Symposium Summary:
Education, health, and social welfare/development services often operate in institutional silos in developed countries. The potential for greater impact of user-centred services that break down silo walls has also been identified. Understanding is growing that the problems young people face in their schools arise beyond the school gates and therefore, so too will the solutions. A collective impact approach invites those ‘beyond the school gates’ to be involved in creating the solutions. This can include education, non-government organisations (NGOs), government health and social support agencies, and local business organisations that already work with these populations. We report on successful cross-sector efforts within Australia and New Zealand to support youth wellbeing in extremely challenging situations. In New Zealand a collective impact approach was initially adopted to respond to the devastating Canterbury earthquakes of 2011. This approach was characterised by six crucial elements: a culturally responsive approach, capacity building and collaboration between schools, collaboration of diverse partners within one city-wide strategy, authentic engagement processes, co-design approach, and a transformational role played by the Ministry of Education. The resultant transformations in the education system are credited with helping cope with the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020 both regionally and nationally. The city of Maroondah’s ambitious collaboration to support youth wellbeing involves primary and secondary schools, the City Council, the Department of Education and Training, and university and other wellbeing education providers. Student wellbeing and academic achievement is at the heart of this collective impact model that includes education and community systems and stakeholders. It aims to ensure young people feel ‘part of something beyond their individual school’ and acknowledges the role and commitment local community organisations play in supporting that goal. In line with the Institute of Positive Education’s Learn, Live, Teach and Embed model, a sequence of professional learning and practice has seen over 1000 education staff exposed to some level of wellbeing learning, and has led to a subsequent contextual implementation of wellbeing across 27 schools in that community. This foundation is now being leveraged to support the expansion of wellbeing literacy to families and the wider community to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, these collective approaches to wellbeing and education elevate the importance of wellbeing as a shared goal for effective societal functioning and highlight the need for collective action to create this shared collective good.
Symposium Presentation 1 :
Title: Collaboration for collective impact: How Communities of Practice are supporting wellbeing across two regions of New Zealand
Presenter: Dr Denise Quinlan
Proposal:
The Canterbury earthquakes of 2011 precipitated a period of cross-sector collaboration aimed to support wellbeing and resilience for young people, their families, and those working with them in education. Driven by the urgent mental health needs of their students, school principals in Canterbury acknowledged the need to a collective approach to address these pressing needs. From this emerged communities of practice (COPs) dedicated to supporting educator and student wellbeing. These COPs have broken down previous silo walls encouraging a collective approach to wellbeing where knowledge and experience (failures as well as successes) were shared across previously competing schools, early childhood centres and other education centres. The first COP in Canterbury was open to all secondary schools in the Greater Christchurch region. All of the region’s 33 secondary schools committed a team of four leaders to participate in the wellbeing COP. In subsequent years the team was extended to include students and to other events designed to grow capacity and capability across the entire education sector. In the north of NZ, a cluster of communities of learning has banded together to create a wellbeing hub which includes more than forty schools from one city and surrounding areas. Membership in this ‘super COP’ has been extended to those ‘beyond the school gates’ included invitations to non-government organisations (NGOs) and the government health and social support agencies already working with these populations. By July 2021 these COPs will be in their fourth and second years respectively. We will share learning and insights on the processes and topics used and the impact they are having on their areas.
Symposium Presentation 2:
Title: Flourishing together: Extending student wellbeing to a community of wellbeing.
Presenter: Edwina Ricci, Adam Cooper
Proposal:
Beginning with wellbeing measurement for Maroondah City Council’s Youth Strategy, a collective approach to building student wellbeing, engagement and academic achievement has emerged, aligning the efforts of Council’s Youth and Children’s Services Team with those of the 27 public schools servicing the municipality. The unique partnership has fostered a systemic shift towards wellbeing, mobilized collective effort and action, established partnerships with global experts in positive psychology, attracted significant Government funding and generated new opportunities for local students, school staff and families that were only made possible by a shared goal to raise student wellbeing. Student wellbeing is inextricably linked with the wellbeing of the school staff who educate them and the families and community leaders who raise and support them. The evolution of the Maroondah Positive Education Network has subsequently extended its focus on positive education implementation to a wider intention to equip local people with the wellbeing literacy and support structures to build wellbeing capability and agency throughout the community.
The most effective way to improve school (staff, students and parents) and community wellbeing is to engage all stakeholders because when effort is aligned towards a common goal, collective efficacy and positive culture change becomes not only more possible, but also more sustainable. The City of Maroondah has been trialling and testing positive education and systems thinking for a number of years and will share their experiences, successes and failures to make lasting systemic change based on its initial intent to raise student wellbeing. This work has built a strong foundation that has seen the establishment of a new community organisation and set the groundwork for an integrated response to address the wellbeing challenges arising from COVID-19.
Symposium Presentation 3:
Title: Collective transformation following community trauma and disruption: how lessons learned and implemented post-2011 Canterbury earthquakes enabled effective Covid-19 responses in 2020 NZ.
Presenter: Dr Denise Quinlan
Proposal:
The devastating earthquakes of 2011 shook the Canterbury area of New Zealand to its core, creating community trauma with profound disruption to wellbeing and education at many levels. Through years of anxiety, disruption, uncertainty, and re-build, this community enabled creative collective action, where those facing the problems worked together to generate solutions. Drawn from non-government organisations (NGOs), local iwi (tribal-based grouping of NZ’s indigenous people), Ministries of Education, Health, and Social Development, district councils, Police, and the local health board, new city-wide collaborations designed to build wellbeing and resilience emerged in the subsequent decade. These included a multi-year project to support schools initiated by the Ministry of Education and its indigenous foundation partner working with independent providers from around NZ; a free online wellbeing toolkit for primary schools that grew out of an innovative and hugely successful wellbeing promotion campaign led by a partnership between the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand and the Canterbury District Health Board public health unit; and a school-based wellbeing and mental health support initiative for primary school-aged children, their families, and teachers that provided tiered support, advice and guidance to the adults who support children, and individualised therapeutic and group interventions. Each of these successful initiatives contributed to creating a city-wide vision for education that promotes and protects student wellbeing and has effectively broken down traditional operational silos. Each initiative was also demonstrated to support the sector’s response during New Zealand’s COVID-19 national lockdown of 2020 enabling an enhanced capacity for adaptation and coping.