Mental Health Fund and Menu

4. Planning use of the Schools Mental Health Fund

School Mental Health Planning Tool

The School Mental Health Planning Tool (the Tool) is designed to help schools better understand the mental health and wellbeing needs of their school and to select programs, staff and resources from the Schools Mental Health Menu (the Menu) that can improve mental health and wellbeing outcomes for students. The Tool provides a framework to simplify schools’ decision-making process when planning their mental health and wellbeing interventions from the Menu. Schools can also reference Allowable spend on Menu programs to support planning their Fund spend.

The Tool is informed by the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO) Improvement Cycle to support a logical planning process and includes statements and questions for schools to discuss with their wellbeing and school improvement teams. The Tool highlights the importance of student voice to inform school planning and approaches. The Tool also navigates users to other relevant supporting information and resources.

The Tool guides schools to:

• utilise available data to inform their assessment of student mental health and wellbeing needs
• identify the strengths and capabilities their school already has, that can help address student needs and inform their school’s approaches
• better understand challenges or gaps in provision that require attention
• consider their capacity to implement and sustain interventions with a view to ensuring the measures are practical and appropriate to their own unique context.

The Planning Tool is a fillable PDF form and will need to be saved to your computer before completing in Adobe Acrobat.

Schools are encouraged to submit their completed Tool via the ‘submit’ button in the form or emailing it to census@education.vic.gov.au to enable high-quality program monitoring and evaluation.

The role of student voice in improving mental health and wellbeing in schools

Victoria’s vision for learning and wellbeing recognises the fundamental importance of empowering students and the contribution that student voice, agency and leadership make to improved student health, wellbeing and learning outcomes.

We know that young people who are empowered by school leaders and educators to find their own voice in supportive school environments are more likely to develop a confident voice, a capacity to act in the world, and a willingness to lead others. We know that when student voice, agency and leadership is authentically enabled, there is a positive impact on self-worth, engagement, purpose and academic motivation, which contribute to improved student learning and wellbeing outcomes.

Schools are encouraged to ensure student voice informs how they design and implement mental health and wellbeing approaches and engage with the Fund and Menu. The Amplify practice guide for school leaders and teachers provides useful advice on how to create the conditions, employ the practices and develop the behaviours, attitudes and learning environments that are conducive to student voice, agency and leadership.

The Inclusive student voice toolkit (DOCX) has been designed to complement the Amplify practice guide, and provides resources to support the voice, agency and leadership of students with disability.