Whole School Matters draft manuscript
Community Matters draft manuscript
Getting Started on The Whole School Approach
MindMatters Recognition and Overview
MindMatters Planning Tools
School Audits and Surveys
Curriculum Links
Community Partnerships
Community Partnerships in Action
CommunityMatters
Communities do Matter
The Self and the Community
Community Partnerships Workshops
CommunityMatters DVD
Community Partnership DVD
Past Events
Whole Student Approach
Student Empowerment
School Stories

The Strength Tree

strength_treeIn July 2004, Vanessa and Linnell from MindMatters held a Student Wellbeing Day with Year 7, 8 and 9 students at Indulkana Anangu School. The school is in the far north-west corner of South Australia in the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands.

The Strength Tree was developed as a metaphor to represent the important things students believed they needed to feel safe and supported in the activities for the day. The idea was that students would write on the leaves the kinds of things they wanted to feel safe and supported. 'Culture', 'Respect', 'Friendships', 'Tolerance' and 'Respecting Elders' were some of the words that had been used by students to promote being strong. In the end, the kids referred to these as the things helping them to 'keep strong'.

The story then unfolded that the more leaves we had on the tree, the stronger the tree would be. Also, the more we saw the things written on the tree happening in practice, the stronger the tree would grow.

Our aim was to have a strong tree and everyone wanted this. We also had to acknowledge that if people weren't doing their bit to keep the tree strong (eg if there was teasing, or not including others) the leaves would start to fall off and the tree would wilt.

The students decided they didn't want this - they wanted a strong tree.

MindMatters referred to the tree as 'The Strength Tree' but by the end of the day the students were calling it 'The Strong Tree'. The Aboriginal youth workers described this concept of being strong as developing a confident spirit in young people. Strong in spirit, body and mind.

Through painting the tree I felt it was the connecting factor between the MindMatters approach to mental health promotion and the young people's understanding of what it means to be strong in body, mind and spirit.

In the painting I have used the colours from the MindMatters website.

Strength Tree - Artist Annette Miller