Wellbeing
Positive Behaviours for Learning
At SFS, our school expectations are:
Respect
Responsibility and
Kindness
This week we have continued to focus on the expectation of RESPONSILBILITY in OUTDOOR SPACES and think before you act.
The children in Learning Space 2 in Sandi and Laurelle’s home groups have been trialling an acknowledgement system. Christine mentioned this in the newsletter last week. We will roll this out to the rest of the school in Term 2.
When teachers see children demonstrating our schoolwide expectations of Respect, Responsibility and Kindness, they will be awarded an acknowledgement card. Your child will bring this card home for you to sign. We encourage you to talk to your children about why they received the card and what expected behaviour on the matrix they were demonstrating. The children then will return the signed card to school and put into a box.
On Friday, 1 senior and 1 junior student’s name will be drawn from each space. The children whose names are drawn will receive an intrinsic reward. They can choose from wearing casual clothes to school the following Monday or having 10 minutes of free time. This can be doing something in class they enjoy or going outside to shoot basketball hoops or play a game. There will be 3 juniors and 3 senior students names drawn each week.
A big congratulations to our first winners of the SFS PBL expectations acknowledgement rewards, Alexander T from LY and Marushka R from SD. Alexander chose to have some free time in class while Marushka chose to come dressed in casual clothes today!
Seasons for Growth
At SFS we offer the Seasons for Growth program. I am currently running a group for Year 5 and 6 students and will run a group for Year 3 and 4 students in Term 2.
Here is some information about the program:
“Seasons for Growth provides children and young people the skills and knowledge to adapt to change following loss or grief experiences.
THIS RESEARCH RECEIVED A ‘HIGH’ RATING FOR IMPACT IN THE AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL’S ENGAGEMENT AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT 2018-2019 NATIONAL REPORT. Seasons for Growth receives a ‘High’ rating for impact. Overview of Impact LOSS AT ANY TIME IN LIFE CAN BE CHALLENGING.
Southern Cross University developed the Seasons for Growth program to support children and young people following death, separation, divorce
and other loss experiences.
Seasons for Growth was adapted to support refugee children, young people in suicide ‘hotspots’ and children involved in natural disasters. The program has also been adapted for adults experiencing loss, Indigenous people, prisoners, and parents of children in the program. Since 1996, 260,000 children, young people and adults in five countries have taken part in Seasons for Growth.
The program has given participants a new start, a chance to transform their experiences of change and loss and to move forward with confidence and hope.
• Children & young people
• Parents experiencing bereavement, separation or divorce
• Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples
• Survivors of natural disasters (floods/bushfires/earthquakes)
• Refugees • Prisons/prisoners • Government departments/authorities (e.g. Education/Family and Community Services/Local councils)
• Government and non-government schools
• Community organisations (e.g. family relationship centres/disability organisations/out-of-home care/aged care)
• Foundations and NGOs (e.g., headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation) Beneficiaries www.scu.edu.au/research/our-research/engagement-and-impact/ support-for-children-experiencing-loss-or-grief/
Details of the Impact
EXPERIENCES OF LOSS AND GRIEF FEATURE IN THE LIVES OF MANY CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE. Almost one in four Australians aged 18-24 experience divorce or separation of their parents (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010) and 6% experience the death of a parent during childhood (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013).
PROFESSOR ANNE GRAHAM, Director of the Centre for Children and Young People (ccyp) at Southern Cross University, authored Seasons for Growth (is an evidence-based, small-group, psychosocial education program providing children and young people (6-18 years) with knowledge and skills to adapt to significant changes following death, separation, divorce and other loss experiences.
Launched in 1996, it is the only such program developed in Australia that is nationally and internationally available. SEASONS FOR GROWTH IS STRUCTURED AROUND THE METAPHOR OF SEASONAL CHANGE, Worden’s task theory and contemporary evidence about what children need to know and do to adapt to loss. The program emphasises agency: accepting the reality of the loss, working through the pain of grief, adjusting to the new situation and emotionally relocating the person or thing.
It promotes resilience and self-esteem, normalises grief, builds peer support and fosters positive coping strategies. SEASONS FOR GROWTH (3RD EDITION) CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WAS LAUNCHED IN 2015. This edition synthesised and integrated the findings of much of CCYP’s research from the preceding decade, including contemporary interdisciplinary understandings of childhood (emphasising children’s agency as well as vulnerability), children’s rights, grief theory, understandings of wellbeing (subjective wellbeing grounded in children’s conceptualisations) and Honneth’s recognition theory. SUICIDE IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH FOR 15-24 YEAR OLDS IN AUSTRALIA (24% of male and 15% of female deaths, respectively).
In 2015 headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation requested a trial of Seasons for Growth as a suicide post-vention in schools. CCYP researchers modified the program, and having conducted a successful trial, trained 72 companions and rolled it out into communities across Australia identified as youth suicide hotspots. BETWEEN 2011 AND 2016 81,993 PEOPLE (91% of them children or young people) participated in Seasons for Growth in its various adaptations in Australia, New Zealand and Scotland. Since its development in 1996, the program has delivered significant social benefits to over 260,000 children, young people and adults in Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, England and Republic of Ireland.
SEASONS FOR GROWTH ALSO PROVIDES THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT WITH AN EVIDENCE-BASED, credible program to support children and young people facing loss. While schools were previously the major sites for Seasons for Growth in Australia, 27% of programs are now run through community agencies. In 2005 Professor Graham gifted the intellectual property in the Seasons for Growth program to the newly-established non-profit organisation Good Grief Ltd, which was established to administer Seasons for Growth programs across Australia and coordinate mandatory training. From 2011-2016, Good Grief trained 3,098 companions who delivered the suite of Seasons for Growth programs and seminars to 50,280 people (85% of them children or young people).
IN 2009 ACCESS ECONOMICS REPORTED THAT NEARLY A QUARTER OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA AGED 12-25 HAD SOME MENTAL HEALTH DIFFICULTY. The direct financial cost of this mental illness was estimated at $10.6 billion. Proven intervention programs such as Seasons for Growth, which raises self-confidence, self respect, self-esteem, and lowers depression and anxiety, provide economic benefit to Australia by lowering health costs. However, any economic benefits that may flow from Seasons for Growth are overshadowed by the social benefits that have accrued from this program in its many forms. Seasons for Growth has given thousands of children, young people and adults a new start, a chance to transform their experiences of change and loss and move forward with confidence and hope. NOTE: report summary only.”
If you think your child would benefit from participating in this program or you would like some more information about the program, please contact me rlenko@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au
If you have any concerns about the wellbeing of your child, please do not hesitate to contact me. rlenko@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au
Rachel Lenko
Student Wellbeing Leader
