Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader

**Overview**:
**Work Type**:Fixed-term - Part-time

**Salary**: Salary not specified

**Grade**:Classroom Teacher - Range 2

**Occupation**:Health and allied health

**Location**:Melbourne - Southern suburbs

**Reference**:1490002

**Location Profile**:

- Officer Specialist School is a purpose-built facility servicing the needs of students aged between 5-18, with mild to severe intellectual and associated disabilities in the shires of Cardinia and Casey; two of the fastest growing municipalities in Melbourne. The school opened in 2014 and the student population has increased rapidly each year, requiring the recruitment of new staff and additions to our buildings and facilities. There are two departments at the school, Primary and Secondary, and these include classrooms, visual and performance arts spaces, food technology kitchens for both departments (including the student run Shivering Chicken Café), multipurpose spaces and extensive therapy spaces. Areas for social gathering are also featured. With continued growth we now have a number of modular buildings including a Performing Arts Hub, Sensory Motor Room, Sustainability Hub and an Out of School Hours Pilot Program. The school has just opened two newly established sensory playgrounds.
- School staff work in transdisciplinary teams that include teaching staff, allied health practitioners and education support staff to cater for the diverse range of student abilities and needs. Our teaming approach also provides opportunities for staff to learn from one another and share expertise.
- Officer Specialist School aims to create reflective and independent learners for life through a learning community that provides a challenging and secure environment responsive to individual learning needs. We believe that effective learning occurs when outstanding and innovative teaching staff provide a variety of tasks that actively engage students who are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. The expectation is that students will be successful and enthusiastic learners capable of building positive relationships.
- Officer Specialist School believes that every child can and will learn in an environment of dignity and respect. It is the role of the school and its community to build on a child's strengths and talents to ensure that each child reaches their full potential.
- The school community has a commitment to ensuring that our students are offered a high quality education enhanced by a caring and supportive environment. Parents and members of the community at large are welcomed to the school and encouraged to participate in a range of activities and programs, including a very active Parents and Friends Association. Much emphasis is placed on educational opportunities, inviting the community to be involved to a greater extent in the school, and establishing the school as a focal point of the community. We value our family friendly culture.
- School values: Safe, Respectful, Friendly, Responsible

**Selection Criteria**:

- SC1 'Content of teaching and learning'. Demonstrated ability to inform and influence the work of others involved in the engagement, mental health, wellbeing or learning of children and young people.
- SC2 'Teaching practice'. Demonstrated ability to input into the development, implementation and evaluation of processes and strategies relating to mental health, wellbeing or learning.
- SC3 'Assessment and reporting of student learning'. Demonstrated ability to support a student's mental health, wellbeing or learning by developing and maintaining connection with external services.
- SC4 'Interaction with the school community'. Demonstrated high level interpersonal skills and communication skills. Demonstrated high level of capability to establish and maintain collaborative relationships with students, parents, other employees and the broader school community to focus on student learning, wellbeing and engagement.
- SC5 'Professional requirements'. Demonstrated ability to influence and negotiate by gaining buy-in and ownership for ideas, gaining agreement to proposals, or involving experts or other third parties to strengthen a case.

**Role**:

- The Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System highlighted that primary schools provide opportunities to identify children with mental health and wellbeing challenges, who can then be referred to treatment, care and support.
- The Mental Health in Primary Schools initiative is being expanded to every government and low-fee non-government primary school in Victoria. Scaling up across the state from 2023, by 2026 every primary school will be able to employ a Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader to implement a whole-school approach to wellbeing.
- The Department of Education has been piloting the Mental Health in Primary Schools initiative in Victorian schools since 2020 in partnership with the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbo