With over 4 million Australian young people in school or higher
education, schools and school communities are critical settings in
which to support young people's mental health and wellbeing.
Research shows that schools are a key setting for fostering
resilience and that teachers play a significant role in
supporting students to learn the skills needed for positive mental
health.
We want all Australian high schools to be safe, supportive and
happy places that ensure our young people are resilient and
flourish. We want mental health and wellbeing to be part of the
national curriculum and ReachOut.com educational
resources to be part of every young person's high school
experience. Through the ReachOut Teachers network we
want thousands of teachers across Australia to be part of
educational community that is driving these outcomes.
The Federal Government's commitment to progressively roll out a
national curriculum presents particular opportunities to ensure
that high quality mental health content is included in the
curriculum, and that teachers receive the appropriate support and
training to
be able to confidently promote mental health and wellbeing in
schools.
In this context, our Schools strategy aims to ensure:
- The education sector recognises the importance of fostering
resilience at school
- Young people learn the skills to access resources to support
them to lead happy and fulfilling lives through school
programs
- Inspire and the Reach
Out Teachers Network become indispensible in the provision of
resources and online
training for teachers to foster resilience and mental health
promotion in schools.
The vision
for Inspire's work with the education sector is to transform
education so that learning the skills to be resilient are as
important to all players in the education sector as learning the
skills of the 3Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic). Resilience
needs to be seen as the 4th R in education.
This is a lofty goal and would put Australia ahead of the game in
terms of educating the whole-child by providing a truly
comprehensive curriculum.
Inspire is taking a two pronged approach in order to achieve this
goal through advocacy for essential policy changes and building the
capacity of the sector.
To achieve this vision for transforming education there needs to
be essential advocacy and lobbying activity by Inspire and its key
partners (including the Reach Out Teachers Network
community) in order to ensure an optimal policy environment for
this transformation to take place. There are two key policy debates
currently occurring that Inspire is currently leading conversations
in. They are the National Curriculum debate and the development of
the National
Professional Standards for Teaching.
Our vision for our work with teachers
Inspire's Education Strategy
To view a slideshow of Inspire's vision for the education sector
click the Read more link below.
Read more