In highlighting the need for a greatly enhanced and appropriately resourced emphasis on young people’s mental health and positive social and emotional development, the Australian Government rightly recognises the importance not only of early identification of potential risk factors – but also and at least as importantly, putting in place processes to enhance the positive environments and protective factors which support young people’s building of resilience, well-being, community engagement, positive outlook and a sense of optimism for the future.

In making these announcements, both the Prime Minister and the Health Minister have specifically noted the vitally important role of teachers and parents – a role that as much about building a positive and supportive developmental environment for young people as about supporting those at risk. Prevention from the early stages being much better and more cost-effective than remediation further down the track.

That this provides the essential underpinning to enable the building of schools as integrated learning communities and to enable young people to achieve their full potential in all aspects of their learning and personal development is well understood by the national parent bodies – not only through the extensive and corroborative body of research from overseas over the past thirty years and more – but also by their own action research in some hundreds of school communities in all parts of Australia over the past decade.

The Australian Government identified the need for an effective parent and family led program drawing on these understandings – and in 2002 commissioned the national parent organisations to develop such a program building upon the learnings from our previous and current additional research – validating every step of the program’s development across a range of school communities.

That program was launched in 2003 as “Families Matter: families & schools working together to ensure the emotional well-being of young people” – and was enthusiastically taken up by some 200 schools and their communities across the country.

The program ran effectively and successfully until 2006: when the then government and department decided – against all the evidence of an overwhelmingly positive external evaluation report and its recommendations for further continuance and embedding of the program – and despite the ongoing protests of those school communities that had proven the value and efficacy of this community partnership-building initiative – not to renew the funding arrangements beyond 2006.

Findings from the external evaluation included in particular:

“The experience of the program by school communities was uniformly favourable and for the same main reasons we had heard before. These are important one and bear re-stating.

• Families Matter gives parents a means of coming together and discussing issues about the raising and educating of children in a way that adds to their own coping and parenting skills. It does this, moreover, by allowing parents to decide what it is they want to talk about, and how they want to talk about it.
• Families Matter creates a vehicle for partnerships between families and schools. It is prized by principals and school staff for this quality.
• Families Matter gives some parents new self-confidence and contributes to their personal development.

“…These observations have led us to think that it might be useful to think about asking Families Matter schools to hold an annual “refresher” so that each generation of new parents has an opportunity to be introduced to the Families Matter concepts.

“Families Matter provides a vehicle for much good work. It helps to inform parents about important concepts such as resilience, and helps them articulate challenges and find solutions.

Thus equipped, parents are enabled to act. It is like dropping a pebble in a pond. There is no telling what, on some far embankment, those ripples might touch: they take on a life of their own. At the same time, the value of the originating force should not be forgotten. The concepts presented in the materials are informative, enduring and empowering. “

The Australian Council of State School Organisations, and the Australian Parents Council, who jointly developed, ran and validated the effectiveness of “Families Matter” initiative to achieve parents and teachers working together to support young people’s resilience, well-being and engagement in strong sustaining networked communities, are firmly of the view that a renewal of funding for this proven effective program should be a central element in the Government’s strategies for schools and their communities.

EDITORIAL

Towards a more inclusive society, developing sustainably

Now that a date has been set for the vitally important federal election on Saturday 21 August 2010, the thoughts of every parent naturally focus on what the issues, outcomes and policy initiatives will mean for the learning and personal development of their children, how these will equip them more effectively for a fulfilling life in terms of the needs and dynamics of the 21^st century as it unrolls through the years ahead, and what sort of society and world this next generation will inherit.

Every parent wants the best possible outcomes for their children – and is both keen and anxious about how to help schools provide their children with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and aspirations that will equip them for the journey ahead and enable them to pursue their choices and opportunities through the rapidly changing times and context of the modern world.

Every parent responds positively and intuitively to the nature of commitment given by the Education Minister of the previous government: “We want to make sure that every student – in every community – can achieve their potential”.  That must be an essential driving goal and purpose for any incoming administration.

Parents endorse as self-evident truths the essence of the “Melbourne Declaration on the Educational Goals for Young Australians”.  We value the central role of education in building a democratic, equitable and just society; a society that is cohesive, culturally diverse – and sustainable.  We appreciate that our schools play a vital role in promoting the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and well-being of young Australians, and in ensuring the nation’s ongoing economic prosperity and social cohesion. We understand that this is a shared responsibility with parents, carers, the family environment, the community, business and other service providers.

We expect:

• A central leading emphasis on the transformative change of education and our schools system seamlessly through from the critical foundation years of early childhood through primary and secondary through a range of avenues of tertiary learning and into the trades and professions of the modern world, equipping all young people to maximise their potential and maintain the learning skills, attitudes and values to lead fulfilling lives in a changing society and an increasingly globalised world – with the appropriate range of learning and development opportunities to be provided for every child in every school community in all parts of the country.
• An inclusive approach to supporting the learning and development of children with a disability or special needs, including adverse socio-economic circumstances or other factors affecting full and successful participation – together with meeting the opportunity needs of those who are gifted and talented.
• A supportive focus on mental health, resilience and well-being to enable all young people to participate as effective learners with a positive outlook and engagement with their community, together with complementary support for their physical health and development.
• A highly skilled, highly qualified and highly regarded professional workforce in our schools as teachers and leaders, inspired and sustained collegiately by their own passion for learning and teaching and in turn inspiring young people with a love of learning and the skills and attributes and motivations of self-directing life-long learners and the values and qualities to operate effectively as members of a cohesive and inclusive society.

Elements of work in progress that must continue and further develop include:

• Development and implementation of a rich, creative and coherent National Curriculum of recognised world standing reflecting and promoting best professional practice
• National review of schools funding and the development of an effective equitable national funding and resourcing model which promotes and supports the achievement by all schools of the objectives of the Melbourne Declaration
• Further development and implementation of greater and more effective school & principal autonomy within the context of enhanced school governance and shared leadership models
• Further support for the building of the teaching profession – to “gain, train, develop and retain – the skilled professionals and teams in the classrooms and in school leadership positions across the country: which necessarily includes more structured and resourced workforce planning in terms of providing the required high levels of subject-specific expertise in every key element of the national curriculum – including the more effective harnessing of the potential of modern technology to build national learning networks and the online “borderless” classroom
• Building the language and associated international literacy skills with a particular (but not exclusive) focus on our own region, building on the minimal “seed funding” and inadequate short term kick-start of the three –year NALSSP, with a longer term horizon, a more extensive and inclusive vision and plan, and the necessary sustainable resources to achieve the outcomes desired and required by the needs of the 21^st century, building on the potential of our multi-linguistic and multicultural society.
• Undertaking a systematic rebuilding of music education in schools progressively from the very earliest years and onwards throughout schooling, to address the needs identified in the 2005 and 2006 reports and to remedy the disgraceful situation these reveal, that some 75% of children in public primary schools have no access to an adequate or appropriate music program in their school (nor do some 20% in non-government primary schools).
• Working towards a sustainable future and a balance of human needs with the biodiversity and capacity of our dry and ancient continent, the pressures on our region, and the maintainable state of the planet, given the mounting challenges – and opportunities – of carbon pollution, climate change and global warming.

The parents of Australia await the related announcements and proposals of the political parties and candidates with keen interest and attention.

ACSSO, 21 July 2010