Promoting Student Wellbeing
A message from the Mental Health Practitioner
Hi VUSC Community,
I hope you’re all doing well and I’m excited to tell you about some of the mental health initiatives running at VUSC at the moment.
Wellbeing Club
We now have Wellbeing Club up and running at both campuses. It’s been running at the Junior Campus since week 2 and it’s been lots of fun. We’ve got board games, jigsaw puzzles, play dough, magic sand, origami, collage, mindful colouring, sensory toys, puzzle books – something for everyone. I have had so much fun so far and I hope the students have too. We had our inaugural senior campus Wellbeing Club held last Thursday lunchtime which also went really well.
Brave Program
I am planning to run a group at Senior Campus this term called BRAVE which is for students who experience anxiety or related symptoms. BRAVE is an evidence-based online program for young people with anxiety that has been developed by a team of academics from Queensland. You can read more about the program here. I will run the program over 6 sessions, once per week for 6 weeks. I hope to start before the September holidays and then complete the program in Term 4.
If you would like to refer your young person for this group, you can email me directly at Siobhan.Neyland@education.vic.gov.au. Please note that spaces are limited and a spot is not guaranteed, but if there is significant interest I will be able to run the group again in future. I also hope to run the group at Junior Campus in the near future so if you’d like to refer a young person who attends the Junior Campus, feel free to send through an expression of interest via the same email address and I’ll keep a list for when I do run the program at JC.
As always, please feel free to get in touch if you’d like to touch base with me about anything related to the mental health of students, families and our VUSC community.
Thanks,
Siobhan
******************************************************************************************
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
*******************************************************************************************