Introducing the Community
Victor Harbor High School
Victor Harbor High School is a year 7 to 12 school situated in the seaside town of Victor Harbor, South Australia.
Victor Harbor High School is a Department of Education High School whose mission is to support individual learning success; enabling our young people to grow and develop, becoming ready to embrace the challenges and rewards of adult life.
LBI Foundation has partnered with the school community since 2024. This capacity building work has focused on embedding the IMPACT Program as mapped to the needs, context and desired outcomes of the education community.
The capacity building is being personalised to the school and community. The site had a historical commitment to wellbeing, trauma and inclusive practices. The work was focused on consolidating and naming this knowledge and skill base, such that it could be consistently delivered and building upon the strengths and great initiatives already in place. The intent (or outcomes) and actions of this work is summarised below.
The capacity building work is funded by the Department of Education Trauma Aware Schools Initiative (TASI). For further information, click here. The intent (or outcomes) and actions of this work is summarised below.
Intent ('What')
Build a Wellbeing and Trauma Responsive Educational Community
Where Trauma-Aware Practice is a Way of Thinking and Being
Made Practical Through the Following Co-Designed Outcomes
System
To embed a cohesive, intentional, integrated and common approach (across the entire site) to:
- Implement a safe, growth-focused and wellbeing-responsive learning environment.
- Deliver personalised student wellbeing and support services and to meet all students at their individual starting point (including students with trauma needs and context).
- Embed a trauma-responsive, neurodiversity-affirming and inclusive support culture.
Educators
To embed the awareness, skills and mindsets to:
- Intentionally respond (rather than react) to individual student needs (e.g., trauma, growth, learning, developmental) in a relationship focused and personalised manner.
- Grow student capacity through intentionally delivered social-emotional learning, side-by-side coaching, shared Growth Action Planning processes and through both implicit and explicit learning approaches.
- Empower educators to work together in shared intent (including students and families).
Students
To provide students high quality resources and content that is focused on:
- Foundational wellbeing and resilience skills.
- Social-emotional learning competencies and curriculum.
- Meta-cognitive and problem solving.
- How to work side-by-side with others in shared intent.
Actions ('How')
Summary Actions of the Partnership Journey
- Victor Harbor are embedding the IMPACT Program in a manner that is mapped to the needs, context and desired outcomes of their community as funded by the Department for Education Trauma Aware Schools Initiative (TASI).
- Implementation underpinned by the Resilient IMPACT capacity building strategy.
- LBI Foundation Community Lead: David Kelly.
- LBI’s work and the IMPACT Program was introduced to the Wellbeing and Transition Hub (a specialist service affiliated with Victor Harbor High School). For further information, click here.
- LBI supported the staff team to co-design a locally owned wellbeing framework to empower the school to build a wellbeing-and-trauma responsive educational community from ground up. It was made practical through an intentional practice logic model.
- The focus has been on making this framework practical and stick in action through the IMPACT Program. All staff have been IMPACT Trained.
- This has been supported by wrap-around coaching and embedding strategies focused on the “learn-it” to “apply-it”.
- Key staff members and leaders are being identified to be accredited as IMPACT Coaches (or Community Champions).
- Maintenance and extension of embedding strategy, including through implementation coaching.
- Advanced training and embedding of content related to trauma and neurodivergence through the delivery of embedding and deepening modules.
- Local IMPACT Coaches delivering foundational IMPACT content.
Community Story
IMPACT Foundations Training at Victor Harbor High School
LBI Education Lead facilitates IMPACT Foundations Training, capturing the paper plane exercise participants engage in to reflect on side-by-side coaching as a foundational IMPACT concept.
June 2024.
