ACTIVE ATTITUDES – PRIMARY (8 session program)

The Active Attitudes (primary) program aim is to equip children with a toolkit to create a mindful and emotionally healthy lifestyle. By the end of the sessions, children will be equipped with critical knowledge and skills enabling them to build a positive habits in wellbeing while understanding key strategies to assist them in coping with challenging periods in life.

SESSION 1

INTRODUCTION AND ICE BREAKER

Creating an environment in which participants feel safe to express themselves fully with each other is a key component of these sessions. Ice breaker/Team building activities have been shown to increase the effectiveness of programs, breaking down barriers and allowing people to quickly create relationships generates buy in.

Participants will engage in a Team building game i.e. Builders Vs Bulldozers – Separate Kids into 2 teams spread cones out in a game area half flipped over and half standing properly. One team try flip cones to correct way up (Builders) and other team try flip cones to be the wrong way up (Bulldozers). After 2 minutes, see which team wins.

FRIENDSHIPS AND TEAM BUILDING

Friendship is a great source of comfort and can act as a buffer against any potential health or wellbeing issues such as mental illness, bullying, family stressors or life transitions. Having strong friends is vital to a positive health/wellbeing.

Work through the friendship page in the journal, creating an open discussion. Encourage the kids to talk about why they believe they are a good friend and ask them for a time they have needed a friend in a hard situation.

SESSION 2

AWARENESS OF SELF

It is critical to the health of young Australians that they understand and prioritise their wellbeing to ensure they have a balanced lifestyle.  This interactive workshop focuses on the challenges that young Australians might be facing and how these triggers affect their wellbeing. Having an Awareness of your own challenges is the first step on your journey to recovery.

Participants increase their understanding of emotional stress and emotional understanding, insight into the impact of stigma & develop strategies to assist in overcoming life’s challenges and creating a more positive wellbeing.

SESSION 3

MINDFUL COLOURING AND CRAFT

Gaining a more in depth understanding of your own and other people’s emotions can enable you to identify and regulate your emotions more effectively. This can enable you to feel as though you are in control over your emotions rather than being pushed around by them. Additionally, being able to identify emotions in others can help you sympathise, empathise and support others during their challenges.

Using the butcher paper, pick 4 colours and write them up. Ask the children to individually think about what each colour means to them in the way of a feeling (i.e. Blue feels cold, sad, scared. Red feels angry, loud, hot). Identifying what each colour is linked to what emotion can assist children who may not have the language or be able to identity/explain their feeling with words, this gives them another outlet.

SELF BELIEF

Research has shown that When a child doesn’t feel confident in their own ability, mental health issues may start to come into play. Anxiety and depression are found to be more likely among those with low self-belief.

Activity: Without lead in ask the kids to think about someone special in their life; parent, sibling, teacher, friend – as fast as they can on GO write down 5 things that person is good at. Cut them off mid task and ask them to immediately switch their thoughts to themselves. Give them time to complete the first list only once they have given themselves “5 stars”

Discussion: Most of us don’t know our top 5 “stars” instantly. We could rattle off many things about others but believing in ourselves is generally not at the forefront. The exercise promotes self-reflection and reminds kids about believing in themselves first.

SESSION 4

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SUPPORT

We all have bad days and setbacks in life. Our ability to acknowledge that things are going wrong can assist us in overcoming those challenges. This workshop covers topics such as support networks, mateship and check ins. Aiming to provide an in-depth understanding of how to engage the correct support systems, open conversations up with people close to you and how checking in with mates can assist in dealing with life’s setbacks.

Participants develop an in-depth understanding of the effect’s stressors/challenges can have on person’s life. They will develop skills enabling them to open up conversations with people close to them and how to engage in the appropriate support networks that help them cope during difficult times.

SESSION 5

KINDNESS

Kindness is giving your best self to others without requests or promise of return. It’s simply doing something nice for someone else, without them asking and without you doing it for anything in return. Kindness has shown to have a multitude of positive effects not only on the giver but the receiver. We could all use some more kindness in our day.

Using the Kindness Cards the group are encouraged to explain how that random act of kindness might make them feel if it was done to them. Discussions will be focused on the way a random act of kindness can ACTIVATE another person to believe in themselves or pick them up from a glum day. The participants will circulate their journals around and each write something positive or kind about that person. End result the kids each have a whole page of goodness about themselves to add to the tool kit and reflect back on.

POSITIVE THINKING

Optimism and positive thinking has been linked to greater wellbeing and overall health. There are plenty of great reasons to start cultivating affirmative thoughts and minimizing negative self-talk including; stress relief, better resilience, improved immunity and increased wellness to name a few.

Ask the group for examples of positive thinking. Use keywords like growth mindset if they are struggling. Be sure to touch on the fact that every single person will have a time when they struggled to be in a positive mindset. It is very hard to progress with negative thoughts, hence affirmations practiced will assist. We want to be sure the kids feel its ok to not be ok but understand there are ways to assist yourself. Using the journal; reference to affirmations, work through the ones included and then have the kids create their own.

SESSION 6

TAKE ACTION

Challenges in life are going to occur, what’s important are the actions we take to assist us in overcoming these challenges. Paying attention to what you can control in any situation can help you build coping strategies that benefit your physical and mental health. This workshop aims to develop positive coping skills including mindfulness, gratitude and reflection. These skills are proven strategies that enable people to effectively deal with life’s challenges.

Participants develop techniques on how to help combat daily stressors and other life hardships. They will develop skills in mindfulness, gratitude and reflection.

SESSION 7

FOOD AND NUTRITION

Food is the fuel that runs our body and mind. Creating healthy food habits from a young age can assist in providing participants with the greatest opportunity to flourish both physically and mentally.

Run the kids through a very basic Food for Fuel chat. Our body needs certain foods for fuel to burn so we can have energy to sleep, run, learn, play etc. Ask each child to suggest one “every day” food and one “sometimes” food – work through why we need to understand the difference and make choices accordingly.

BOOT CAMP

Allowing the participants to burn off some energy and have fun while doing it. Activities undertake help in creating an environment where participants associate FITNESS with FUN while keeping them active and moving. Fitness is one of the KEY INGREDIENTS for building happy healthy bodies and minds.

SESSION 8

REFLECTION AND JOURNAL

Self-reflection is the act of giving careful thought to an experience or a learning event. Allowing participants to reflect on the previous sessions can allow them to understand and strengthen key learnings. Reflection has been shown to improve emotional intelligence, build integrity and increase self-confidence.

Have the kids come back to a small group space, with their journals. In the notes section, reflect and write about the day/sessions – you may need to help the younger kids or suggest they can draw pictures. The goal is to have them reflecting mindfully about everything what they have experienced. Reflection can be built into a bedtime ritual or at the dinner table after every day (i.e. 1 thing they learn, 1 thing they loved, 1 thing they want to work on).

YOGA

Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual practices or discipline that assists in training the body and mind to self-observe and become aware of their own nature. Yoga assists participants in increasing their body awareness, relieves  stress, reduces muscle tension, strain, and inflammation, sharpens attention and concentration, and calms mind.

EXPECTED PROGRAM OUTCOMES

• Identify and explain the Positive (Activating) and Negative (Deactivating) concepts
• Combat list to manage a negative (deactivating) relationship or influence
• The ability to identify negative (deactivating) actions or beliefs and implement an affirmation or positive practice to ensure goals are more attainable
• To be able to identify at least “5 stars” about yourself with pride
• Kindness Kit for reflection
• Top 5 Positive (Activating) Actions or practices to assist when feeling down
• The ability to identify and make better choices with regards to food that can activate or deactivate our behaviours or moods
• A personal commitment to one daily habit they are going to change or new ritual they are going to implement to create a more positive wellbeing.

ACTIVE ATTITUDES – SECONDARY (8 session program)

The Active Attitudes (teen) program aim is to build a toolkit around emotion and wellbeing. By the end of the sessions, the teens should be able to identify ACTIVATING & DEACTIVATING habits, rituals, friendships, influences, foods and environments.

SESSION 1

INTRODUCTION AND ICE BREAKER

Participants will set the space rules, ie. Common respect, no judgement, don’t speak over another, no phones etc. The group will provide these based on what they think is important.

Participants will then engage in ‘My Unknown’, introducing themselves and tell the group their name, one thing the group wouldn’t know about them and the weirdest food they’ve eaten or enjoy eating.

EMOTIONAL REGULATION

Gaining a more in depth understanding of your own and other people’s emotions can enable you to identify and regulate your emotions more effectively. This can enable you to feel as though you are in control over your emotions rather than being pushed around by them.

SESSION 2

FRIENDSHIPS AND RELATIONSHIPS

This session will open discussions around relationships in general, ones we need, ones we choose, ones with positive or negative impact.

The group will share their experiences on an activating/positive and deactivating/negative relationship experience to enable them to build a combat list of 5 actions they can add to the “toolkit” to manage a deactivating relationship.

SUPPORT NETWORKS

Developing a strong support network can help people cope in difficult situations. It’s great to have a diverse network of support to help deal with a range of challenges. In this session participants will identify ‘Who is your 5?’

SESSION 3

VISION AND BARRIERS

Participants will be encouraged to talk about their goals, visions, dreams and undertake an activity to brainstorm their wish list. Participants will then be invited to reflect on their list, exploring how they would feel if they achieved their wish list.

Then open discussion about barriers that might be stopping them from becoming a reality? What actions have they personally taken to make it happen? If failure wasn’t an option what would they attempt? Has someone or something deactivated their belief in it being achievable?

Participants will then make a commitment against their current deactivating actions and create affirmation notes.

CONTROL

When faced with challenging situations it is important to remember what is controllable and what is uncontrollable. Understanding that you can control your own emotions, behaviours and thoughts. If we continually think about the uncontrollable then we will create a lot of unwanted stress for ourselves.

SESSION 4

SELF BELIEF

Research has shown that When a child doesn’t feel confident in their own ability, mental health issues may start to come into play. Anxiety and depression are found to be more likely among those with low self-belief.

This session promotes self-reflection and reminds participants in believing in themselves first. Participants will reflect about someone special in their life; Parent, Sibling, Teacher, Friend, Coach, someone that activates them to do and be better when they are around. Then they will switch their thoughts onto themselves to identify things they are proud of in themselves or believe they are good at.

CHECK INS

Checking in with someone else is great way to show support during challenging periods, however how many of us check in with ourselves during challenging periods? Checking in with yourself can enable you to recognise emotions, regulate and take control of them while giving you an understanding of what you can do to deal with the situation. Take time at the end of each day, reflect and check in with how you dealt with today’s challenges. This can help you grow and develop necessary coping skills that can be utilised in the future during tough periods.

SESSION 5

KINDNESS

Kindness is giving your best self to others without requests or promise of return. It’s simply doing something nice for someone else, without them asking and without you doing it for anything in return. Kindness has shown to have a multitude of positive effects not only on the giver but the receiver. We could all use some more kindness in our day.

Using the Kindness Cards the group are encouraged to explain how that random act of kindness might make them feel if it was done to them. Discussions will be focused on the way a random act of kindness can ACTIVATE another person to believe in themselves or pick them up from a glum day. The participants will circulate their journals around and each write something positive or kind about that person. End result the participants each have a whole page of kindness about themselves to add to the tool kit and reflect back on.

GRATITUDE

Being grateful simply indicates that you’re aware of what you value in life, appreciate the small things and acknowledge all that you do have. Being grateful shifts the lens from what is lacking or not ideal to what is already present and good.  A lot of the time we tend to take for granted everything that’s great in our lives and instead dwell on what we perceive is wrong, what we don’t have or what we don’t like.

SESSION 6

POSITIVE THINKING

Participants will explore examples of positive thinking, and touch on the fact that every single person will have a time when they struggle to be in a positive mindset.  Participants will discuss the concept of it being ok to not be ok and in a positive space all the time, and share times when they have felt down about a situation or relationship, and specific ways they handled it.

The group will build a top 5 list of activating actions or thoughts for the toolkit to help them realign their thoughts or mood when they are down.

TRIGGERS

Triggers are unique to each individual. While one thing might be a positive trigger for one person, for others it might be not so positive (i.e. Family, School). Triggers have the ability to impact us emotionally.

Participants will discuss and explore what impacts them positively and understand the not so positive triggers in order to help identify what needs to be in place to combat these events/experiences/situations.

SESSION 7

FOOD AND NUTRITION

Food is the fuel that runs our body and mind. Creating healthy food habits from a young age can assist in providing participants with the greatest opportunity to flourish both physically and mentally.

Participants will undertake a Food for Fuel chat to understand why their body needs certain foods for fuel to burn so they can have energy to sleep, run, learn, play etc. Conversations will also explore the way foods can affect moods.

Participants will utilise smart charts to plate set up and create a meal, and will create a list of ACTIVATE vs DEACTIVATE foods ie foods that fuels you and make you feel well, hence assist in positive wellbeing, vs foods that can deactivate due to overload.

WELLBEING DOMAINS

There are 6 wellbeing domains; physical, social, emotional, vocational, intellectual and self. Understand that when you focus on one domain another will be impacted and this can have an impact on your overall health. Participants will develop a plan outlining a behaviour for each domain that will contribute to your overall positive wellbeing.

SESSION 8

REFLECTION AND RITUAL

Journaling and reflection is a key tool to being present & mindful in busy life. Participants begin the session with some reflection time. Discussions will encourage this to be something they could do at home as a bedtime ritual or at the dinner table with their family, exploring habits and rituals and the ACTIVATING & DEACTIVATING energies they can create. Participants will make a commitment on 1 new ritual they are going to implement daily as a result of the sessions and tools they have learnt.

MENTAL HEALTH STRATEGY

To be able to stay balanced and healthy it is important to have behaviours that you do every day to be able to reduce stress and continue moving forward. For some it is spending time with family, others go for walk, meditate, go to the gym, read a book etc. Participants will be asked to Find Your Happiness Triggers.

EXPECTED PROGRAM OUTCOMES

• Identify and explain the Activating and Deactivating Theories
• Combat list to manage a deactivating relationship or influence
• The ability to identify deactivating actions or beliefs and implement an affirmation or positive practice to ensure goals are more attainable
• To be able to identify at least “5 stars” about yourself with pride
• Kindness Kit for reflection
• Top 5 Activating Actions or practices to assist when feeling down
• The ability to identify and make better choices with regards to food that can activate or deactivate our behaviours or moods
• A personal commitment to one daily habit they are going to change or new ritual they are going to implement to create a more positive wellbeing.

By being able to understand mental health (as a concept), what we should be looking for in the people close to us and how we can help, we find the power to make a difference in people’s lives. Within this training we will help to create a greater understanding of how tackle the challenges associated with mental health in your organisation and equip you with the tools to assist people who may be fighting the battle.

Participants will walk away with a toolkit of resources, skills and research based strategies that help to foster a positive change in the mental health outcomes of your community and support your ability to connect with someone fighting through a mental health challenge.

Module 1 – AWARENESS 

Mental Health is an individualised, complex concept that can be easily misunderstood. Within this modules pre-reading we will explore mental health as a concept, mental health conditions and what factors play a major role in an individual’s mental health. Exploring this foundational knowledge can help to provide clarity and perspective when it comes to supporting someone through a mental health challenge.

Module 2 – ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Now that we have gained a deeper understanding of mental health as a concept, we can start to develop a greater understanding of mental health conversations.

Within this modules pre-reading we will delve into how to effectively start these conversations, how important they are in people’s lives and what behaviours might be linked to harmful coping.

Our exploration will help to provide ideas around what is considered best practice in these conversations.

Module 3 – ACTION

Being prepared and knowing what the next steps are is great and can provide the person with a sense of comfort knowing that you know what you are doing. Within this modules pre-reading we look at resources and pathways that can be offered (if the person wants that) to help move forward through the challenging period.

Additionally, we will explore self-care. It’s critical that for you to help someone else you must be resilient and healthy. After a mental health conversation, it is common to find yourself feeling emotionally drained. In this instance our own self-care must be focused on to help you bounce back and continue to help.

WELFARE WARRIOR TRAINING (2-3 hours)

Knowledge is Power – Sir Francis Bacon

By being able to understand mental health (as a concept), what we should be looking for in the people close to us and how we can help, we find the power to make a difference in people’s lives.

Within this training we will help to create a greater understanding of how tackle the challenges associated with mental health in your organisation and equip you with the tools to assist people who may be fighting the battle.

Participants will walk away with a toolkit of resources, skills and research based strategies that help to foster a positive change in the mental health outcomes of your community and support your ability to connect with someone fighting through a mental health challenge.

BENEFITS:

Participants develop knowledge and skills assisting someone who may be fighting a mental health challenge. Gaining an understanding of what to look out for in someone while gaining insight into how to open up conversations about their struggles enables people to reach out with confidence. Participants will learn how to effectively communicate during mental health conversations and be provided with key self-care strategies and resources on where to find extra support.