Barely a week passes that the media does not remind us that many of our schools are in serious difficulty. The disasters range from poor learning outcomes to allegations of violence and bullying between students, towards teachers and by parents and the declining number of those willing to continue in the profession. It’s a grim landscape.
What Has Happened?
Writing in bower(knowledge), (Robinson 2024) speaks to the wider social change that has produced this situation. ‘Around 2000, Australia stopped incarcerating and exiling people as its primary strategy for managing inequality, diversity, and difference – institutions that held adults, adolescents, and children labelled with a mental illness, intellectual disability, autism, addiction, acquired brain injury, and child abuse; and adolescents and children who had committed a criminal offence. This volte-face in social policy also had its hard landing in the education system.’ He goes onto explain that in becoming the repository for such matters, systems complexity has escalated and with it the challenges inherent in how ‘institutional human service delivery systems distribute responsibility and authority between themselves, and with the citizen child, adolescent, parent, or family.’ The more systems involved and the greater the complexity, the more opportunity for conflict, misunderstandings and higher the chance of the child and school expressing this in symptoms of violence and inability to educate.
A Better Way Forward
Schools that find ways to work collaboratively with all those invested in children and young people’s education and wellbeing produce remarkable outcomes. One example reported recently in the ABC News is Narromine High School in Western New South Wales where a well-being hub was established in 2019. Recognizing that a considerable proportion of their students came from disadvantaged backgrounds, the Hub was created to provide easy access for students to health professionals and gym equipment as well as supporting families to seek NDIS funding. The school prides themselves on building trust between school and family and the processes they engage in with students. The school principal was quoted as saying the initiative had a major impact on academic results in the school.
What Creates Success
The management of authority and responsibility is central to positive outcomes and successful multi-system engagement processes. All parties: educators, health and human services providers, students and families must fully collaborate, and those with greater statutory authority must manage their unequal position in a way that does not unnecessarily create fractures. Protocols that promote equality and ensure all who engage in the processes are fully informed and able to understand and recall information are central to success.
bower(schools)
These principles have informed the development of bower(schools)™. Lisa Wolff, Director of Management, explains the approach as ‘‘a comprehensive, multi-system protocol designed to address behavioural, emotional, and cognitive dysregulation in schools. Using a structured framework the protocols of bower(schools)™ address the inequalities, disadvantages, and fundamental differences that high and complex (support) needs carry. When protocols are followed and inequality managed, outcomes are remarkable.
Jenaya Gibbs-Muir, Narromine High School’s social wellbeing hub gets a big tick from NSW students, families, ABC Western Plains, Saturday 30 November
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