Oztry Facilitator feedback
A. L - Student Welfare Counselor, Mill Park Secondary College, Melbourne:
“ In 2005 we plan to run a WhyTry group each school term with Year 9 students. We hope for support from service clubs like Rotary, after a successful pilot in 2004.
In 2004, our students found WhyTry rewarding. Some of the visual analogies, like Climbing Out of the Pot and the Defence Mechanism stuck in the students’ minds. 100% of the students reported they felt WhyTry would change their behavior both at school and at home. Most students felt WhyTry gave them a sense of purpose.”
D. L - Student Welfare Teacher ( Psychologist ), Frankston High School, Victoria:
“ We began implementing the WhyTry Program in 2004 in a number of ways; with a group of ten Year 9 and 10 students whom we will use in 2005 to provide peer support to younger students; with a group of twenty-six Year 8 students and with another group of ‘challenging behavior’ students.
“We are planning to implement WhyTry with the entire Year 7 students, which means with 250 students in 2005. The feedback we have received from students has been extremely positive.
They found that it is a program they can relate to, in that there are so many approaches, being a multi-sensory program with music and experiential activities. WhyTry seemed to have engaged all the students. Each of them being able to relate to one of the different visual analogies or one of the songs or the activities. Each of the students have found that they have benefited in some way, whether it be in regard to their academic ability, their interaction with their peer group or in their family life or just in their daily general approach to life.”
In order to implement WhyTry to our entire Year 7 students we would require funding assistance from Rotary Clubs and other service clubs willing to help us by funding the required student resources and the Certification of more teachers to conduct WhyTry at Frankston High in 2005”
V.B - Integration Coordinator, Kew High School, Melbourne:
“ I really would like to thank the Rotary Club which has sponsored our school for WhyTry. I would like to encourage Rotary and other organizations to support WhyTry because it is so vital and so enriching for all the students”
C.P - Chaplain Kew High School, Melbourne:
“ I just want to say how much our students love WhyTry. It is as if it were the highlight of their week. They would come up in the corridor to ask “ Miss, when is WhyTry ?” and when we said it was the last session they were really disappointed. WhyTry’s been a great program and as I have said. It was also really good for us as staff and to be able to get in there and WhyTry was a great mechanism to facilitate the students talking to us and with each other about issues like peer pressure, family, and things about resilience. We are very grateful for WhyTry and the way it has built up our welfare team in 2004.”
S.M - Student Welfare Coordinator, Kew High School, Melbourne:
“We implemented the WhyTry Program for the first time in 2004. It was a very successful program, especially in terms of the welfare team which consisted of the myself, the Student Welfare Coordinator, our School Chaplain and our Integration Coordinator and Welfare Worker.
As a team WhyTry gave us a broader focus on issues at Year 8 level, which we targeted in 2004. We hope to implement WhyTry next year, 2005, with a slightly different focus. That depends on community involvement as we need support from Rotary and Heinz which we got in 2004.”
J.H - Student Welfare Teacher, Brighton Secondary College, Melbourne:
“ I have been a WhyTry Facilitator with a group of Year 8 students in 2004. I found it a terrific program for the students, giving them a real opportunity to be able to share their feelings and be heard, which I think for a lot of them was the first time they were able to. WhyTry also gave them some terrific strategies to use in their day to day lives.”
J. V - Teacher, Brighton Secondary College, Melbourne:
“ I trailed WhyTry with a group of Year 8 students in 2004. The program was terrific because it facilitated real dialogue to happen within a class of teenagers and for once as a teacher we were armed with resources to help kids actually come to some solutions to their problems together.
We just were not saying, oh dear what do we do with this. We had a whole folder of resources and songs aimed at teenagers, perfect for Year 8 students, as they were able to relate to some of the things they were able to do to make a difference to their lives.”
K.G - Teacher Brighton Secondary College, Melbourne:
“ I am part of the student welfare team. This year we have been using the WhyTry materials within that role on a one-to-one basis. I found WhyTry absolutely fantastic because they students can relate very easily to the diagrams and posters. It gives them ideas and different sorts of solutions to common problems they come up against.”
H.K - Student Welfare Coordinator, Brighton Secondary College, Melbourne:
‘This year, 2004, our Assistant Principal has been behind the program. She surveyed a few of the students. They all independently said they enjoyed the program.
J.S - Copperfield College, School Psychologist:
We trailed WhyTry this year with Year 11 students and a couple of younger ones and found it quite a promising program, especially for students who were at risk of dropping out, those with slightly criminal backgrounds and AHDH presentations. Because WhyTry is multisensory it really engages these students as they look to see how they can be self-directed rather than being other-directed in their lives.”
N.P - Anglicare Youth & Family Services, Wagga Wagga:
“ I have been running the WhyTry Program in two schools. With group of Year 8 girls at Mt Austin High and with a group of boys at Kooringal High. The program went fantastic. We finished this Friday ( December 2004). I have some positive feedback from the students. Simple things like telling me they have been going out less, drinking less or smoking less or completely quitting smoking, things like this. They have had a fantastic time doing the program.”