Words for Wellbeing, Term 1, 2023

Welcome to Words for Wellbeing

To our Emmanuel College Community,

Welcome to the first edition of the quarterly, Words for Wellbeing for 2023. 

Words for Wellbeing 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 an 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.

BE KIND DAY!

Be Kind Day was celebrated in homerooms and mentor groups on Thursday 2nd March here at Emmanuel College. Students were asked to practise spreading kindness to their peers by writing an anonymous kind message about someone in their class, and students would receive their message the following day. 

This activity was aimed at students to promote peer acceptance, fight loneliness, boost self confidence and improve mood. Kindness is known to increase your sense of connectivity with others and strengthen relationships. This also teaches students to be kind to themselves by practising gratitude, as often we are our own worst critics. 

Research has shown that acts of kindness may be contagious, as we are more likely to perform acts of kindness when surrounded by it. 

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

The United Nation's International Women’s Day theme for 2023 was ‘Cracking the Code: Innovation for a gender equal future’.

Cracking the Code highlights the role that bold, transformative ideas, inclusive technologies, and accessible education can play in combating discrimination and the marginalisation of women globally.

Here at Emmanuel College, International Women's Day was celebrated on Wednesday 8th March. A highlight of the day was Girls Got Talent, where many of our students performed in the Wyton Stage supported by their peers.

Our special guest to open the event was Emma Stenhouse: Indigenous Artisan. Ngarrindjeri Woman. Artist. Weaver. Printmaker. Designer. Sewist.

Emma Stenhouse is taking the first steps on her journey in belonging and becoming connected with her Ngarrindjeri heritage.  Her work is predominantly inspired by nature, connection to country using elements of contemporary art and traditional Iconography.

An experienced early childhood educator, Emma imparts her knowledge of culture, implementing programming including traditional indigenous creative practices guided by Gunditjmara elders. A gatherer and sharer of knowledge, she uses this to guide her own journey.

She builds capacity for others to learn and develop their own connections.

We thank Emma very much for her time and her words. You can find Emma and her incredible artwork at https://emmastenhouse.com.au/

To watch our wonderful IWD celebrations for 2023, see the video below.

SAFE ON SOCIALS INFORMATIVE ARTICLE

We see a number of concerns each year with social media impacting the social-emotional development of our  young people. Emmanuel College delivers  education and support to students, families and our community in a variety of ways including, but not limited to: curriculum; classroom discussions; parents series events; newsletter articles; policies and procedures; and, incursions from local professionals. 

Jodie recently attended the Relationships & Sexuality in Schools Conference in Sydney were several speakers presented fresh-off-the-press research regarding the negative impact of social media on the body image of our students, across all genders.

Scott Griffiths, lead researcher for the Physical Appearance Research Team, presented the following information:

TikTok – who uses it?
• 1.5 billion users at the end of 2022
• 47% of users are between 10 and 29 years old
• 53% of users are female, 47% are male
• Average daily active time is 52 minutes
• For young people aged 4 to 18 years, it’s 107 minutes
• For young people, time spent on TikTok is greater than all other social media platforms and video streaming services (e.g., Netflix)
• TikTok is the dominant social media vehicle for youth culture in Australia and countries worldwide
• Internal research at Meta (the rebrand of Facebook) showed that using Instagram worsens body image for 1 in 3 teenage girls (Wells et al. 2021)
• Research by academics suggests that using social media contributes to poor body image and eating disorders (e.g., Griffiths et al. 2020)

Scott's research project on TikTok and eating disorders
• We decided to look at appearance-oriented content: Social media content that emphasizes the physical appearance of the creator or the subjects of the content
• Some social media content is not at all appearance-oriented and some is wholly appearance-oriented
• Sometimes, appearance-oriented content is explicitly labelled as such through captions, text over images, or hashtags. Other times, there are no explicit indicators that social media posts are appearance-oriented, leaving only the content itself

...

The combination of our brain's subconscious automatic processes that see us negatively compare ourselves to others, and the algorithms created by tech companies that understand that our brains are likely to spend more time consuming things on social media that upset us, disgust us, make us angry, is unhelpful at best, if not, dangerous. 

Tech companies design social media apps to keep us on them for longer, because the longer we spend on our apps, the more advertising we're exposed to, and the more money we spend. Purely and simply.

Educating our young people to be discerning about the content they consume, and the time spent consuming it, is a fight well worth continuing.

Parents play a vital role in continnuing these conversations at home, reinforcing healthy boundaries around healthy social media consumption, as well as keeping up to date with how your young person uses their time on their devices.

The  following article from ‘Safe on Social' describes some recent changes announced by  TikTok - the most commonly used platform and source of information for young people - around time-related bans built into the app.  

We hope you find it useful.

Mental Wellbeing

Mental health is a term we often hear, yet often confuse with other terms, such as mental illness. We all have varying degrees of 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 but aiming for 'good' mental health isn't enough. What if we were to aim to be flourishing instead! Building a strong mental health foundation is very important, but in this section, we share a variety of topical articles, resources and self-help tools for you to build on that foundation, to help you to flourish in your life.

KIDS HELPLINE - NIGGLE APP

What is a niggle?
A niggle is a feeling that won’t go away
It grows and grows and has a life of its own. When you have a niggle, it can be a challenge.
But you don’t have to do it alone…

Introducing niggle
The app that allows you to capture your niggles and do something about them!

Track your wellbeing and get personalised information, videos, podcasts, quizzes and tips to help you tame your niggles. Plus, hear from other young people as they share their stories and find out what helped them!

From feeling down or sad to sexual identity, dealing with conflict, loneliness and more - this is your take home, self-help toolkit that is here for you 24/7 for all things related to mental, social and emotional wellbeing.

Check out the video below and chat with your family about whether this app could be for you!

RCH PODCAST - CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME

The Royal Children's Hospital offer free online podcasts and webinars, covering a wide variety of health conditions and illnesses that young children and adolescents are facing. The episodes are hosted by paediatricians and include guests with specialist clinical experience.

This particular episode is on Chronic Fatigue, something closely associated and becoming more evident in out students' population following COVID, and is linked with many health conditions.

Check out the podcast below, it's a good one for parents to listen to while they're driving.

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.

Kgshak Akec
Winner of The 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript

We are so excited to welcome Kjshak Akec to Emmanuel College to speak with our Year 9s and 10s, with an open invitation for all students to meet with Kjshak at lunchtime at the Stage!

Kgshak Akec is a writer, poet, storyteller and a lover of words. Since the moment she learned how to write in English at the age of six, Kgshak has been writing out the stories that live inside her mind. Fascinated by human experience, the untold words and unsung songs of the day to day, as an early-career writer, Kgshak finds herself drawn to stories that challenge perception and go against the grain of the typical while also being grounded in truth. Kgshak’s deep love of stories and world-building is existential.

“To fall into the pages of a book and emerge into an entirely new world is more than just escapism, it’s magic. To write is not only my passion, it’s my power.”

Akita’s family have always kept moving to survive. Sudan to Cairo. Cairo to Sydney. Sydney to Geelong.

Each new place challenges Akita, her siblings and her parents. Just when eight-year-old Akita is feeling settled for the first time in her life, her parents decide to relocate to Geelong. The move is the beginning of a downward spiral that threatens to unravel the fabric of their family and any hope for finding peace and belonging. Told through the interchanging perspectives of Akita and her mother, Taresai, this coming of age story shines a light on the generational curses of trauma, complex family dynamics, and how it feels to love someone unconditionally, even when it hurts. Individually, the female narrators experience racism, rejection and despair, but together their narratives reveal a resilience of spirit and determination to transcend expectations of what a daughter, a sister, and a mother can be. Hopeless Kingdom gives a voice to the silent heartache of searching for acceptance in an adopted society which can’t look past the surface of skin colour.

JOIN THE WARRNAMBOOL YOUTH CIRCLE

The Warrnambool Youth Circle supports people aged 12 – 25 years old to confidently advocate for the needs and aspirations of young people. This youth led program provides members with the opportunity to assist local government and broader community in working with young people in the shared goal of enhancing opportunities and outcomes for the youth of Warrnambool.

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.

SENIOR SESSIONS

Welcome to Senior Sessions 2023, a series of three Fit4Life Wellbeing workshops designed to add valuable skills to your psychological toolkits.

Workshop one is titled Perfectly Imperfect and will be helpful to anyone who has ever worried about being good enough, who worries about being judged by others, or who believes their failures mean they are a failure. Do you avoid doing things you know you won't do well or spend a lot of time criticising your own appearance or abilities?

We all have at times a very loud inner critic and that self-criticism can lead to negative wellbeing outcomes. It can also detract from having an excellent level of life satisfaction. Worse still, it can prevent us from flourishing.

Tune in for around an hour of psycho-education and interactive exercises that may help you identify your own perfectionistic tendencies as well as start exploring how you might dial down the volume on that inner critic.

As always, your Fit4Life Wellbeing team are here to help you build your psychological toolkits and help you become fit for life.

Click the video below to watch this workshop at your own leisure.

We’ll be back in term 2 with your next Senior Session.

JO BOALER ON THE SCIENCE OF ADOLESCENT LEARNING

The science of learning and the brain are increasingly revealing that intelligence is not fixed—in fact, our brains grow and adapt all the time. Jo Boaler, author and professor of mathematics education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, uses this science to dispel the myth of the math person. She explains the revolutionary scientific research that proves that anyone can learn advanced math if surrounded by the right teaching and messages.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - the APP FreeCBT 

Our thoughts are closely linked to our emotions, and some of those thoughts are sticky, distorted mistakes that our brain makes, leading to some pretty uncomfortable emotions, impacting the choices we make in our lives.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and severe mental illness. Numerous research studies suggest that CBT leads to significant improvement in functioning and quality of life. 

CBT is based on several core principles, including:

• Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.
• Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.
• People suffering from psychological problems can learn better ways of coping with them, thereby relieving their symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives.

FreeCBT is a free app designed to help us cope with those tricky thoughts.

Here are some common unhelpful thinking styles you might be able to relate to:

All or Nothing Thinking 🌓
This distortion happens when we have no room for middle ground. If we think that a small fault in ourselves means we’re fundamentally rotten or otherwise terrible, we’re likely engaging in 🌓 All or Nothing Thinking.

Examples
'I failed this interview, so I'll fail all my interviews.'

Catastrophising 🤯
If we’re taking a small problem and blowing it way out of proportion, we’re 🤯 Catastrophizing. Did you make a small mistake at work and are dreading if someone found out even though it’s nothing serious? You’re probably catastrophizing.

Examples
Often this cognitive distortion is a series of thoughts, one after the other.
'I took too long to answer that interview question.'
'Because I took too long, I'll bet I failed the interview.'
'Because I failed this one, I'll probably fail all interviews I get.'
Because I'll fail all my interviews, I'm probably just bad at this career and I should give up.
Some mental health professionals call this "making a mountain out of a molehill."

Emotional Reasoning 🎭
"I feel it, therefore it must be true."

If we find ourselves justifying the "danger" of something innocuous because we’re afraid of it, then we’re likely engaging in 🎭 Emotional Reasoning. Things aren’t dangerous because we’re afraid of them and we’re not awful just because we may think we are.

This one is often hard to recognise. It takes some effort to recognise when your emotional mind is taking the logical reins.

Examples
'I feel guilty, therefore I must have done something bad.'
'I feel scared, therefore this must be dangerous.'

Magnification of the Negative 👎
If we're judging a situation based entirely on the negative parts and not considering the positive parts, we're likely magnifying the negative. If we’re constantly berating ourselves for bombing a job interview, we're probably filtering out all the experience we gained from that interview.

Mind Reading 🧠
If we're worried about what someone else is thinking about us, we're 🧠 Mind Reading. Unless someone tells you what they're thinking, you have absolutely no way of knowing. So why assume the worst?

Examples
'I think I was rude to George, I'll bet he hates me.'

Minimisation of the Positive 👍
If we downplay the good things that are happening to us, we're minimising the positive. Even if our day didn't go 100% as planned, it doesn't mean that the 60% that did go right should be ignored.

Example
'Many people liked my presentation, but I stumbled giving the intro, so it was bad.'

If you identify with any of these thinking styles and would like to know more, click the link below and discover whether FreeCBT might be for you!

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.

HEALTHY KIDS ASSOCIATION

Healthy Kids Association is a wonderful online resource, that believes teaching healthy eating habits at a young age can change a person’s life for the better and they aim to educate and empower families, children and school canteens to make the healthiest food choices possible. 

Choosing foods in the supermarket can be difficult, so here’s a link to a handy guide below to help you make decisions and better inform yourself about tricky food labels;

GREAT OCEAN HEALING CENTRE - FREE YOGA CLASS

Great Ocean Healing Centre, the home of Restorative Yoga, Hatha Yoga & Yoga Nidra, is offering a free trial Yoga class to you!

If you’re looking for a way to let go, relax and rest then this is your kind of place. They specialise in Restorative Yoga to help you to reconnect with the state of relaxation; Hatha Yoga to help you lengthen and strengthen the body, mind, and breath, and Yoga Nidra, to experience a systematic, guided meditation to reach a state of effortless being.

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.

MINDFUL MOMENTS

Over the pandemic, the Wellbeing team recorded 9 mindful moments, guiding you through a series of very brief mindfulness practices to enjoy throughout your day.

We've just added a link to the Google Folder on Simon for you to easily access these recordings at anytime, anywhere and we hope you get a lot out of them.

In Term 2 we'll look forward to meeting you again at the Stage on Wednesday mornings at 8.30am and at the Chapel @ Rice at 8.15am and 8.30am on Thursdays for our weekly mindfulness meditation sessions.

Here's a little sample:

Useful Information