Student Wellbeing

R U Ok? Celebration 2021

For Brookside P-9 College, the 29th of November to the 3rd of December was jampacked with activities to celebrate the postponed R U Ok? week! We had a range of activities for students including taking part in the project ‘R U Ok? Everyday”, an art-based project to promote mental health, and a whole-school lunch time celebration that included music, giveaways, a photobooth, a musical performance from Indigenous artist Brett and more. Alongside this, we engaged with multiple external agencies such as Headspace, Batyr and No Bull to spread the R U Ok? message to our students. We also wanted to treat our staff and served them breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea throughout the week. We’d like to express our sincere gratitude to the Caroline Springs Lions Club & District for their generosity in sponsoring our staff lunch catered by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. We hope that through this celebration we are able to promote the message of positive mental health and encourage seeking help for those within the school community and for the lives that are touched by the message of R U Ok?. Continue to watch this space for this year’s celebration!

Raise Youth Mentoring

Raise Foundation is a registered Australian charity delivering mentoring programs in schools across the country, including Brookside for the first time last year.

Over two terms, the students had a very positive experience of connecting with their mentors every week and built strong relationships that supported them in school and beyond.

Here’s what the students thought of the program:

100% of mentees said they enjoyed the program
100% of mentees said they would recommend the program to a friend
100% of mentees said things were different for them because of the program

‘I’m happy that I gave it a shot and met someone new that helped me understand things better’

‘I love coming to mentoring and seeing everyone there’

‘[The best thing was] being able to talk to someone’

We are fortunate to be able to run the Raise Mentoring program again in 2022 for a group of Year 8 students. It is a free and voluntary program and more information will be provided later this term – stay tuned!

#StrongSafeFabulous Parenting Program

#StrongSafeFabulous is presenting an online workshop series for parents and carers of LGBTIQA+ children and young people, as well as LGBTIQA+ parents who want to brush up on their parenting skills, find new ways of dealing with their children’s behaviour and learn new approaches to dealing with behavioural challenges.

The first of this 4 week course starts March 16, 2022 at 5pm – 7pm (AEDT) and will be held on Zoom

The four week course builds on skills from week to week, so attendance each week is preferred. There are only 10 spaces available, so if you are interested please make sure you can attend all four sessions. The program is open to parents and carers across Australia, but note sessions are from 5pm – 7pm Sydney time and will be offered via zoom on the following dates:

March 16
March 23
March 30
April 6