New Directions in Wellbeing

Visible Wellbeing is a comprehensive, evidence-based program developed by Professor Lea Waters AM, PhD, that integrates positive psychology principles into the educational environment. It focuses on enhancing the mental health and wellbeing of both students and staff through the implementation of the SEARCH framework, which encompasses six pathways: Strengths, Emotional Management, Attention and Awareness, Relationships, Coping, and Habits and Goals.

As most parents and carers would be aware, Kinross Wolaroi School is working closely with renowned researcher and wellbeing professional, Professor Waters to deliver this program.

Introducing Professor Lea Waters

Professor Lea Waters is an Australian psychologist, academic, researcher, and author who specialises in positive education, parenting and organisations.  

Professor Waters holds a PhD in Organisational Psychology and has been a psychology researcher at The University of Melbourne for 27 years.

She has worked with schools for more than a decade including work with the former Bastow Institute and as Director of the Masters in School Leadership, a partnership between Melbourne Graduate School of Education and the Department of Education.

Her Visible Wellbeing program is being used by schools in Australia, Canada, South Africa, The Netherlands, India, Belgium, Hong Kong, UAE, China, and New Zealand. Visible Wellbeing is on the Victorian Department’s Schools Mental Heath Menu and is approved as an evidence-based program by Beyond Blue and the South Australian Department of Education. 

Schools have been using Visible Wellbeing since 2015 beginning with Kambrya College and spreading to other metro, regional and rural schools in Victoria.

Professor Waters was the Founding Director of the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne and is a world leader in this field with over 120 research publications. She has been the Ambassador of the Positive Education Schools Association for a decade.

Lea’s best-selling book ‘The Strength Switch’ was the top release on Amazon, listed among the Top Reads by Berkeley University’s Greater Good Science Centre and one of the Top Five Books for Parents and Children in the UK’s Top Five site. It has been translated into 10 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Hungarian, Arabic, Spanish, French and Russian.

In 2015, Professor Waters was listed as one of Australia’s Top 100 Women of Influence by the Financial Review and Westpac bank. In 2017 she was listed in the Who’s Who of Australian Women. In 2020, Lea was honoured by the Governor General of Australia and named a Memberof the Order of Australia (AM) for her leadership in psychology, education and the mental healthsector.

A whole school approach to positive education

Based on the science of Positive Psychology, Visible Wellbeing provides both staff and students with a toolkit of strategies to support wellbeing and buffer against mental illness. 

Importantly, it creates a unified and consistent approach to wellbeing across the whole school. The program trains all school staff (teaching and non-teaching) in a suite of mental health strategies that builds their capacity to implement wellbeing practices into daily life at school. Professor Waters began training staff this term and will return regularly to continue that training. Ultimately, we'll also be providing our families with opportunities to learn more about using the same strategies to support their children from home.

Find out a little more about this approach to wellbeing in the video below, from Ridley College in Canada.