Schools
Coping schools
Coping Schools is a whole-of-community approach to developing and supporting health and wellbeing. It involves staff, students, and parents creating a culture of coping and supporting others. Coping schools does this by building on existing strengths, rather than focusing on and looking for deficits.
Components of coping Schools
- All teaching and administrative staff are trained in Care · Collaborate · Connect: Psychological First Aid to be able to promote coping and be able to support students and staff who when they are upset.
- School counsellors, psychologists and social workers trained in Care · Collaborate · Connect: Suicide Prevention to be able to support students and staff who when they are upset.
- Teachers of children in grades 5-12 deliver Coping Schools curriculum.
- Parents complete the Coping Kids program to support their children to develop healthy coping strategies.
cost
Care · Collaborate · Connect: Suicide Prevention
Duration: 8-10 hours
Cost: $154 (GST inclusive)
Care · Collaborate · Connect: Psychological First Aid
Duration: 1-2 hours
Cost: $66 (GST inclusive)
Care · Collaborate · Connect: Coping Schools curriculum
Duration: 3 weekly 45-min class lessons
Cost: free-of-charge for teachers trained in Care · Collaborate · Connect
IMPLEMENTING COPING SCHOOLS
Components of Coping Schools can be implemented independently, however the most powerful impact on student health and wellbeing and the prevention of mental illness and suicide, occurs when the community they live in (school and home) meets their biopsychosocial needs.
To implement Coping Schools, a school needs to:
- obtain whole-of-school support for implementing the program
- identify space in staff workloads for training and the curriculum for wellbeing lessons
- identify metrics of success e.g., herd immunity
- have staff complete the training
- have parents complete the Coping Kids program
- implement the Coping Schools curriculum lessons
KEY FEATURES
- provides a systematic wrap-around approach to health and wellbeing
- is strength and person-focused
- provides all training, resources and evaluation online to improve accessibility for staff and parents
- includes an annual report to enable schools to track the impact of the program and the wellbeing of their school community.
Background
Coping Schools was developed to help schools promote health and wellbeing. It normalises unpleasant emotions, coping, and help-seeking. Coping Schools situates coping as one componentt in a biopsychosocial framework for developing and maintaining health and wellbeing in the school community.
Biopsychosocial Model of Health and Wellbeing (Stallman, 2018)
