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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-16 Daily Xml
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ADELAIDE WELLBEING INSTITUTE

In reply to the Hon. R.I. LUCAS (21 March 2013).

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations): The Premier has been advised of the following:

1. No wellbeing strategy has been established. There is no 'pilot program between the Department for Education and Child Development (DECD) and the University of Adelaide involving online measurement tools'.

There has also been no 'development of a research unit delivering the middle year's development index' within DECD.

The commitment by DECD to the measurement of children's wellbeing commenced prior to the Seligman residency. The initial trialling of the Middle Years Development Instrument, in Australia developed by the University of British Columbia is been undertaken collaboratively between South Australia and Western Australia.

A total of $34,746 has been spent developing an online data collection module and purchasing the Middle Years Development Instrument licence ($5,000). All expenditure has been from within existing DECD budgets.

The Seligman Residency was 47 per cent funded by private sector partners including St Peter's College, PricewaterhouseCoopers, MindMatters, the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia, Flinders University and the Australian Psychological Society.

2. DECD commenced work on a wellbeing initiative in 2005 and a Learner Wellbeing Framework was released in 2007. There has been neither specific work on wellbeing curricula in recent years nor any 'investigation building upon the work of the UK economist, Lord Richard Layard.'

3. Funding for Mt Barker High School and feeder primary schools to date has been $295,000 across two financial years:

National partnership funds (federal government investment) $45,000 to establish governance arrangements across the Heysen Cluster Schools to improve student wellbeing.

$150,000 from DECD to enable personnel from across educational settings and health to participate in PENN Resiliency Training in July 2012 and to release the Deputy Principal to oversee a cluster governance framework and community engagement strategy.

$100,000 from DECD has been committed with the expectation the school will deliver a conceptual framework and processes that other localities can use, a collaborative model that enable clusters of schools and local agencies to work together to improve developmental outcomes for young people, professional learning approaches and programs drawing on positive psychology principles and evidence demonstrating improvement in wellbeing.

St Peters College Adelaide were also involved in the residency and hosted two fully subscribed public events with Dr Seligman on their campus. The school has made wellbeing and positive education a fundamental part of its strategic plan with a 3-5 year implementation window and a commitment to an evidence-based approach. They are already publishing globally on their progress.

4. The Science of the Imagination retreat and related public lectures were fully funded through sponsorship and private philanthropy.

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