The teachers at Warrawong High School take great pride in going above and beyond to look after the wellbeing of their students.
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In recent times this has involved helping students cope with the day to day stresses of living in the COVID-19 world.
Head wellbeing teachers Amanda Daenell and Megan Murdzevski have been running sessions this week with over 120 junior students.
The idea for the latest wellbeing program came about after deputy principal Michael Stanizzo and Mrs Murdzevski took part in a webinar run by Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, one of Australia's highest profile psychologists.
Dr Carr-Gregg talked about strategies for schools coping with COVID-19 when kids return to school.
"Following that presentation Megan and I decided we'd assess our kids when they returned to school full-time to see where they are at in terms of the pandemic," Mr Stanizzo said.
"This week we've been running a number of activities and sessions designed to help us best help our students in any way that we can.
"We've done a self-assessment on our kids and asked them a series of questions about their time off school dealing with the pandemic. Teenagers tend to access help online themselves but we also encourage them to visit sites such as Reach Out, Kids Helpline and Headspace if needed.
"We are also providing our students with self-help activities and doing a mindfulness exercise with them through an app called Smiling Minds. This also involves meditation on their breathing to de-escalate any anxiety they are feeling."
Mr Stanizzo added the session also importantly informed students of the support available at school and reminded them of the 30 external agencies Warrawong High has partnerships with.
Students are given pamphlets and brochures highlighting the contact details of many of these agencies.
"We remind them of those services but at the end of the session we wrap it up with focusing on a positive mindset," Mr Stanizzo said.
"We do a gratitude exercise with students. We prompt them a little bit by saying at the end of the day we've been a little lucky as a country so far, as has our region when it comes to COVID-19.
"You have come back to school and it is great to see you because that means you have come back healthy, which we are glad about.
"The last thing they do in the session is they write on a message wall......when this is done we are going to have a good record of this experience and what our kids have gone through.
"I'm just grateful that our students are on board, we had 100 per cent uptake in this program with our junior students.
"We hope to run this with all 600 plus students over the next few weeks."
Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
