Designed by award winning and internationally acclaimed psychology researcher, Professor Lea Waters, AM, PhD, Visible Wellbeing™ (VWB) combines the science of wellbeing with the science of learning to achieve the three key goals of:
- helping students and staff to more clearly see their own and other’s wellbeing using VWB practices;
- helping students and staff more systematically build wellbeing using the SEARCH framework;
- facilitating learning through the visible wellbeing classroom process.
Visible Wellbeing is the culmination of 20 years of high-impact research in psychology and education conducted and published by Professor Lea Waters.
At the core of VWB is the SEARCH framework, developed by Professor Waters from her large scale bibliometric analysis of over 18,000 journal articles.
The SEARCH framework is delivered by Lea and her team of trained facilitators to bring wellbeing to life in practical and accessible ways in all classes and across co-curricula. The VWB techniques help teachers to use the learning process itself as a delivery mechanism to build student wellbeing.
VWB is not a set curriculum, it is a flexible approach which can be applied across any subject area, and in all contexts – early learning, primary, secondary, and in the staff room. With the VWB approach, academic learning and wellbeing are truly integrated.
VWB aims to help everyone thrive at school, and the training and techniques are equally relevant to staff - teaching and non-teaching - as they are to students as a way to build a culture of wellbeing across the entire school.
The SEARCH framework which underpins the Visible Wellbeing Approach.
Visible Wellbeing has been independently reviewed and is listed in the Be You Programs Directory. It meets the minimum evidence requirements set by Be You and has been awarded a rating for evidence and implementation.
There are different ways to introduce the Visible Wellbeing approach into your school, depending on where you are in your wellbeing journey and the resources you have available.
The Visible Wellbeing Partnership and VWB Program provide a whole school approach to embed wellbeing at the foundations of a school, while the Teacher PD Sessions and Online Teacher Course cater for up-skilling individuals or groups of teachers on how they can bring wellbeing into their classrooms.
A whole school approach to wellbeing that focuses on the entire school community.
The partnership typically runs over a two year period and is structured around the full SEARCH framework.
VWB PROGRAM
~Funded for Victorian State Schools
As endorsed on the School Mental Health Menu, the VWB Program allows Government schools within Victoria to access VWB training to support the wellbeing of the whole school community.
A flexible alternative to the partnership with training delivered as a combination of webinars and on-demand online learning.
Sessions are structured around the SEARCH framework.
Introduce the key ideas and concepts of the Visible Wellbeing approach to your faculty/staff. Learn about the evidence base behind the SEARCH framework and see the impact of VWB on schools across the world.
Suited to individual teachers wanting certification on the SEARCH pathways with practical examples for their classrooms.
A comprehensive approach to positive education in an on-demand, online format.
A four module program that covers: Introduction to Visible Wellbeing, Strengths, Emotional Management and Relationships.
Group teacher training delivered virtually or live.
“Visible Wellbeing is a fantastic approach to ensure that our efforts at creating a successful school climate where every student feels safe, secure and supported are actually working.
More than that, Visible Wellbeing gives us a whole school approach with a framework, drawn on Lea’s vast experience, to leverage our student’s strengths, providing data and validity to a process enabling our school to nurture each of our students to flourish.
In short – it works, well!”
- Courtney Howard, Principal, Cambridge Primary School, TAS
Visible Wellbeing is a whole-school, evidence-based program as featured on the Victorian Department of Education and Training’s Schools Mental Health Fund Menu.
Based on the science of Positive Psychology, Visible Wellbeing aligns with FISO 2.0 to provide both staff and students with a toolkit of strategies to support wellbeing and buffer against mental illness.
VWB creates a unified and consistent approach to wellbeing across the whole school. The program trains all school staff (teaching and non-teaching) in a suite of mental health strategies that builds their capacity to implement wellbeing practices into daily life at school so as to:
Foster student agency.
Provide students and staff with coping mechanisms to deal with the strains and stressors of life.
Help students and staff manage emotions.
Strengthen relationships and enhance communicate skills.
Build literacy about strengths, gratitude and mindfulness
Create a common language around wellbeing, integrating practices across all areas of the school.
Your school will gain an evidence-based framework, tools to measure the wellbeing of students and staff, resources to print and use with students, 250+ activities tailored to all age groups from K-12, wellbeing guides for periods of remote learning including 120+ wellbeing activities that can delivered in virtual classrooms, newsletter excerpts for parents, a teaching rubric and on-demand orientation modules for new staff.
Visible Wellbeing has proudly been working with Australian State schools since 2015.
“Armed with ample resources and engaging presentations from Professor Lea Waters in the SEARCH course our school found practical and accessible ways to bring wellbeing to life in a challenging online environment.
Putting the SEARCH Framework at the centre of key decisions and innovations supported our school community to discover alternative ways of thriving, that will continue to support better educational outcomes long after we've returned to a 'COVID normal' school life."
- Simon McIntosh, Assistant Principal, Yarra Primary School
Becoming a Visible Wellbeing (VWB) Partner school is an investment in the future wellbeing of your entire school community. Professor Lea Waters and her team will work closely with your school to help you to measure and embed Visible Wellbeing practices across all areas of the school.
The partnership will run for a two year period to work deep within the culture of a school. During that time we provide staff training, leadership and team coaching, measurement tools, student lessons, downloadable resources, online portal access and a parent night to ensure your school has all the tools required to make the partnership a success.
Some schools also decide to combine resources and work as a cluster to support each other along their Visible Wellbeing™ journey, we are happy to discuss how this option could work for your community as well.
"Lea's approach is very real - she was so intuitive with her answers it was like having her in the same room. We are all loving learning new concepts and know that her online presentations are greatly impacting our teaching capacity."
- Vanessa Murphy, Principal, Royal North Shore Hospital School, NSW
The Visible Wellbeing Staff PD workshops provide teaching staff with ready to implement strategies to enhance the wellbeing of their students in class. The workshops each run for half a day and provide an introduction to positive education before zooming in on three of the SEARCH pathways - Strengths, Emotional Management and Relationships. These modules are specifically designed for teachers to integrate wellbeing into their classroom environment.
Each of the four modules can be run independently, or as a whole, and are complemented by workbooks, an Activities Manual, online access to the four modules for a year after the training, and downloadable certificates of completion.
"We have moved from having a handful of staff interested in and incorporating strengths into the work that they do with students to having a much larger cross-section of our staff using strengths. To say that the presentations sparked a strengths movement in our school would be an understatement!
This was absolutely the boost we needed to move our school further ahead in the field of positive education."
- Kirsten Johnson, Associate Director of Guidance, Lakefield College School, Canada
Professor Lea Waters AM, PhD brings decades of her research to life in this interactive, on-demand course. Learn about key concepts from the fields of positive psychology and education and how you can utilise the ideas to support the wellbeing of students, your colleagues and yourself.
Professor Waters guides you through the SEARCH framework’s 6 pathways to wellbeing: Strengths, Emotional Management, Attention & Awareness, Relationships, Coping and Habits & Goals.
As you progress through each module you will have the opportunity to learn the science behind each pathway and work through exercises to help you apply strategies for wellbeing in your classroom that integrate with academic learning.
Learn at your own pace, in your own time - or enrol with a group of colleagues and complete the journey together. Join over 8,000 teachers across the globe and obtain your Teacher Certificate in Visible Wellbeing.
"The course was informative, evidence-based, interactive, and provided practical resources for use in the classroom and school. I would definitely recommend this course to everyone."
- Richelle Pearce, Head of Middle School, Trinity College North, SA
Go behind the scenes to see what Visible Wellbeing looks like at different schools all around the world…
“We’re not interested in a band aid approach or simply tacking on another programme that ticks the wellbeing box. We’re investing in this because we don’t want our students and staff to be just ok, coping or even doing well.
We want them to learn how to thrive now and throughout their lives.”
- Narelle Umbers, Principal, Samuel Marsden Collegiate School, New Zealand
Schools who have competed the VWB Partnership (VWB Partner Schools) or VWB Remote Training (VWB Member Schools) are accredited as part of the Visible Wellbeing Alliance. The Alliance is an international network of schools actively adopting a whole school Visible Wellbeing approach to support the wellbeing of the students, teachers and staff within their school community.
“We have created a sense of positivity through the more difficult moments in the education calendar.
The acknowledgement of our positive achievements and the use of a shared, strength based language is creating a much more resilient educational environment within the school.”
- Brian Drewe, Principal, Scone High School, NSW
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"Suddenly, we are not necessarily planning for and talking about Wellbeing,
but it is actually becoming part of how we live and teach."
- Mark Beech, Principal, Discovery College, Hong Kong
