Hume Term 3 Week 4

Hi everyone!

What an interesting week this has been to say the least. We managed to have a couple days on program this week before heading into lockdown #6.

On Wednesday we spent the morning at the Sussex Neighbourhood House completing entries in the student's workbooks, covering the topics of values, character strengths and goals. We believe such topics are paramount to discuss as they help guide attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. The students completed the via character strength survey online and received their top 5 character strengths based on their answers. We encourage the young people to identify these as they lead to positive emotion, enhances health and wellbeing and gives a deeper meaning to life activities. As a strength-based program we wish to view all the great attributes the young person has rather than focusing on shortcomings or faults. Each student is encouraged to create realistic goals that will support their improvements at school and in their personal lives. We will work closely with the students to assist them in reaching their goals .

For the afternoon we went to the Broadmeadows Leisure centre for a gym session. We did an all body workout which got the blood pumping! The young people did a great job at participating and putting in their efforts.

On Thursday we picked up the students from Collingwood Station and went back to CAS to complete the packing of all our gear and headed off for our first camp! We arrived at Wesburn Recreation Camp to unpack the bus and have some lunch before venturing for our hike. We went to the Rainforest Gallery first where we saw some beautiful scenery but unfortunately the track was closed to continue through the short walk. We then went to Mt. Donna Buang to start our hike. The track was muddy, wet and steep, especially at the beginning. Seeing snow at the top made it all worth while! It was a challenging hike but the students did such an amazing job pushing through and using a positive mindset. We focused on building high resilience responses and each student managed to show that a few times on the hike. There was encouragement between the peers which was nice to see. We did have some ups and downs (no pun intended) but it was a good learning experience for the young people. Coping with challenges isn't always easy, and Brendon and I witnessed some natural responses and some responses that we can work on. When we made it back down and on the bus, there was a great sense of achievement and we think everyone surprised themselves of their own capabilities. We are very proud of all their efforts and they should be too. When we went back to camp, the students were able to have hot showers and quick downtime before we were announced the lockdown. We had to come home early that night which was really disappointing. We were really looking forward to the rest of camp, but we are so grateful to have had the day and achieve so well in the hike. We can't wait to come out of lockdown and continue! In the meantime we will be meeting with students via online google meets on program days next week.