Mental Health and Wellbeing News

Dear Parents/Carers,

The last competency in the Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Wheel is responsible decision making.

Responsible decision making is having the abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behaviour and social interactions across diverse situations. This includes the capacities to consider ethical standards and safety concerns, and to evaluate the benefits and consequences of various actions for personal, social, and collective well‑being.

Skills associated with having these abilities are:

• Demonstrate curiosity and open‑mindedness
• Identify solutions for personal and social problems
• Learn to make a reasoned judgment after analysing information, data, evidence and facts
• Anticipate and evaluate the consequences of actions
• Recognise how critical thinking skills are useful both inside and outside of school
• Reflect on one’s role to promote personal, family, and community well‑being
• Evaluate personal, interpersonal and community impacts
• Make ethical decisions.

These are skills that will develop with age but it is never too early to introduce them to your children.

There is extensive evidence associating childhood social and emotional skills with enhanced outcomes at school and in later life, in relation to improved physical and mental health, increased school readiness and academic achievement, reduced propensity towards crime, and expanded employment and income prospects.

At St Mary’s we are making this a priority and we will be introducing a program into our school next year called The Resilience Project. It is a great opportunity for our school and we have been allocated funding to cover the cost of this for the next 3 years. This encompasses Social Emotional Learning and Mental Health and Wellbeing in one program. The link below will give you more details on the project.

https://theresilienceproject.com.au/

If you have any questions or queries or would like more information on any of the information provided please do not hesitate to contact me.

Deb Owens

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader