Support empowerment in learning communities
An empowering environment is one where children and young people have a voice, participate and have routine opportunities for leadership.
Fostering empowerment is one of the ways that educators can support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. When children and young people are trusted to exercise autonomy and agency, they’re more likely to build resilience and social and emotional learning (SEL) skills.
This module highlights the importance of empowerment for mental health, wellbeing and SEL. It clarifies how learning communities can be structured in ways that facilitate empowerment and outlines strategies that educators can use to support empowerment in intentional ways and through everyday interactions.
Who is this module for?
This module is for educators who are looking to develop their understanding of empowerment in an education setting and who want specific strategies to create opportunities for child voice, autonomy, agency and participation.
It will prepare you to:
- better understand what empowerment is and what it looks like in a learning community
- create opportunities and interactions that support child empowerment within your classroom or school
- promote autonomy, agency and voice within your learning community
- reflect on empowerment within your learning community and collaborate with other educators and families.
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 Empower will contribute 90 minutes of ACT Teacher Quality Institute (TQI) accredited professional learning addressing standard 4.4.2 Maintain student safety of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
In NSW, completing the Empower module will contribute 90 minutes of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) accredited professional development in the priority area of Student/child Mental health addressing standard descriptor 4.1.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW. Educators can complete modules individually and 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 interplay between empowerment, mental health and wellbeing in education settings
- describe what it means for children to be empowered in an education setting and how this supports their mental health and wellbeing
- create opportunities for children and young people's agency, autonomy, voice and participation in decision-making and leadership
- identify further opportunities to support children and young people's empowerment in your learning community.
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.