Student Empowerment Focus Module Reports

Brisbane 24 March 2011

Students and teachers combined to attend this workshop at the Novotel Brisbane, co-facilitated by Jane Taylor, Queensland State Project Officer and Gemma, MindMatters Youth Presenter.

This Focus Module is the first step in implementing the MindMatters Youth Empowerment Process (YEP) in a school. The module is designed to increase staff understanding of youth empowerment concepts and the benefits associated with the authentic engagement of young people within a whole school approach to mental health promotion.

Student feedback included:

‘Everything today was really good as it taught me a lot about MindMatters.’
‘Everyone was open-minded and understanding.’
‘Very open discussions without judgement. Great!’

Gold Coast 17 February 2009

This workshop was attended by 27 students and 24 teachers/supervisors from State and Catholic schools. Facilitated by Jane Taylor and Youth Presenter Laura Phillips, it was designed to increase staff understanding of student empowerment and the benefits associated with authentically engaging young people within a whole school approach to mental health promotion. Participants explored their own beliefs about youth empowerment and how to develop it.

Some comments from participants are listed below.

‘We learnt loads of new concepts and at the same time learnt about how on-track our school is.’
‘I really liked the notion of bringing students and teachers together on the same level to collect ideas and solve problems.’
‘It was interesting and really made me think more about the effects students have on the school population.’
‘The module was easy to understand and was presented in a way that made learning an easy achievement.’