, supportive and  timely manner.

 

Parents working together with the school is the best way to stop bullying. 

The theme for the 2022 NDS is Kindness Culture.

The actions designed to support a Kindness Culture at our College include lunch-time activities coordinated by members of the Student Representative Council and their teachers, as well as targeted lessons during Home Group. At our Junior Campus, an assembly was held with a guest speaker from the Alannah and Madeleine Foundation, talking about:

So, in the spirt of this year’s NDA theme a Kindness Culture, you might find some of the activities and ideas in this link to be of interest to you and your family to do more of/try out.

 

Gail Inniss

Student Wellbeing Manager