By Callum Ludwig
Schools statewide will see expansions to their mental health and wellbeing programs following the $200 million state announcement for the ‘Mental Health in Primary Schools’ program.
Yarra Junction Primary School is one of many who’ve welcomed the news and Wellbeing Officer Glenda Jewell said the investment is an exciting move to bring support into school.
“It’s a struggle for us in the Valley that there are not enough services for our kids, or for our families to get to them, whether they can’t transport them or the process is overwhelming,” she said.
“Going to medical centres can often feel as though you have to be sick to go there, and they aren’t always sick, they just need a bit of extra help with their mental health.
“Schools can hopefully be a different environment.”
The package will see every single government and low-fee non-government Victorian primary school implement the program, by employing a Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader to implement a whole-school approach to wellbeing.
It’s anticipated to be scaled up from 2023 and all schools should be facilitating the program by 2026.
The program builds on a successful pilot with 100 schools, where reports showed more than 95 per cent of Mental Health and Wellbeing Leaders said the model improved their school’s capacity to support students’ mental health and wellbeing needs.
More mental health support for young children has been an issue that’s needed addressing for some time, and the pandemic exasperated the issue.
Yarra Junction Primary School was one of many schools who have already implemented extra mental health support during the past two years.
Principal Lisa Rankin said Mrs Jewell applied for a grant for staff in the school to receive youth and mental health first aid training.
“All of our classroom teachers and Glenda were able to be trained, and since then myself and another member of the wellbeing team have been trained,” she said.
“We were able to access it all through a grant and we’re certainly hoping the investment into mental health might support schools to access this training for all staff, including education support staff and specialist teachers as well.”
Ms Rankin said it’s great to see funding towards mental health go to early year education, following on from a similar package for secondary schools last year.
“It’s really important that we put a focus on where it’s actually starting from at the core, and we can help them, and it will be complimenting a lot of the programs we already have,” she said.
Yarra Junction Primary Schools’ long-running well-being program includes visits from the Resilience Project, Respectful Relationships, Positive Body Image and Online Cybersafety programs and a mandated 50-minute block dedicated to wellbeing each week.
Mrs Jewell said mental health is a lifelong journey all the way even through to adulthood.
“It’s like of a domino effect, If you don’t get it right to start with, it impacts on our community as adults,” she said.
“If we can support from foundation level in primary school, we might be able to give our kids some skills and strategies to be successful as teenagers, young people and adults in the world so it’s impacting on society. It’s huge.”
