“It takes a village...”

Townsville teachers, students and parents are seeing a positive shift in their ability to overcome everyday adversity by introducing tools and strategies in their daily routines to improve resilience.

The Resilience Project is being delivered by the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys to eight schools in Townsville during 2021, teaching the program pillars of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness, with the support of Northern Queensland Primary Health Network.

To complement the curriculum and take-home learnings, Townsville's term three immersion, a series of presentations involving students, teachers and parents from Belgian Gardens State School, Currajong State School, Enkindle Village School and Railway Estate State School, was held in early September.

Overall, nearly 1,400 students and 350 teachers and parents took part in the nine sessions over four days.

The sessions reinforced the lessons that prep to year six students are learning to help build resilience both in school and at home.

Belgian Gardens year six student Maya Gaffney said she's seen an obvious shift in the resilience of her peers at school since they started the program this year.

“I can see that all the pillars of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness are really important, and how it’s been affecting me and my friends,” she said.

“The thing I’ve learnt the most is gratitude, and when I am down or lose a game in netball or I don’t get the best that I wanted, I think it’s just about not stressing or worrying too much.

“Everyone’s been more kind towards each other, more empathetic and more grateful - for example, when we have a maths test it’s not like, ‘ugh, it’s math’, it’s ‘OK, let’s give this a try’.”

For the presentations, held at Ryan Catholic College's Emmaus Hall, students were split into their year level groups and had a unique opportunity to learn alongside students from other schools.

While students are the biggest beneficiaries of The Resilience Project’s Townsville delivery, the presentations were also aimed at teachers who are learning alongside their students about their role in creating a more resilient school environment.

“A big part of this program is the staff buy-in, having teachers and teacher aides all understand that this program can also benefit them. For a successful implementation, it's about everyone sharing the language of gratitude, empathy and kindness.”

- Ray Thompson

The Resilience Project founders Hugh van Culyenburg and Martin Heppell were part of the presentation through videos and live face-to-face meetings.

The sessions for students included a high level of interaction

Staff at Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School took part in a virtual professional development session

A community night was held for parents to learn strategies to help immerse students in resilient practices at home.

Activities included trying to make each other laugh.

TEACHERS CRUCIAL TO SUCCESS

It's not just the students at Belgian Gardens State School who are seeing a shift in the happiness within the school community, with teachers also noticing more positive mental wellbeing since joining the program this year.

Year 6 teacher Raymond Applegate said students are becoming more aware of their own feelings and finding ways to express themselves.

"We’ve taken the resilience program on for 2021... starting off with a PD session at the start of the year for teachers to get rolling,” he said.

“One of the (differences) I’ve noticed, that most people don’t often talk about is the emotional literacy.

“The kids are actually explaining the emotions that they feel and that’s probably what I’ve seen more this year, the kids learning to express their emotions.”

More than 150 teachers from Enkindle Village School, Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School, Belgian Gardens State School, Currajong State School, St Clare's Catholic School, Marian Catholic School, Townsville Flexible Learning Centre and Railway Estate State School logged in to a unique virtual professional development session on day two of the immersion, delivered live from Melbourne by The Resilience Project founder Hugh van Cuylenburg.

The online session brought staff together in one virtual space for delivery of the session, providing additional strategies for teaching the program while also helping them build their own resilience through the same techniques provided to students.

INNOVATING THROUGH COVID

Face-to-face presentations were delayed through the year due to COVID-19 restrictions in Australia's Southern states, however the innovative way of presenting means students, teachers and parents did not miss out on the vital information sessions.

The virtual presentations were delivered by the Melbourne-based founders of The Resilience Project, Martin Heppell and Hugh van Cuylenburg, while on the ground, presenters Ray Thompson and Gavin Cooper were familiar faces of the program.

“That ability to be able to walk into the room as a past Cowboys player, with the Cowboys logo, and back something really positive but always really fun, it’s very rewarding.”

- Gavin Cooper

Cowboys community engagement programs officer Ray Thompson said the interactive and engaging presentations supported resources already in use in classrooms.

“We’ve talked to and introduced the pillars of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness, and Gavin and I talk about these pillars and relate through our own life experiences but also how we practise it at home with our kids,” he said.

“Gratitude is our ability to appreciate what we have and don’t have, empathy is the ability to recognise somebody else’s emotions, and the way we teach that is through acts of kindness. Mindfulness is about being in the moment and being present.

“The idea is when we practise these things it helps us become the best and happiest people we can become, but it also helps us bounce back and overcome challenges, which is essentially what resilience is.

“Nobody is immune to failure, nobody is immune to a traumatic event and we’re all going to be faced with challenges at some point so being able to teach kids the strategies to bounce back from a hard time, to be able to bounce back from failure, is something that we really enjoy.”

Over coming weeks, the Cowboys will also visit students at Townsville Flexible Learning Centre, Holy Spirit Catholic School, St Clare’s Catholic School and Marian Catholic School for The Resilience Project.