What is wellbeing?

JESSICA TAYLOR, DIRECTOR OF WELLBEING

When you hear the term ‘wellbeing’, what to mind? Happiness, joy, positivity? Or perhaps you understand wellbeing as broader than just emotions, where wellbeing is all-encompassing. It might include: relationships with loved ones, a connection with nature and environment, and finding meaning and purpose in activities and work. Perhaps your own definition includes growth, accomplishment, and even struggle.

Wellbeing is a complex social phenomenon and a concept that is challenging to define concisely. This is because wellbeing in its most ordinary sense signifies that a person’s life is simply going ‘well’, which can be difficult to measure, and can be demonstrated in a number of interconnected ways.

Predictors of wellbeing include having adequate amounts of: things that are good for a person, things that are of interest to a person, and also ensuring that a person’s basic needs are met. These elements combine to enable one to live a life of quality and wellbeing.

Another term that is often used in this space is ‘flourishing’, which comes from the Latin word, florere, meaning ‘flowering’.

When we ‘flourish’, we are engaged in well-rounded, healthy ongoing development which enables our potential to be achieved - much like a flower in full bloom.

Conditions must be right to enable this state. Our physical, cognitive, emotional, behavioural, social and spiritual needs must be met, and we must experience connection - to others and our environment. Research indicates that wellbeing and learning are inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing. Wellbeing proactively and positively influences student learning and learning outcomes, and success in learning enhances wellbeing.

With this is in mind, we are constantly growing and evolving our approach to wellbeing at the College.

A wider change is currently being driven through a College-wide inquiry aiming to understand and answer the question: ‘What is wellbeing and flourishing at College?’.

But it is important to acknowledge the groundwork which has come before. This includes the development of the Triple ‘R’ framework, which guides curriculum approaches for students to develop social and emotional skills around three key facets: Resilience, Relationships, and Reflection. Through these three lenses, programs are designed and integrated to support students to embrace challenge and overcome setbacks, to maintain positive relationships with self and others, and to learn self-management and self-awareness skills to support decision-making. Furthermore, the Student Wellbeing Framework offers a contextual way to understand that wellbeing is built collaboratively and in connection to relationships, experience, and meaning. Taking the learnings and approaches from this foundational work and situating them within an ever-evolving social and educational landscape, an opportunity presents to reflect upon and reimagine how we understand and approach it.

We are currently undertaking an audit to review and reflect on our programs, policies and approaches to wellbeing across each campus to develop a College-wide strategy.

I will lead a cross-campus Wellbeing Executive, which will further explore aspects of how we teach and measure wellbeing, in addition to how we collectively understand and cultivate it across the College.

We have begun our inquiry with staff and students. Our next steps include focus group learning with students and staff to gain insight into their experiences of wellbeing across the College, as we move closer to the development of an approach and strategy that supports and unites our community as one College.