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There may be nothing more important in a child's life than a positive and stable relationship with a caring adult. For students, a positive connection to at least one school adult - whether a teacher, counselor, sports coach, or other school staff member - can have tremendous benefits that include reduced bullying, lower drop-out rates, and improved social-emotional capacities.

Rather than leave these connections to chance, relationship mapping invests time in making sure that every student is known by at least one adult.

Using this strategy, school staff identify youth who do not currently have positive connections with school adults during a private meeting. Those students are then paired with a supportive adult mentor within the school. Throughout the year, mentors support each other through the successes and challenges of building relationships with students, and school administrators routinely communicate with staff to determine how well the process is going. At the end of the year, the staff convenes to talk about how their efforts may have positively affected students. Adults may also choose to pay particular attention to "at risk" students as these connections may be particularly important for students who are having a hard time at home or in school.

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Relationship Mapping Strategy | Making Caring Common - Making Caring Common

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Use this online version of our popular Relationship Mapping Strategy for your school, community organization, or religious group to help ensure that everyone has a strong connection to someone else during challenging times.

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Link to the slides from presentation

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Design for Wellbeing - IB Conference Adelaide 2023

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Please share products and add comments below

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Please share products and add comments below

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Guiding Statements - Wellbeing and Learning Principles

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UWCSEA aspires to develop a culture of care and wellbeing known as Wellbeing Principles, for life-long learning experiences for students, staff and parents

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Used at East for HS Climate Survey

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School Wellbeing Surveys Online | AWE | Assessing Wellbeing in Education

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Why only measure academic success? Insight into wellbeing empowers schools to make changes that lead to more flourishing school communities, which leads to better academic and workplace success. AWE provides an easy way for schools to measure their wellbeing over time (staff, students, parents), and assess the effectiveness of wellbeing initiatives.

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2. Student Wellbeing Interventions

3. Meaning

Intervention Overview

For this activity, students will write a gratitude letter to someone who has made an impact in their life, such as a parent, teacher, coach or friend. After writing a letter and reflecting on why they are grateful for this person, students are then encouraged to visit this person and share their letter with them. Dr. Martin Selgiman and colleagues (2005) assessed the impact of this intervention on adult wellbeing and found that it significantly increased participants' happiness and decreased depressive symptoms significantly for up to a month following the intervention. Since this initial study, researchers have begun testing the effectiveness of gratitude interventions, such as the gratitude letter and visit in schools. Students who participated in these studies reported increased levels of positive emotions, greater life satisfaction, and greater motivation (Froh et al., 2009; Armenta et al., 2020). You may wish to repeat this activity throughout the school year for it to have maximum effectiveness.

Intervention Guide

Grade Level:

Upper elementary - 12th

Materials:

Paper, writing utensil

Duration:

10-15 minutes per day, for 2 weeks. Repeat as desired.

Implementation:

1. Have students think of someone who has made an impact in their life and who they would like to thank. Students need to choose someone they are able to visit or call.

2. Spend a few minutes each day, for up to two weeks, having students compose a gratitude letter to their chosen person.

3. Have students plan a visit or a phone call with their chosen person for the last day of the exercise.

4. Students will visit or call their chosen person outside of class to deliver the letter and are encouraged to read it out loud to them.

Does it work?

One gratitude intervention completed at a parochial school asked 89 students (8-19 years old) to "Choose one person you could meet individually for a face-to-face meeting in the next week. Your task is to write a gratitude letter (a letter of thanks) to this individual and deliver it in person" (Froh, Kashdan, Ozimkowski & Miller, 2009, p. 414). Students worked on their letters for two weeks during 10-15 minutes of class time each day and delivered them before the last Friday of the study. As a result of this intervention, children and adolescents with low positive emotions reported more gratitude and positive emotion for up to two months following the intervention(Froh, Kashdan, Ozimkowski & Miller, 2009, p. 417).

In a recent study, Armenta and colleagues (2020) ninth and tenth grade students participated in a month-long gratitude intervention and spent 10 minutes each week writing letters to people they appreciated. Students completed surveys each week and at a 3-month follow-up to assess the impact of the gratitude intervention on life satisfaction, motivation, connectedness, humility, indebtedness, and elevation (an uplifting feeling of positive emotions). Most students reported that the activity increased their positive emotions and feelings of connectedness, both during the intervention and continuing to the 3-month follow up (Armenta et al., 2020).

References:

Armenta, C. N., Fritz, M. M., Walsh, L. C., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2020). Satisfied yet striving: Gratitude fosters life satisfaction and improvement motivation in youth. Emotion. Advance online publication. https://edtechbooks.org/-nVo

Froh, J. J., Kashdan, T. B., Ozimkowski, K. M., & Miller, N. (2009). Who benefits the most from a gratitude intervention in children and adolescents? Examining positive affect as a moderator. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(5), 408-422. https://edtechbooks.org/-TCZF

Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5), 410-421. https://edtechbooks.org/-fZS

CC BY-NC: This work is released under a CC BY-NC license, which means that you are free to do with it as you please as long as you (1) properly attribute it and (2) do not use it for commercial gain.

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Student Wellbeing Interventions Meaning For this activity, students will write a gratitude letter to someone who has made an impact in their life, such as a parent, teacher, coach or friend. After writing a letter and reflecting on why they are grateful for this person, students are then encouraged to visit this person and share their letter with them.

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Norms of Collaboration - Thinking Collaborative

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Norms of Collaboration - Thinking Collaborative

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At The Friends’ School our work is strongly focused on community- our purpose and concerns share values that are not just seen but felt and lived.

Quaker values hold us in purpose : simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equity and Earthcare- they resonate well with Kurt Hahn’s philosophy
There’s a sense of connectedness to shared purpose and community. Right now (10am) at our school the whole school community (1300 students) are experiencing a shared gathering on our outdoor green with the focus on belonging and harmony. This experience of being together and gathering is central practice at Quaker schools.

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Writing our own survey in forms. Also looking at outside providers eg Bloum 

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Writing our own survey in forms. Also looking at outside providers eg Bloum 

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PASS survey from GL assessments annually

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Integration of ATL affective skills such as
mindfulness and empathy into HS classrooms.

Development of a school-wide ATL statement which links ATLs to wellbeing / serves as a rationale / philosophical basis for ATLs as a well-being tool

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About to implement PASS from GL Education. Have used the Wellbeing Profiler from Uni of Melb. .

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Student, parent & staff surveys externally out sourced with results shared to determine new directions. Academic & wellbeing alert function for staff to flag concerns that goes to counsellors & pastoral care leaders

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Student, parent & staff surveys externally out sourced with results shared to determine new directions. Academic & wellbeing alert function for staff to flag concerns that goes to counsellors & pastoral care leaders

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PB4L and shared values developed through consultation with staff and students 

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PB4L and shared values developed through consultation with staff and students 

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Discussion with students how to apply values in their setting e.g a particular task
School camps and outdoor activities to cement relationships

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Survey and data collection

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In-house survey questions

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Ensure all students are known and have a connection with at least one teacher. 

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Ensure all students are known and have a connection with at least one teacher. 

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Victorian State Government Student Attitudes to school survey 

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Victorian State Government Student Attitudes to school survey 

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One cohesive foundational philosophical pedagogy that translates to daily practices with students (shared verse, ways of connecting with and seeing students, reflective way of being in teachers) that puts this concern as a fundamental priorty

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One cohesive foundational philosophical pedagogy that translates to daily practices with students (shared verse, ways of connecting with and seeing students, reflective way of being in teachers) that puts this concern as a fundamental priorty

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Annual survey.

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Buddy system for new students who enter the school

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House system where students are grouped… points are achieved & the champion house recognised

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Be You survey questions in Forms end term 1 and mid term 4. Data to teachers at cohort, class and individual level. Focus groups with students and parents to have dialogue around concerns.

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Student focus groups - we have a wellbeing group who meet regularly with a staff lead and both feedback and run a sessions with staff and students

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Each student creates their own rock that they paint. This is added to the rock garden that gives students their sense of belonging.

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Buddy system for new students.
Dialogue between teachers, coaches and boarding staff once a term. And dialogue with parents, staff and students 2x a year.
Each student has a teacher-mentor.
Student-led well-being programmes - doing up gratitude boards

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We use PASS. We have reshuffled our daily timetable to allow for a “flex” period in homeroom groups, which is used for a variety of things, including a revised PSHE program. However, it has been identified that our program needs further input from students in order to better align with student needs.

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We organized teacher community of SEL and implement SEL with curriculum.

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We organized teacher community of SEL and implement SEL with curriculum.

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Vertical pastoral structures build belonging across age groups

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Vertical pastoral structures build belonging across age groups

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Using a commercially bought survey.  ACER SEW survey.

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Regular communication across academic, pastoral and residential to identify and support student needs. Includes weekly review of students, Kids' Talks, student surveys, Grade Level meetings, etc.

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Regular Town hall meetings for students to air their views

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Resilience Project Survey

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Student lead groups to focus on student determined needs 

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Student lead groups to focus on student determined needs 