Assist families to support and promote mental health and wellbeing
As an educator, you can use a range of strategies to provide support and assist families to foster mental health and wellbeing.
This module highlights the importance of effectively assisting families who express concerns about their child's mental health and wellbeing. It clarifies the role of the family, the service and the educator in these circumstances and provides a framework for working together. If you have concerns about a child or young person's mental health, you can learn more about how to approach families in the Inquire module.
Who is this module for?
This module is for educators wanting to understand their role in assisting families to support mental health and wellbeing. It will prepare you for a range of scenarios, including:
- having supportive conversations and assisting families who have raised concerns about their child
- supporting families to understand the importance of and develop appropriate mental health and wellbeing strategies
- collaborating with families and colleagues to promote mental health and wellbeing and support children experiencing mental health issues and conditions.
Accreditation
This module contributes to the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and ACT Teacher Quality Institute (TQI) accredited professional development hours, addressing the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
In the ACT, completing Assist will contribute one (1) hour of ACT Teacher Quality Institute (TQI) accredited professional learning addressing standard 7.3.2 Engage with the parents/carers of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
In NSW, completing the Assist module will contribute one (1) hour of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) accredited professional development in the priority area of Student/child Mental health addressing standard descriptor 7.3.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW. Educators can complete modules individually and receive accredited hours.
Teachers must complete all modules within this domain (Partner and Assist) to receive accredited hours. All registered teachers in every state and territory must ensure they have added their teacher registration number and state/territory to the My Profile page.
Please see FAQs for more details on the Be You Professional Learning upload process and time frames in which participants can expect their learning to be recorded with their relevant organisation.
Learning outcomes
After completing this module, you will be able to:
- appreciate the importance of supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people through effectively assisting families with their concerns
- understand the roles and responsibilities of the educator in assisting families to support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people
- apply the frameworks and tools to assist families
- feel confident responding to family concerns about the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.
Using the Notepad
If you’re a PC or Mac user, there’s a notepad feature for you to record notes, actions or discussion points for each topic. If you’re sharing a computer with your team, your notes will be available for everyone to view. If you wish to keep your notes private, please save and delete your notes each time you finish your session. There’s more information in the Notepad user guide on the right.
Using this module
The Be You Professional Learning modules are designed to be used flexibly in the way best suited for you and your learning community.
Consider one section at a time within the modules. At the end of each page, you will be prompted to explore additional resources within Be You that relate to the content. It is suggested that you complete one module at a time and use these prompts to identify future opportunities for learning.
You will be prompted to take breaks throughout; this can aid your learning and retention of the content.
You can further your learning by using the reflection questions provided throughout the module. Use these questions in ways that suit your learning community’s ways of working and broader professional development. There are also resources, such as the Be You Action Plan and Be You Actions Catalogue, that can be used to further facilitate these discussions.