Photos taken by Nicole Roache, Marketing Manager, on a morning walk during the College’s ‘One Foot Forward’ challenge.
Wellbeing: Focusing inward, Focusing outward. JOAN GILL, DIRECTOR OF STUDENT WELLBEING PROGRAMS
The two fundamentals of strong mental health are personal autonomy and social connection. Personal autonomy is best summed up as our individual capacity to attend to, and build up, our own sense of wellbeing. Of course teachers, counsellors, parents, friends, family and peers all play a role in nurturing positive mental health in our young people.
10 Ad Astra Issue No 141
Giving back to our community Despite lockdowns, or indeed because of the lockdowns, Senior School students were keen to demonstrate that sense of concern for others through efforts to support those considered less privileged. Mrs Deb Hynes, Head of Morrison House writes: Chase Probert and Reuben High (Morrison House captains) were discussing with me the challenges of lockdown late one Friday afternoon. We then started chatting about how fortunate we were with the support of school, our safe homes we live in and our ability to access resources and services. We then thought we should encourage the House to be grateful for the small things and to put $1 aside
each week for five weeks and to donate to Headspace Geelong, an organisation that supports youth mental health. We raised $2200. Similarly, The Geelong College community signed up for One Foot Forward to raise funds for the Black Dog Institute to help fund their research into mental health. The goal of raising $5000 was reached even before the month had started. The final amount raised exceeded $8800. The College Chaplains launched the annual Uniting Care hampers, asking all students across the three campuses to donate grocery items to be distributed to those in need as Christmas approaches. Giving money and grocery items are relatively small gestures,
