The Black Dog Institute and Inspire Foundation have partnered to
create the Head
Strong teaching
resource and professional development
series.
The resource is based around a series of presentations developed
by the Black Dog Institute that illustrate the nature, symptoms and
management of mood disorders, their impacts for young people and
strategies to build resilience. These presentations are the basis
of many of the learning activities in the resource and provide
teachers with a tool to make their classroom activities more
engaging.
The resource includes an extensive Background
Information section to support teachers to develop
their knowledge and understanding of the issues related to mental
health and young people, as well as including practical strategies
on how to create a supportive learning environment, manage
classroom discussions about sensitive topics and ways to support a
student who may be experiencing mental health difficulties.
The teaching and learning activities are split into five modules
that link directly to syllabus outcomes and content from the Health
and PE curriculum. The activities could also be used in pastoral
care programs to compliment work that is taking place in the HPE
learning area.
The Inspire Foundation also presented a series of training webinars
for teachers to support them to implement the HeadStrong
resource. These webinars can be viewed online prior
to implementation to ensure an effective rollout.
HeadStrong: Teachers resource
Building understanding about mood disorders
The HeadStrong teaching resource
provides learning activities that support the teaching of mental
health issues, help seeking behaviours and community awareness
strategies.
Click on the read more link below to download the resource and
support materials.
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HeadStrong student journal
Microsoft OneNote file
THis file is a Microsoft OneNote version of the HeadStrong
Student Mood Tracker Journal that accompanies the HeadStrong
teacher resource.
Click the Read more link to download the zip file.
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Image gallery : Mood pictures
Support material for Activity 4
This package of images are for use to support the What is
Mood and how can it change? activity from the HeadStrong
resource. All of the images have been accessed from Flickr under
Creative Commons license. Author attributions are contained in the
ReadMe.txt file.
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HeadStrong training webinar 1
Presented by Janice Atkin
Topics:
- Why are we focusing on mental health and mood disorders?
- Young people's lived experience
Read more
HeadStrong training webinar 3
Presented by Janice Atkin
- Building understanding about mental health through school
programs
- Reducing stigma in your school community
- Creating a supportive learning environment
- Action planning
Read more