Five schools in Taree are among the first in NSW to welcome a highly trained School Wellbeing Nurse.
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Chatham High School will be the base school while Taree High School, Taree Public School, Manning Gardens Public School and Chatham Public School will also benefit from the appointment, Myall Lakes MP Stephen Bromhead announced.
"The nurse, who started on Monday (July 12), will help students dealing with mental health and medical issues to access services and get ongoing support," he said.
The NSW Government is funding more than 100 specialist wellbeing nurses in schools across the State.
Mr Bromhead,said the nurse who will coordinate appropriate early intervention, assessments and referral of students and families to services and programs.
Minister for Mental Health Bronnie Taylor said the new registered nurses will provide support to students and parents as part of a four-year expansion of the successful School Wellbeing Nurse pilot.
"Our children and young people can feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders as they try to make sense of an unpredictable, changing world and their place in it," Mrs Taylor said.
School nurses are another important part of the web of support we're putting in place to make sure we can deliver the right healthcare, at the right place and at the right time
- Minister for Mental Health Bronnie Taylor
"School nurses are another important part of the web of support we're putting in place to make sure we can deliver the right healthcare, at the right place and at the right time."
Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell said the nurses form part of a wraparound mental health and wellbeing service available to NSW school students.
"It's so important that students in NSW have access to a range of health, mental health and wellbeing services to ensure they feel supported throughout their time at school," Ms Mitchell said.
An independent evaluation from Urbis of the pilot of Wellbeing Nurses from July 2018 to September 2020 found the nurses were successful establishing the model within schools, supporting students and families to achieve positive health and education outcomes, and linking school and community health and wellbeing interventions.
Students stated when they went to see the wellbeing nurse to talk about a physical issue, they often opened up about their mental health and the things that are really bothering them.
"Definitely for me it's opened my eyes to a broader range of like health stuff not just 'Oh they're going to the counsellor for mental health', it's like there's a specific set of things they (wellbeing nurse) can do here," one student said.
Parent feedback
Feedback from parents was also overwhelmingly positive.
"Talking to someone who actually knows what they're talking about. And she can break it down... all the specialists and paediatricians I've been to I've walked away and gone 'oh my gosh, I don't know what that meant.' Now I can go back to school and have another meeting with the nurse and say 'this is what they've said'... and she'll say 'this is what this actually means,'" one parent said.
The NSW Government has earmarked $46.8 million over four years as part of the 2020-21 NSW Budget to deliver 100 new school-based wellbeing nurses, which is a joint initiative of NSW Health and the NSW Department of Education.
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