National Check-in Week 22 May 2023

April 2023

As we become accustomed to our ‘new normal’ and put the difficulties we all faced through the COVID pandemic behind us, the significance of the impact of those years and those that followed is becoming increasingly apparent. Especially the impact on our youth.

Research is only starting to catch up to show that our students are still relearning social skills and carrying the effects of isolation from friends and family, fear of the pandemic, direct losses due to illness or the breakdown of family units due to parental stress. We see that this is manifesting in our youth both in classrooms and at home as increased anxiety and behavioural incidents, lower school attendance rates and relationship issues.

Our first National Check-in Week revealed that 43.1% of students were not in a state ready to learn. Our updated report shows the trends over time for emotional state, readiness to learn and where student wellbeing stands today based on close to 1 million individual check-ins.

The need to understand how our youth feel and provide support has never been more important. Now, more than ever, it is time to connect with our students to learn how they are to support them now and provide the skills they will need to thrive throughout their lives.

The evidence clearly shows that this activity supports emotion regulation, emotional intelligence, academic outcomes and emotional literacy.

For our educators, it is critical that they have the support they need to reduce their workloads and increase quality teaching time. The wellbeing of our educators is at the core of supporting learning communities and we can support our educators with effective tools and actionable information.

This year, springboarding off National Check-in Week, we are on track to conduct more than 2 million check-ins through the Life Skills GO platform. We will look to make the event even bigger to reach more educators, students, officials and decision makers to help bring the needed focus and support to the wellbeing of our youth.

And it all starts with us. Register HERE