Promoting Student Wellbeing
A message from the Mental Health Practitioner
Greetings VUSC community,
I hope everyone’s enjoying the turning of the seasons, even if it has been a bit wet thus far. I am excited to tell you about what’s been happening in the mental health space at VUSC these last few months.
R U OK Day
On Friday 9th September we celebrated R U OK Day at VUSC. R U OK day is a day to raise awareness about the importance of checking in with friends and family, and having supportive conversations with each other about our mental health and wellbeing. Students and staff really came together as a community to promote the message of the day. I supported students to organise the events at the Senior Campus, which included a barbeque, message board, a multi-language mural, music and lots of games with prizes to be won. The senior VCAL students organised lots of great events at the Junior Campus, including a barbecue, live music and education sessions for students about mental health.
You can find out more about R U OK Day and how you can have supportive conversations with the people you care about here.
Batyr @ School
At the end of last term we were lucky to have some amazing presenters from Batyr come and run a workshop with our entire year 9 cohort. Batyr is a mental health prevention organisation that works with schools to decrease stigma around mental health and promote help-seeking. They ran a fantastic workshop, and in anonymous feedback students reported:
‘I learnt that I am not alone and seeking help is the best thing you can do.’
‘I learnt that having one conversation can change a life and that motivates me to start more conversations.’
We look forward to having Batyr come again next week to run a session with our year 10s.
Batyr have some fantastic resources on their website for parents and carers which I really encourage you all to have a look at! They also have some great resources for young people including an app called ‘Our Herd’ which is a bit like TikTok but it’s people sharing their stories of help seeking.
As always, please feel free to get in touch via siobhan.neyland@education.vic.gov.au if you’d like to chat about related to the mental health of students, families and our VUSC community.
Stay well,
Siobhan
****************************************************************************************
Detour and Reconnect Programs
Keeping young people connected to family and community: early intervention programs to keep young people safe and connected, and on track, to living a happy and independent life.
Families are invited to read the attached information about two support services now available to support our school community: Detour and Reconnect.
For a confidential discussion about these services and to discuss a potential referral to a service, please contact Gail Inniss (Student Wellbeing Manager) T: 9363 155
E: gail.inniss@education.vic.gov.au
******************************************************************************************
RRRR Program
VUSC is implementing the Rights, Resilience and Respectful Relationships program, which is a primary prevention initiative to reduce family violence through promoting and modelling respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. If you are experience family violence, or would like information or support, please visit the site below or call 1800RESPECT.
https://www.vic.gov.au/family-violence-statewide-support-services
**********************************************************************************************
Mental Health Services and Support
The school community is welcome to access these services for mental health support:
Headspace
https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/mentalhealthhub
https://www.foodbank.org.au/?state=vic
*******************************************************************************************