McCalman, Janya, Caelli, Nicole, Travers, Helen, Graham, Veronica, and Hunter, Ernest (2023) Towards best practice during COVID-19: A responsive and relational program with remote schools to enhance the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. School Psychology International, 44 (2). pp. 214-235.

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Abstract

Purpose: From 2018, the Schools Up North (SUN) programme worked with three remote Australian schools to enhance their capability and resilience to support the wellbeing and mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and staff. This paper explores the implementation of SUN during the first two years of COVID-19 (2020–2021).

Method: Using grounded theory methods, school staff, other service providers and SUN facilitators were interviewed, with transcripts and programme documents coded and interrelationships between codes identified. An implementation model was developed.

Results: The SUN approach was place-based, locally informed and relational, fostering school resilience through staff reflection on and response to emerging contextual challenges. Challenges were the: community lockdowns and school closures; (un)availability of other services; community uncertainty and anxiety; school staff capability and wellbeing; and risk of educational slippage. SUN strategies were: enhancing teachers’ capabilities and resources, facilitating public health discussions, and advocating at regional level. Outcomes were: enhanced capability of school staff; greater school-community engagement; student belonging and engagement; a voice for advocacy; and continuity of SUN's momentum.

Conclusions: The resilience approach (rather than specific strategies) was critical for building schools’ capabilities for promoting students and staff wellbeing and provides an exemplar for remote schools globally.

Item ID:	78840
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1461-7374
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). Request permissions for this article.
Date Deposited:	05 Jun 2023 23:24
FoR Codes:	42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420601 Community child health @ 30% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420602 Health equity @ 40% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4203 Health services and systems > 420321 Rural and remote health services @ 30%
SEO Codes:	21 INDIGENOUS > 2103 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health > 210303 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health system performance @ 50% 20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200406 Health protection and disaster response @ 50%
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