Lighthouse project executive officer Lisa McKenzie said the non-for-profit organisation had two strategies when meeting the needs of Greater Shepparton Secondary College students.
“What we’re hearing is naturally, given the numbers of kids transitioning from Year 6 to 7, they are unexpectedly going to a new school or a new setting,” Mrs McKenzie said.
“One thing we’ve done to address this is the Take Part program that’s centred around wellbeing and mental health in Year 7 students.
“We’re particularly mindful of kids feeling vulnerable, anxious and not making friends as quickly as they’d thought.”
Mrs McKenzie said GSLP received a $25 000 funding boost from Creative Victoria, which put the Take Part program in place to give kids “purposeful, new skills in a safe space”.
“The students are building skills to develop and manage wellbeing: things like yoga, cooking — creative outlets,” she said.
“Not only have we found the people that run these sessions, we link in services that offer mental health support.
“Our role isn’t necessarily to host a candle-making workshop, it’s more about bringing everyone together in a safe space where candle-making just happens to be the activity.
“It’s about the outcome.”
Since forming in 2014, the GSLP has attracted about 500 volunteers, which Mrs McKenzie said helped with the organisation’s second strategy for GSSC and other schools around the region.
GSLP volunteer and partnerships broker Fiona Smolenaars said partnerships GSLP had forged with Greater Shepparton organisations helped utilise “tangible” examples to transition children from school into work.
“We’re bringing good people around our kids in whatever way is needed,” she said.
“It’s not as though we’re selecting these people, we’re attracting them.
“We attract them because we’ve got a compelling story that children aren’t doing so well, and we need help — there’s lots of people that want to help.”
Mrs McKenzie said the large number of people willing to help develop Greater Shepparton’s children in small but “cumulatively, snowballing” ways meant GSLP was a “catalytic change leader”.
“At the heart of it, we empower the community to lead change around children, conception to their career, wellbeing and their education,” she said.
“When our system is built in a naturally random and ad-hoc way, there are inevitably gaps and shortfalls.
“We’ve tried to identify where these gaps and shortfalls are, systematically address them and use them in an overarching community strategy that everyone can buy into.”
Ms Smolenaars said the whole community would benefit.
“It’s rebuilding the social fabric where it’s thin,” she said.
“We’re in a really unique situation here — because of our listening, our connections and our will to facilitate.
“We’ve found kids aren’t thriving due to a lack of opportunity and connection, that’s what we seek to address at every point.”
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