Developing a school-based preventive life skills program for youth in a remote Indigenous community in North Australia
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DescriptionSkills for Life is a universal preventative social-emotional learning curriculum for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander middle schools. It was developed in consultation with knowledgeable elders and community educators as a contribution to suicide prevention and aims to promote resilience and coping among youth as they negotiate an important transition in school and community life. It draws on research evidence for effective school-based social and emotional learning programs.
A feature of skills for life is the development of themes and resources that directly tap into common experiences of young people in their communities. This helps build conversation about young people’s strengths, the challenges they face, their emotional expressions, strategies for coping and problem-solving, the things they can do to stay on track, keep well and maintain positive relationships.
Skills for Life is based on proven pedagogical techniques. It makes use of experiential, peer-to-peer learning to explore key messages and games to foster positive engagement and group collaboration. It provides pictorial resources in electronic and hard copy to enable teachers to work with students at different levels of literacy and independence. Skills for Life is being evaluated with support of a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council. Four remote schools and one boarding school have participated in the evaluation project from 2016-2019. -
Regions in scopeAustralia
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Funding entityNational Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
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Research/evaluation entityMenzies school of health research
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StatusCompleted
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End date2016
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Released to publicYes
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CategoriesSocial and emotional wellbeing