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School Stories

School communities implementing the MindMatters resource are keen to share their experiences with other schools.

The School Stories published here are provided by the schools. 

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Guilford Young College


Student Leaders Formation Day: Southern Tasmanian Catholic Schools

Context

Guilford Young College (GYC) is Tasmania’s only Catholic co-educational senior secondary college. We operate on two unique campuses. The Glenorchy campus is located in a secluded and beautiful environment with Mount Wellington as a backdrop. The Hobart campus is situated in central Hobart with magnificent views overlooking the city and out to the Derwent River. We have an enrolment of about 850 students aged 16 to 18.

Earlier this year two student leaders attended a Student Empowerment Focus Module in Launceston and another two attended the MindMatters National Youth Congress in Sydney. These days provided key learnings and resources for what we were to set about organising.

On 20 August, student leaders of the Glenorchy campus presented a leadership day for 65 Year 8, 9 and 10 leaders from seven southern Catholic secondary colleges – St Virgil’s, MacKillop, Dominic, Mount Carmel, St Mary’s, St James and Sacred Heart. Fourteen GYC student leaders lead the day and its activities, and were involved in support, together with six teachers, and Nikki and Beau from the MindMatters Young Adult Presenter Team. This inaugural Student Leaders Formation Day proved to be an excellent presentation about resilience, mental health and wellbeing, and leadership.

Goals

The feedback from those who attended has roundly endorsed the success of the day in achieving the following goals:

  • Pilot wellbeing promotion delivered by young people themselves.
  • Empower our young leaders encouraging resilience.
  • Reinforce school links and, in particular, address the wellbeing challenges of transition from middle to senior secondary college life.
  • Empower student leaders to return to their colleges with strategies for supporting resilience and leadership in their peers.

Resources

The chief themes and resources for the day were drawn from the MindMatters website under the headings of the Youth Empowerment Process (YEP) and the Principals Australia L5 Leadership Framework.

The Student Leaders Formation Day took inspiration from the YEP in its use of peer delivery and fun and interactive learning, and aimed to enable younger leaders to return to their colleges to build leadership capacity and a greater sense of wellbeing among their fellow students.

Feedback and evaluation

We learned, in the extremely positive feedback, that we might have been even more overt in making the connections between games and the resilience themes, in informing those present on mental health issues and in providing recommended structures for strategic planning for the school group action planning.

We initiated a YEP and gave seven schools a taste of how effective a peer-delivered wellbeing promotion can be when ‘Youth Empower Youth as Leaders’. The inclusion of the L5 Framework modified by the Moreton Youth Leadership initiative also allowed us to promote this useful tool and other resources that might enable and empower young people.

Planning

Organisation for 20 August included the following roles and activities:

  • Creation and distribution of 65 invitations to Years 8, 9 and 10 school leaders from the seven participating schools.
  • Catering by GYC students and efforts to ensure a warm welcome.
  • Focus on the environment, music, photographs and presentation technology.
  • Planning of three active sessions all involving ice-breaking games focused on wellbeing, leadership and strategic planning, respectively.

We are very happy to share with all schools who are interested, the resources and planning tools that we have used.

Outcomes

All seven schools went back to their communities with a rich experience forming leadership, new networks among other student leaders in southern Tasmania, and an introduction to peer-delivered wellbeing promotion. School leaders went away with leadership tools (YEP and the L5) and their own initial summaries of strategic actions they would like to take.

Thank you

The core planning team for the day  met five times in the office of Deputy Principal. At the end of the afternoon, we particularly acknowledged Matt for his excellent leadership throughout.

We are deeply grateful to MindMatters Youth Empowerment Project Officer, Vanessa Houltby for all her assistance with resources, and Nikki and Beau for supporting us on the day.