On Tuesday, 18th May, Thalia Kurzel, who is one of our Year 5 teachers, and I had the pleasure of attending the ‘Resilience Project Teacher Seminar’ at the Melbourne Convention Centre.

The day consisted of 4 speakers, including Hugh Van Cuylenburg, the founder of The Resilience Project. Hugh shared the confronting statistics of how the issue of mental health is affecting children and adolescents  in Australia and told his story as to why he began the Resilience Project. The second guest speaker, Leah, spoke about the importance of teachers looking after their mental health. The third speaker, Antony, shared ways in which teachers can improve Emotional Literacy in schools, including many useful activities and strategies. Emotional Literacy is the ability to label what you are feeling - happy, lonely, anxious, frustration, joy and so on.

The final speaker, Marty, shared his own fascinating story and how he came to be part of the Resilience Project Team. Marty is larger than life and, even though he had the hard gig of presenting after the lunch break, had the room captivated and in fits of laughter too! Marty shared the importance of connection and how we can help build the sense of ‘Belonging’ amongst our students, friends, parent community and colleagues.

With suicide being named the leading cause of death by 2030 by the World Health Organisation (WHO), it is important that we, as parents and educators, help our children develop resilience and a sense of belonging - as this is one of the greatest preventatives of suicide. We all want to ‘fit-in’ to a group, however we shouldn’t need to change who we are to ‘fit-in’ and that is the difference between fitting in and belonging….belonging is where we can have people around us who accept us for who we are.

Here are some GEM (Gratitude, Empathy & Mindfulness) questions to ask yourself and your children on a daily basis to continue to strengthen mental health.

Thalia and I came away with many great strategies to implement into our teaching practice and we look forward to sharing these with the staff and students along with ways in which we can personally improve our own mental health by practising Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness daily in our own lives. Our Year 3-6s are lucky to already use the ‘Resilience Project school diaries’ where they complete daily GEM reflections.

Why The Resilience Project Exists

The mental health statistics in this country are confronting. Our mission is to teach positive mental health strategies to help people become happier and more resilient. 

We share emotionally engaging stories that help to make the topic of mental health more accessible. The research is clear; the more positive emotion you experience, the more resilient you will be. For that reason we focus on three key pillars that have been proven to cultivate positive emotion; Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness (GEM). Our programs also have a strong focus on Connection, Purpose, Kindness, Emotional Literacy and Physical Health. 

To find out more go to https://theresilienceproject.com.au/ - If you’re interested in hearing Hugh and his team speak they do public talks throughout the year which come highly recommended!

Katrina Gardiner

Wellbeing Leader