Hello Everyone,

It has been an exciting term in the Mental Health in Primary Schools (MHiPs) space!

Mental Health in Primary Schools (MHiPs)

As shared in an earlier newsletter, the MHiPs initiative highlights the critical role schools play in supporting students’ mental health and wellbeing. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader's role includes, but is not limited to: building capacity in the prevention, promotion, and identification of mental health and wellbeing situations, supporting staff, developing referral pathways, and monitoring and evaluating care practices.

This term, the required training through Melbourne University has been completed, and we have been working collaboratively as a school leadership team to identify our next steps and opportunities.

Parent Survey

We received over 200 responses from our parent community, and we want to sincerely thank everyone who took the time to participate.

During a staff workshop, we began analysing the data and would like to share some key findings:

• Parents agree that student mental health and wellbeing are essential for their child’s success at school
• Several important roles the school plays in supporting students' mental health and wellbeing were highlighted, including:
• Providing a safe and caring learning environment
• Observing changes in behavior
• Offering additional support when needed
• Delivering mental health and wellbeing education to students

• Parents shared cultural considerations to be aware of as we support the diverse learning community of St Catherine’s

• As a Catholic school, parents expressed an interest in understanding how wellbeing is addressed pastorally
• Parents also requested more information about how mental health and wellbeing are integrated at St. Catherine’s and how students are supported in this area

At St Catherine’s, we truly value the input of our families and will use this feedback to improve our current practices.

Following up on the parent feedback, we will now be including a Mental Health and Wellbeing Spotlight in our fortnightly school newsletter. This will be an opportunity to communicate with families about how we approach mental health education at St Catherine’s, as well as share knowledge, information, and resources. We will begin next term by focusing on how teachers are currently supporting students' wellbeing in the classroom and how we address social and emotional learning through the Capabilities framework.

Please be reminded that if you ever have any questions or concerns about your child’s mental health and wellbeing, do not hesitate to contact your child’s classroom teacher.

Looking forward to sharing more in our upcoming entries!

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter.

Jasmine Bentley

Mental Health & Wellbeing Leader