Weekly Wellbeing 

Weekly Wellbeing Week 8

Wow, what a week! Continued restrictions, power blackouts, water contamination. I know that the question on a lot of people’s lips is ‘what next?’ Hopefully what’s next is some good news, which by the way, there is a lot of, we just don’t tend to focus on it as much as we do the bad!

To remind us of the ‘good’, today I want to focus on celebrating some things. First of all, initiative and creativity. I recently came across some Lego challenge cards (attached and on our website!) and emailed them to some children who I know love Lego. Chris from MBK decided to take on some of the challenges and sent me the photos. He is clearly looking forward to Christmas. Aren’t we all!

National Indigenous Literacy Day – Yesterday 

Did you know that according to the 2018 NAPLAN results, only 36% of Indigenous Year 5 students in remote areas of Australia were at or above minimum reading standards?  This was compared to 96% of non-Indigenous students in major cities. It is clear from this and many other statistics that Indigenous people living in remote communities experience many barriers. Another one that I recently learnt of is that most remote communities that the Indigenous Literacy Foundation work in have less than 5 books in family homes. (Indigenous Literacy Foundation (2020), 

https://www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au/what-is-indigenous-literacy, accessed 2/9/2020). 

It is for this and many other reasons that 10 years ago the Indigenous Literacy Foundation was established. Please click on the link below to view the ‘Special Event’ that was aired at 12.30pm yesterday to celebrate and raise awareness for this important initiative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtrOi2Y-B8A. 

No words

Words are so powerful. They can build us up or shut us down. They can make us laugh and make us cry. Sometimes, some situations call for no words, rather reflection. Other situations require no words yet, in case what is quickly spoken may be regretted. So just in case you need some ‘no words’ moments this week, I have included some images that might help you to focus, get some perspective, celebrate and even laugh. 

Some resources

I recently came across this great website with lots of free positive poster downloads. Please click on this link to check them out.  Check out our ‘Community News’ Page for upcoming workshops that you might like to sign up for. Having recently attended the Dr Jodi Richardson one, ‘Anxious kids, from anxiety to resilience’, I would highly recommend her.  There is a small cost for this one, but if you have the means, it may be well worth it. 

Father’s Day

I am sure for many of us, Father’s Day will be very different this year.  I know that I won’t be seeing my Dad and in fact have not seen him in person since February.  I was reminded recently of a comment that Justin Coulson made in his recent free webinar, attended by over 1800 people, that for children ‘love’ is spelt ‘T’, ‘I’, ‘’M’, ‘E’.  So this Father’s Day, even if you haven’t been able to get a special person in your life a gift (or it won’t arrive in time!), remember the value of spending time together in person, or online. 

Until next time,

Julie Reid  –  Student Wellbeing Officer