Wellbeing

TIME TO SHINE – Social Emotional Program

An important aspect of our wellbeing program is intensive, targeted supports to enhance the social emotional skills of students with particular needs.

This term we have run a program called ‘Time To Shine’ for selected students from Years 7-9. These students have been identified as likely to benefit from support with self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and/or responsible decision making. 

The program has been researched and evaluated by Monash University Faculty of Education and found to be effective in improving student’s social – emotional status and interpersonal skills, with students’ reporting benefits from their involvement. 

There are usually 8 to 12 students in each group with each session facilitated by 2 Master of Professional Psychology/ Master of Educational and Developmental Psychology post-graduate students who are registered provisional psychologists with the Psychology Board of Australia. 

The program ran for 6 weeks with the students participating in activities aimed at targeting each of the identified SEL competencies, described as: 

Self-Awareness: The individual’s ability to accurately recognise emotions and thoughts and their influence on behaviour, accurately assessing strengths and limitations, and possessing a well-grounded sense of  confidence and optimism. 

Self-Management: The ability to regulate emotions, thoughts, and behaviours effectively in different situations, including managing stress, controlling impulses, self-motivation, and setting and working toward the achievement of personal and academic goals. 

Social Awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathise with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behaviour, and to recognise and work positively with family, school, and community resources and supports. 

Relationship Skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This is demonstrated by communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed. 

Responsible Decision-Making Skills: The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behaviour and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others (CASEL, 2015). 

Students involved in the program have found it to be a very helpful. 

Some comments on their learning include:

“How to accept myself and my feeling, and to know someone out there relates to me.”

“I really like how we talked about stress, body language and coping strategies.”

“To respect yourself and others. Take the time to reflect on your actions.”

“I genuinely really enjoyed the program. Everything mentioned was really useful and helped me understand others and myself more.”

“Everything was awesome and great and enjoyable for me.”

“I learnt to not doubt myself and give things a shot and don't let my anxiety take control.”

“I learnt to always treat people the way you would want to be treated and to never doubt myself.”

We hope to be able to present this program again next year!

Ms Jackie Kol

Director of Wellbeing