Words for Wellbeing, Term 3, 2022

Welcome to Words for Wellbeing

To our Emmanuel College Community,

Welcome to the second edition of the now quarterly, Words for Wellbeing. 

The new format includes all six components of the Fit4Life Framework: Social; Mental; Cultural; Cognitive; Physical; and, Spiritual.

Within each section, you'll discover articles, self-help tools and resources.

At the end of the newsletter, you'll find a recently updated list of school and external services and contacts for your information.

As always, if you need any assistance with your social, emotional learning, don't hesitate to reach out to us - your Fit4Life Wellbeing team.

Social Wellbeing

Developing the skills to navigate social connections and relationships is a significant part of adolescent development. In this section you will find a selection of resources not only to support young people throughout this stage of life, but that may assist all of us in the varied relationships within our lives.

Triple S - Social Anxiety Group - Year 7s & 8s

This term a wonderful group of year 7 and 8 students have started to meet weekly to talk all things super special social skills. We have worked through some ice ice breakers (getting to know each other, character strengths and sharing our expectations) and all the feels (developing our emotional literacy and self-awareness) and will continue next term into talking all about friendships, small talk and how to be ok with the awkward bits. The how to of social interactions is often not as obvious as we’d like it to be and this group is a wonderful opportunity to unpack all of the unspoken rules and ways of doing things in a safe and supportive environment.

The Triple S Program

National Self-care Day

International Self-Care Day is celebrated on July 24th, stressing the importance of self-care as the cornerstone of wellness.

On this day, people throughout the world are encouraged to make self-care a part of their everyday routines in an effort to turn it into a habit.

At Emmanuel College, to celebrate International Self Care Day, staff were invited to enjoy some self-care at lunchtime in the form of some nourishing fresh noodles prepared onsite by Jun's Kitchen. 

We decided that it was an opportunity for staff to just 'be'. Afterall, nourishing our bodies and our minds in the company of one another is some of the best self-care we can imagine.

We can't wait till next year.

South West Youth Fest

A message from Brophy Youth Services:

Hi there,
South West Youth Fest is happening this month, with over 10 events celebrating and recognsing the achievements of those aged under 25.

Events include:

Deep Thinkers Movie Premier
DIY Self Care Boxes
Artolescence
Moyne and Warrnambool Youth Awards
Warrni Scavenger Hunt
Young Makers Market
Dance-O-Mat Opening Party
A Walk In The Park
Young Adult Bookclub
Coaster Art Show

All events are inclusive and free/low cost

Register and see the event list here:

https://linktr.ee/southwestyouthfest

With pride,

Mental Wellbeing

Mental health is a term we often hear, yet often confuse with other terms, such as mental illness. We all have mental health. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. Looking after our mental health is very important and in this section, we share a variety of topical articles, resources and self-help tools for you to do just that.

Parenting Series
Anxiety: Friend or Foe?
with Dr Jodie Fleming

Anxiety is such an uncomfortable but necessary emotion, isn't it? Uncomfortable because our brain tricks us into thinking we need to prepare to be eaten by a sabre tooth tiger, necessary because our brain does in fact prepare us for survival.

So how do we live with anxiety and make it our friend, not our foe?

Teamwork, that's how!

The video below is a recording of the Parenting Series presentation Jodie gave on September 6th to 104 parents. It goes for just over an hour, but it full of links to helpful videos, as well as providing a variety of strategies for our psychological tool kits.

We hope you enjoy it.

Don't forget to scroll through the newsletter for information on our next presentation in our Parenting Series when Susan McLean, Cyber-Safety expert, shares her wisdom with our parents and our students.

Why Anxiety is Devastating our Young People by Professor Laurie Santos

Since the Yale cognitive scientist Laurie Santos began teaching her class Psychology and the Good Life in 2018, it has become one of the school’s most popular courses. The first year the class was offered, nearly a quarter of the undergraduate student body enrolled. You could see that as a positive: all these young high-achievers looking to learn scientifically corroborated techniques for living a happier life. But you could also see something melancholy in the course’s popularity: all these young high-achievers looking for something they’ve lost, or never found. Either way, the desire to lead a more fulfilled life is hardly limited to young Ivy Leaguers, and Santos turned her course into a popular podcast series “The Happiness Lab,” which quickly rose above the crowded happiness-advice field. (It has been downloaded more than 64 million times.) “Why are there so many happiness books and other happiness stuff and people are still not happy?” asks Santos, who is 46. “Because it takes work! Because it’s hard!”

This is the way I frame a lot of the talk about happiness on the podcast: Our minds lie to us. We have strong intuitions about the things that will make us happy, and we use those intuitions to go after that stuff, whether it’s more money or changing circumstances or buying the new iPhone. But a lot of those intuitions, the science shows are not exactly right — or are deeply misguided. That’s why we get it wrong. I know this stuff, but my instincts are totally wrong. After a busy day, I want to sit and watch crappy Netflix TV shows, even though I know the data suggests that if I worked out or called a friend I’d be happier. But to do that I have to fight my intuition. We need help with that, and you don’t get it naturally, especially in the modern day. There’s an enormous culture around us of capitalism that’s telling us to buy things and a hustle-achievement culture that destroys my students in terms of anxiety. We’re also fighting cultural forces that are telling us, “You’re not happy enough; happiness could just be around the corner.” Part of it’s all the information out there about happiness, which can be hard to sift through, but a lot of it is a deeper thing in our culture that seems to be leading us astray.

A lot of stuff that we know can have a positive effect on happiness — developing a sense of meaning, connection with other people, meditation and reflection — are commonplace religious practices. 

People who self-report the highest positive emotions, they’re the ones who are taking action. This comes up in other domains too: There’s evidence that people who experience more gratitude have a high level of what’s called self-regulation — kind of like sucking it up and doing the hard things now. There’s also evidence that people who are more grateful are more likely to do things for other people. When you do have some positive emotion, you have the bandwidth to deal with other things.

Social media, Instagram in particular, offers almost infinite capacity for negative comparison. Whistleblower documents showed that Facebook, which owns Instagram, was aware that teenage girls reported that the app made them feel worse about themselves.

Would quitting social media be the most important thing your students could easily do to increase their happiness? We go through a lot of the work on social media. One of the things is: Delete all your apps right now. You can see their faces. They’re like, Uhh. But all these things are tools. You could use them in ways that are positive for your well-being or negative. Instagram is worth mentioning in that sense of its totally infinite potential for downer self-comparisons, but students also use it to connect with communities — about eating disorders and anxiety. So we talk about how you can nonjudgmentally try to be present enough to notice how these things are making you feel. I teach students — this comes from the journalist  Catherine Price. The author of “How to Break Up With Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life.”

 — the acronym W.W.W.: what for, why now and what else? When you pick up your phone, what was that for? Was there a purpose? Then: Why now? Did you have something to do, or were you bored or anxious or fighting some craving? And then, what else?: actively noticing the opportunity cost. It could be studying. It could be talking to your roommate. Based on seeing students in the trenches, the biggest hit of social media on their well-being is that they spend a lot of time on it thinking that they’re being social rather than talking to other people. I do that too. There’s times when my husband walks into the room and we could have a nice conversation about how our day is and I’m looking at some crap on Reddit. It’s like, I have a husband who’s here. I could talk to him! We’re not always making good use of the humans around us.

We hope this article has started to get you thinking. For a useful toolkit on managing your Instagram use, scroll down to near the end of this newsletter.

Cultural Wellbeing

Cultural Health refers to having a deep awareness of your personal culture and life experiences and understanding how they influence your value system, worldview, and practices; recognizing and respecting the culture and life experiences of others and intentionally taking time to empathize with, understand, and respect other perspectives. Ultimately, it refers to appreciating a diversity of culture and experiences and working with others to enhance personal and community well-being through culturally responsive action.

R U OK? Day @ Emmanuel

R U OK?

To highlight R U OK Day at Emmanuel College all year levels were shown a presentation and video to highlight the importance of checking in with one another.  Senior school students engaged in a presentation with former Emmanuel student Elke Aulsebrook who described the importance of talking to someone when you are not doing ok and about breaking the stigma of mental health.

R U OK is an important event in the Emmanuel calendar as it is a day to foster connections between students and encourage  students to talk about mental health and seek help. 

R U OK? Emmanuel

Melbourne Writers Festival

Rach was lucky enough to travel with our wonderful school librarian Marg and students from the book club to the Melbourne Writer’s Festival student workshop day on Thursday the 9^th of September. Students from across Victoria gathered in The Capitol Theatre in the city centre hearing from four amazing YA authors; Rhiannon Wilde, Vanessa Len, Tobias Madden, and C.S Pacat. Each of the authors not only shared details of their new work but spoke about their writing processes, tips and tricks, answering questions from the audience along the way. These authors also spoke about the importance of representation in literature and touched on gender, sexual, neuro and cultural diversity in each of their works. The importance of stories, storytelling and reading for our mental health and wellbeing was evident both in the authors discussion and student questions throughout the day.

Melbourne Writers Festival

Cognitive Wellbeing

Cognitive brain health refers to brain function such as attention, learning, memory, language and executive function. This includes higher order functions, like decision-making, goal-setting, planning and judgment.

In the education setting, optimal cognitive functioning assists with learning. In this section, you will find information related to a variety of ways to maintain and enhance our cognitive health.

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) for Perfectionism Professional Development

On September 9th, some of our Fit4Life Wellbeing team attended an excellent professional development day in Melbourne: ACT for Perfectionism with Jennifer Kemp.

Perfectionism is a pattern of behaviours that are learned and is either helpful or unhelpful for you depending on the outcomes it creates in your life.

A common fallacy is that perfectionists do everything 'perfectly' and while it may be true that some people are able to consistently achieve at a high standard, perfectionism can also present as extreme procrastination and avoidance - 'what's the point in trying if I can't do it perfectly?'

Perfectionism can relate to a whole host of other mental health issues including: obsessive compulsive problems; eating disorders; depression; anxiety; attention deficit issues; and, autism spectrum disorders and other neurodivergencies.

There's a very fine line between helpful and unhelpful perfectionism. Ask any perfectionist and they'll tell you that it motivates them. So, when does it become unhelpful?

Unhelpful Perfectionism

Unhelpful perfectionism moves you away from what is important to you, interferes with your work, study, and relationships, and creates problems in your mental and physical health.

Despite many people assuming perfectionists are all driven over-achievers, unhelpful perfectionism looks different in everyone. Some people have good jobs, get impressive results, win awards, and gain recognition, yet inside they still feel like they are failing. Others become frozen, unable to start anything new, or work towards their goals because they are so frightened that they will fail.

To look at the common behaviours you'll see in unhelpful perfectionism, click the link below to Jennifer Kemp's free eBook as a great starting point for learning more about perfection in all of its guises.

Physical Wellbeing

Physical activity is a great way to keep you physically healthy as well as improving your mental wellbeing. Research shows that doing exercise releases feel-good chemicals called endorphins in the brain. Even a short burst of 10 minutes brisk walking can improve your mental alertness, energy and mood. 

Whether you’re tending your garden or running a marathon, exercise can significantly improve your quality of life. Finding an activity you enjoy can make you feel less stressed, more focused, and give you a sense of purpose.

In this section, you'll find some other interesting tools to care for your physical health.

Vaping - Let’s start the conversation…..

Many young people are experimenting with vaping. They are under the impression that vaping is not harmful like cigarettes, with many believing they are a ‘safe’ alternative.  As a school we are often looking for ways to educate our young people about making informed healthy decisions. Students in junior school recently had a short information session on vaping presented by Rachele Sloane and Jodie Fleming. 

The information session outlined what vaping is, the risk to young people's health and ways to get help. The presentation can be viewed by clicking on the link below:

We encourage parents to have a conversation with their child about vaping and if your child needs support to quit the addiction please feel free to reach out to our wellbeing team.

Fit4Life Wellbeing
Parenting Series
Save the Date

Oct 6th : “Cyber safety” - growing up online - Susan McLean

'A must see presentation for all parents of children who have a mobile phone or computer. 'An informative & entertaining session for Parents and carers is delivered with Susan’s famous ‘no-nonsense‘ approach and  will cover the positive benefits of technology, as well as what parents need to be aware of.

Spiritual Wellbeing

Spiritual wellbeing is often a misunderstood concept. It refers not to any particular religious or spiritual practice or ideology but to the human need for meaning, purpose and connection to something greater than ourselves. In this section, we aim to share information about different things that allow us to connect to one another, nature and to ourselves.

Legless & Blind
Real Life Resilience

Ben and Mike are two mates on a mission who bought their high energy, engaging and often times funny stories of dealing with the tough times, the importance of relationships and looking after yourself and your mates. The short version is Ben lost his sight at age 16 owning to a rare genetic condition and Mike lost his legs following a random rare illness so they know all about how challenging it can be to have to suddenly re frame your whole life. They reflected on their experiences to share with our year 7 and 8 students the importance of a growth mindset, shifting from why me to what next and the invaluable nature of positive and healthy relationships and connection. https://www.leglessandblind.com.au/

Legless & Blind

Stoked Surf Therapy

STOKED is a surf therapy program for young people aged between 14 to 25 years.

Many of our students are currently enjoying this program that aims to teach surfing as a coping strategy for mental health, connect young people to community, deliver education on mental health and wellbeing and provide exposure to the healing powers of the ocean. 

​The education sessions are provided by qualified practitioners from a range of Brophy programs including headspace, DARE, Healthy Relationships as well as community leaders in the health and wellbeing field,  whilst the surfing lessons are provided by our partner, Go-Surf School Port Fairy.

The program would not be possible without our volunteer  mentors from the local surfing community that supports our participants on a 1:1 basis.

See the details below about their school holiday camp!

Cowabunga Dudes!

Body Positive Instagram Toolkit

Introducing #TheWholeMe 

#TheWholeMe is a campaign created by Butterfly and Instagram Australia that celebrates positive body image in young Australians, and empowers them to use Instagram more mindfully and authentically.

We are all are unique and diverse. When we feel empowered, confident and resilient, our self-awareness improves and we are more likely to make better decisions. This includes how we use social media.

The online world offers great possibilities and opportunities for engagement. Social media in particular provides a platform for young people to express themselves and showcase their talents, a place where they can create a positive social footprint. It is a space where meaningful connections can be made and a place for people to reach out for support. It also helps raise awareness of issues and allows young people to actively engage in them.

Butterfly in partnership with Instagram, wants to challenge the statistics and bring about change.

After all, when we embrace #TheWholeMe, we make way for our authentic self to shine through and importantly, open up avenues for support during times when we’re experiencing negative thoughts or feelings. Or just when we’re not feeling so good!

Join us and be part of #TheWholeMe.  

See the link below to access your free downloadable kit!

This is a tool book, not a rule book. We’re not here to tell you who you are or what to do.

#TheWholeMe is about helping you to decode the images you see on Instagram and the emotions behind them. We want to encourage you to become aware of how you feel about the content you post on Instagram and even what it feels like to not share.

With that self-awareness, you can use these tools and suggestions to make informed decisions about how you use the platform, who you choose to follow, and even who you choose to unfollow.

By becoming aware, you can be better equipped to have a positive experience on Instagram; one where you can feel empowered within yourself about who you are and the skin you’re in. We will also talk about ways to reach out to others who might need help.

Like Instagram, this toolkit is meant to be fun! It is intended to suggest ways for you to create connections and conversations. Try taking some of the quizzes with a friend or a parent and talking about your results, or sharing some of the insights you take away after reading. #TheWholeMe is your story to tell.

Click the link above for your free 48 page guide!!

Useful Information