Journey of Hope empowers Taree school students to tackle tough mental health matters
A global not-for-profit has manufactured a groundbreaking program to help students cope with bushfire and flooding crises. It is hoped the same program will be delivered for the Covid era.
Mid-North Coast
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Children in bushfire and flood-ravaged communities across Australia, including the Mid-North Coast, have reported outstanding results from a wellbeing and resilience program offered for the very first time.
Save the Children’s Journey of Hope program, which has run in 77 schools across the country since 2020, has directly helped children who lived through the Black Summer bushfires and floods, with 92 per cent of the 500 students surveyed saying they felt better after taking part.
The not-for-profit program was rolled out to Taree Public School students between years three and six, via group workshops run by expert facilitators with specialist training in the Journey of Hope program.
Mark Taylor, Principal of Taree Public School, said the school was approached to participate in the program due to the significant trauma students where exposed to in the 2019-20 natural disasters.
“We were always on the look out for one of these programs, but it really had to be the right fit for our school, our context our kids and our community.” Mr Taylor said.
“Once we had a look at the program, the evidence and research behind it, how broadly it had been implemented and how closely and directly linked to the syllabus and needs of the community it was, it was bang on tune with the syllabus, content and direction our school was heading.
“Top-to-bottom, the eight workshops just brought all the pieces together. We found what we had been looking for.”
Two facilitators came to the school and ran one hour workshops with students for a number of weeks before the Covid-19 shutdown hit. Mr Taylor said the school has negotiated further support for a future program that will deal with student welfare amid the pandemic.
Journey of Hope was developed in response to the fall out from the 2005 Hurricane Katrina that hit parts of the US.
It has since grown into a global phenomenon, delivered to more than 85,000 children in numerous countries, including New Zealand following the Christchurch earthquake.
Through rigorous evaluation, including by the International Institute for Children’s Rights and Development, Journey of Hope has been shown to improve student social and emotional wellbeing, as well as knowledge and skills, by teaching children to recognise and manage their emotions, build confidence and self-esteem.
It has also influenced the development of positive peer relationships and a reduction in disruptive behaviours, which supports more concentrated learning in class.
Results from the program delivered nationally showed that it created a safe and trusted space for children to discuss their emotions and develop positive coping strategies.
According to Save the Children, More than 92 per cent said that it made them feel better and they felt safe sharing their feelings, while 97 per cent enjoyed participating in the program.
Save the Children drew on expertise from the University of Melbourne to guide and support the evaluation of the program, including disaster resilience expert Professor Lisa Gibbs, child health and wellbeing specialist Dr Lauren Carpenter and biostatistics expert Professor Julie Simpson.
It is now hoped that the program will continue to help support students struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Communities affected by disaster tend to be highly disrupted in the following months and years and children are at risk of emotional distress and mental health problems,” Professor Lisa Gibbs said. “It was really encouraging to see that children reported significantly less difficulties in their daily lives after participating in the Journey of Hope program.”
Save the Children’s CEO Paul Ronalds said the program has been an incredible success and governments should take note.
“We are already experiencing a national children’s mental health crisis of a scale not seen before in Australia,” Mr Ronalds said.
“As the pandemic and associated lockdowns continue, and as extreme weather events like bushfires and floods increase due to climate change, the toll on children’s mental wellbeing will be even greater.
“Children in many of the communities where we ran Journey of Hope lived through a catastrophic bushfire emergency, followed rapidly by destructive floods and now a pandemic. Significant funding must be set aside for children’s mental health and recovery in response to these and future disasters.
“The beauty of Journey of Hope is that it is specialised, complements existing mental health supports in schools and doesn’t place an extra burden on schools when they’re dealing with multiple crises. In fact, it gives students, teachers and even parents the space and time to process and deal with what they’re going through.”
Mr Taylor said his students received enormous benefits from the program.
“The nurturing approach from the facilitators in this program where phenomenal, “ he said.
“Because these two trainers are neutral, and they have no position, judgment or background, the kids have just absolutely responded and been able to be authentic and engaged. That really maximised what they had to offer.
“Rebecca and Casey, the trainers, had a soft nurturing approach and they know their business, content and presentation and they really created that atmosphere for kids to feel safe and comfortable to self reflect.
“These kids have been able to recognise the triggers and stressors, and have been given a number of strategies and coping mechanisms to deal with that and talk it through.
“Answering questions like, what did I do? How did I go? Each workshop has a focus, whether its fear anxiety – they now have a bank of strategies they can use for whatever scenario they are faced with.”
For more on the Journey of Hope program, visit https://www.savethechildren.org.au/our-work/our-programs/australia/journey-of-hope.
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