Dr Lyn O'Grady KidsMatter Interview

Dr Lyn O'Grady KidsMatter Interview

A new website - www.kidsmatter.edu.au - has been launched to help families, primary schools, and early childhood education and care (ECEC) services support children's mental health and wellbeing.

The website has been designed with a specific section for families. It includes free parenting information sheets on more than 40 topics affecting children, including fears and worries, dealing with anger, making friends, starting school and more. The sheets have been developed by mental health experts and are evidence-based.

The website showcases the work of KidsMatter - a mental health and wellbeing framework for primary schools and ECEC services - that research shows has led to significant improvements in children's mental health and wellbeing and educational outcomes.

Former Leader of the Australian Democrats and beyondblue Board Director, Natasha Stott Despoja, is an advocate for KidsMatter and the added support for families.

"KidsMatter is a great initiative that helps children to get off to a great start in life and build resilience," she said.
"KidsMatter's resources are written in a way that engages the reader and gives you the confidence to try the strategies. They've also been developed by mental health experts and are backed by the latest evidence."

Dr Monica Thielking from the Swinburne Institute for Social Research says educators and mental health professionals can also confidently use the KidsMatter resources to help families support their children's mental health and overall development.

"Good mental health is an important ingredient in a thriving and happy learning community, and often frontline staff and mental health workers are supporting students who have the most complex of mental health needs," she said.

"They are fortunate to be able to draw on the resources that KidsMatter provides to build the capacity of schools and families to support the social and emotional wellbeing of all children."

More than 850 primary schools and 100 ECEC services around the country are involved with KidsMatter.

Two of Rachel Saliba's three young children attend St Mark's Catholic Parish Primary School in Fawkner, Victoria, which has been involved in KidsMatter Primary since 2010. Rachel says that teaching social and emotional learning in schools and ECEC services can be a new way of thinking for some but, through KidsMatter, it has translated into extra support for their culturally-diverse parenting community.

"When your children are born, you have resources available for advice, such as the local maternal health nurse. When they start school, you tend to rely on friends, family and teachers for advice. But there may be some people without any friends or family support, and it can be difficult for them to know where to go," she said.

"If I need information about my kids' wellbeing, I go to the KidsMatter website first. As soon as I tell others about KidsMatter they are immediately interested in what our school is doing and I refer them to the website too. The information sheets are easy to read and don't preach at you or tell parents what to do. They provide friendly and practical advice."

KidsMatter is effective because it bridges a child's home and education settings, and builds on the work parents and carers do already to promote good mental health and wellbeing.

"Families can take enormous comfort knowing that developing children's life skills and overall wellbeing is continuing while they're outside of the home," Ms Stott Despoja said.

For more information, see: www.kidsmatter.edu.au
For parenting information sheets, see: www.kidsmatter.edu.au/families

Dr Lyn O'Grady KidsMatter Interview

Question: What is the KidsMatter website and program?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: KidsMatter is a national initiative in primary schools and the early childhood care settings that looks at children's mental health. The initiative promotes positive mental health, preventing difficulties and intervening quite early if there are some mental health difficulties that are starting to be recognised. KidsMatter has been around since 2007 where an evaluation showed really positive results and since then it has been in various stages of roll out.


Question: What role do you play for KidsMatter?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: I am the National Project Manager of KidsMatter Primary and the Australian Psychological Society.


Question: What research encouraged the development of KidsMatter?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: There was national research undertaken in 2000 that looked at children's mental health in Australia which showed that 1 in 7 primary school aged children do experience difficulties with their mental health and of those children 1 in 4 weren't receiving any kind of professional assessment or support which raised concern and the need for something to be done, at a national level to support children.


Question: How did you decide which topics needed to be included on the KidsMatter website?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: After the research triggered the Commonwealth Government the Australian Psychological Society, Principal Australia Institute, Beyond Blue and the Department of Health and Ageing worked together in regards to fundraising and the concerns that needed support. Some of the support needed was to do with looking at schools and the early childhood setting as a place where children feel that they belong and feel connected; along with the social and emotional development of children in terms of development during childhood and into adolescence.

We also recognised that parents are often turning to schools and the early childhood setting for advice and support which helped determine some of the information provided. When we got to the area of children's mental health difficulties it was recognised that having up to date evidence based resources around the difficulties that people are dealing with would be very helpful.


Question: Who was the KidsMatter website developed for?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: The topics featured on the KidsMatter are for parents, carers and teachers. The work that happens in KidsMatter is very much with the adults in children's lives as we know that the support that children need comes from teachers and family. KidsMatter really targets parents and teachers because we know how important they are in a young person's life.

In each of the different components there are a range of different topics; some of them are to do with behaviour such as 'Helping Children Make Friends', 'Helping Children Manage Anger', 'Learning to Cope when Worried' and there is information around bullying and family relationships.

There is a whole range of different information and the idea is that schools and early childhood settings can use this information, when parents come to them as we know parents often seek out teachers for information. Teachers can provide parents with information from KidsMatter or parents can access the information too.


Question: What else can you tell us about the parenting information sheets?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: Yes there are a range of different topics and they are all available to parents through the schools that are involved in KidsMatter or through the family website. All of the information on the sheets is very accurate and based on research. There are a number of topics including behaviours that arise, discipline, family functioning and also things that are happening at school. We really promote that parent and carers communicate well with the schools and schools need to be really mindful of that and work hard to involve parents and make them feel welcome at the school.


Question: Do you have any evidence as to how KidsMatter has helped kids, so far?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: We certainly get some good feedback from schools and we have conducted surveys in the past in regards to the information sheets and we've been told they're very helpful. We've also heard from Psychologists who support families inside and outside of the schools who also use the devices because they're up-to-date with strong evidence behind them and very user friendly because they are colourful and contain a lot of information. We have received lots of feedback from schools who like to use the information including sending the sheets home, to parents, in newsletters. Some schools have even created a parents section in the school library and combined the sheets with books on the same topic available in the library.

Through our website there are opportunities for people to comment or provide feedback and we receive a lot of feedback as to how useful the resources are.


Question: What tips can you provide to help children deal with anger?

Dr Lyn O'Grady: Anger can occur for a whole lot of different reasons and our advice to parents who are supporting children is to try and understand what is going on with anger. Anger is a really good sign that something is not right and carers need to help the child express what is going on and help them calm down which is really important. Some children calm down quite quickly and some children take a while to get angry whereas others get angry, quite quickly.

It's about helping children manage and it's important to provide them with information regarding the self-management of their strong feelings. It is also important to look at what's underneath the anger to help children stop being angry as there are a variety of different reasons and we can help them find the words to express what they're feeling and what may be sitting underneath the meaning of that anger. Then try to catch that a little bit earlier rather than waiting until it becomes a full-blown tantrum or unsafe.

We encourage schools and parents to help children develop their language and take the time to listen so that children feel that they can express their concerns and overtime they may not get to that angry point because they have support at the early stages.