Eltham Term Week 8 2019

Wednesday was a bitter sweet day as it was our last day at the gym with with Jordan. Today was also special as we had a past student and overall legend Tamara join us for the day. Tamara was a Newstart Northern student 4 years ago and joins us from time to time to share her experience with the young people. Having her with us is a great way for the young people to see the positive impact that Newstart can have. We picked everyone up and drove straight to Eltham Leisure Centre to get stuck into it. Much like the others days today we played some basketball and worked through our personalised fitness plans. It was great to see everyone finding their groove and feeling comfortable in the gym. We all worked hard for the whole session and ended this gym journey on a high. After saying bye to Jordan we drove to Headspace in Greensborough and started our taster with them. During this taster we worked with the headspace employees to do activities around mindfulness and stress. Everyone was great at staying engaged and asking questions/opening up. After having done some mindfulness we walking back to the bus and called it a day.

Thursday was a day to get things done and celebrate the term. We started the day by doing a reflection on the term. This is personally one of my favourite activities as we get to reminisce on the past 8 weeks and share with everyone what our favourite, most challenging, funniest and biggest achievements are. After having reminisced and shared in some laughs we allocated our speech topics and character strengths and got stuck into writing them. In the mean time Brendon and Pat worked on organising some pizza to be delivered so we can celebrate our last day in style. After writing our speeches, organising the dress code and devouring some pizza and garlic bread we said goodbye and wished the young people good luck for our most exciting day - Graduation!

Friday - Graduation day! This is one of the most exciting days on the program as its all about celebrating the young people and how hard they've worked this term. The days was even more special as it was also Taylas birthday! We met at Eltham Leisure centre for the last time this year and got ready for the celebration. With the room full of parents, teachers, wellbeing staff and service providers the young people did an amazing job at their speeches. The room was full as the young people had loads of people there who support them and want to see them do well. With the nerves aside each young person spoke clearly and gave everyone a great insight into the term. We saw some photos, watched a movie about the term, shared in some laughs and enjoyed the final moments together. With full credit to the young people they all worked really hard on their individual goals and achieved a lot. Their resilience, mindset and zest is something to be celebrated and they should all be really proud of their efforts this term. A big thank you to all the services provides, funding bodies, schools and parents for their constant support this year and throughout Newstart. Without each of you none of this could happen. A big thank you to past student Tamara who came out to speak about her Newstart experience and gave a powerful speech that I'm sure will make a lasting impact on us all. A big thank you to Patrick from ACU for being an awesome student on placement and helping out so much throughout the term. Lastly, thank you to all the Newstart graduates for an increidble term! This group has been one of the most organised, trustful and determined group. We had bumps along the way but have come out the other end smiling and accomplished. Remeber everyone you have learnt throughout Newstart and how hard you have worked. There is nothing stopping you for achieveing everything you want in school and in life.

Thank you all for a wonderful term and have a great holidays!