Wellbeing News

The Student Wellbeing has had an extremely busy Term 1 ensuring we provide support and interventions for all students across the College. The team have been involved in a number of events across the college this term, from attending camps, presenting to year level cohorts or running whole school wellbeing events/programs. The team, which include, Lisa Cavey (AP overseeing Student Wellbeing), Kelly Maxwell (Wellbeing Team Leader), Erika Blazely (Social Worker), Taela Davis (Student Counsellor), Michael Carrucan (Youth worker) and Amanda Craig (Mental Health Practitioner) work holistically to approach student wellbeing and know that ‘wellbeing’ encompasses all aspects of a student’s life including their physical, social, emotional & mental state. Below are the following ways our team have been proactively working to support our students throughout Term 1:

Breakfast Club – Michael continues to run the Breakfast Club program Tuesday and Friday mornings for all students. This program runs from 8am-8:35am, where students can attend to make themselves breakfast prior to class. This program is held in Community Room, located at the front of the school. A HUGE thank you to Max Spurgeon, one of our generous ES staff members who attends weekly to support the running of this program.

PRSC RESPECT Student Action Group - Our RESPECT team is a student lead team that has been running for many years with the aim of creating safe spaces for all students and staff across our College. The group advocate for inclusion, equality and LGBTQIA+ rights at PRSC. Weekly Respect meetings are held on Thursdays in the Community Room, lead by Erika and are open to any students wanting to come along. During Term 1, RESPECT students attended Year Level assemblies to speak about the group and it’s purpose. The group also spread awareness around Trans visibility on March 31st, speaking to staff to not only celebrate but raise awareness of the discrimination faced by the Trans community. Some of the advice our RESPECT group gave staff was to use non-gender specific terms to avoid unintentionally misgendering anyone, suggested introducing themselves with pronouns to normalise their use, and call out any hateful speech that may be offensive to the LGBTQIA+ community. Finally, this term our Action Group worked to promote the awareness and acceptance of Autism across our college. We look forward to continuing this important work with our students in Term 2.

Throughout March, Wellbeing ran a whole school Art competition in hopes of having students create masterpieces that we could hang in our new central Wellbeing office. Our team have been amazed by the impressive talent of all student entries and found picking a winner incredibly hard. Congratulations to Frankie of Yr 9 who came in 1st and received a $50 Uber Eats voucher, Salome yr10 in 2nd who won a $20 canteen voucher & Olivia yr 10 who came in 3rd winning a box of Cadbury favourites. We can’t wait to have your fantastic, bright and colourful artwork hanging in our office come term 2!

International Women’s Day (IWD) – IWD was celebrated on Thursday the 8th of March by all staff. The Wellbeing Team celebrated the day with a purple themed morning tea to recognise and acknowledge all the amazing work of our female staff. We also organsied an IWD shout outboard for staff, where we had over 170 posts acknowledging our wonderful female colleagues. Thank you to all that contributed to this day 😊

Senior School Forum – Amanda and Taela presented to our Yr 11 and 12 students as part of the Senior School Forum during Week 5, to upskill and educate students on ways to set a positive mindset for the year ahead as well as practical ways they can maintain their personal wellbeing throughout the school year. We hope that students will continue to build on and use these strategies in 2023 (and beyond!).

Staff training and education -The team have been fortunate enough to present twice to the whole staff as at PRSC this term. As wellbeing for every student is a high priority at the College, it’s important that we ensure we have a consistent approach from our staff. Our first presentation provided a general introduction to the Wellbeing team and an overview of our internal wellbeing process. The second presentation was run by our Mental Health Practitioner, Amanda, and provided training to for all staff on the Safe Minds approach to notice and inquire to support student’s overall mental health and wellbeing. We look forward to continuing to work with and provide professional development in Term 2 for our amazing PRSC staff!

Not only do we continue to run our whole school wellbeing events and targeted wellbeing programs across the College, we do offer short-term individual support for those students that may require additional support. If you wish to discuss a referral to our team for your child, please contact the College on 8770 6700 to have a conversation with your child’s coordinator.

Furthermore, Patterson River Secondary College is excited to continue being part of the Mental Health Practitioners initiative. Our new MHP is Amanda Craig and she commenced with us at the beginning of term 1 2023. We are fortunate to have Amanda here with us full time.

Amanda is a registered psychologist, and she has almost a decade of experience working in schools. Amanda’s background includes previous employment in CAMHS, mental health rehabilitation and in private practice.

Amanda has well developed skills to support young people experiencing a broad range of mental health concerns. Amanda is passionate about helping young people achieve to their full potential in all areas of their lives. She takes a person-centred, strength-based approach to working with young people. Amanda works from an evidence-based approach, incorporating strategies from several therapeutic modalities, tailored to the individual needs of the student.

The Mental Health Practitioner role provides an additional resource to the school's existing wellbeing team by:

· providing direct short term counselling support and other early intervention services for individual students identified as at-risk and/or experiencing or demonstrating mild to moderate mental health concerns

· providing direct counselling support and other early intervention services for small groups

· coordinating supports (both within and external to the school) for students with critical and complex needs

· enhancing mental health promotion and prevention activities in the school through capacity building with school staff and embedding mental health promotion and prevention programs and strategies in the school.

Secondary students and parents should contact Kelly Maxwell or Lisa Cavey if they want to talk to about the MHP service. Please note, referral and consent forms will be required before seeing the MHP. We believe continuing to having an MHP at Patterson River Secondary College will make a positive contribution to supporting student wellbeing.