Submission on National School Chaplaincy Program

Mental Health Australia has provided a submission to the Australian Government’s review of the National School Chaplaincy Program. Mental Health Australia recommended that the Australian Government should remove reference to chaplains in the name of the program to acknowledge a more secular approach to supporting student wellbeing and to create universal access; enable schools to engage secular wellbeing support officers; investigate whether the current minimum qualification requirements act to unintentionally exclude mental health professionals with other relevant qualifications to undertake a wellbeing support officer role; wellbeing support provided through schools should be openly supportive of and safe for members of the LGBTIQ+ community; encourage participating schools to adopt the Framework for Mental Health in Multicultural Australia; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child and young people wellbeing in schools should be designed and implemented by Aboriginal and Torres Islander people; and should scope the cost of implementing a national, comprehensive, secular school wellbeing program.

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