families and schools working in partnership to ensure the emotional well-being of young people









Families Matter Newsletter               Volume 1 No. 1: November 2004

Welcome to this first edition of the Families Matter Newsletter. This is being mailed to all High Schools across Australia to update everyone on the development of the Families Matter initiative. Nominated contacts in currently participating schools (some 375) will also receive this by email. In this initial Newsletter we cover the following:-

  • What is Families Matter
  • Launch of Families Matter Website
  • Proposed Training Day Schedule for 2005
  • Family-School Partnerships - Draft National Action Framework for discussion and comment.
  • ACSSO Discussion Forum on Education Issues

Could you please pass on this information to your P&C Committee and School Council.

What is Families Matter

This initiative seeks to engage parents, carers and families with schools to promote the health and the social and emotional well-being of young people. This is the family element of the national MindMatters suite of initiatives; designed for parents and families of students at secondary schools.

Health and well-being includes emotional and spiritual resilience which enables us to enjoy life, cope with challenges and deal effectively with disappointment, pain and sadness. This includes an underlying belief in our own dignity and self-worth, and the dignity and worth of others.

Social and emotional health and well-being has been linked to young people’s schooling outcomes, their social development, future health and capacity to contribute to the workforce and community.

Families Matter recognizes that strong, positive support and understanding from families is vital to the development of adolescents’ confidence and self-esteem and their attitude to learning It aims to strengthen and build the partnership between school and home.

Families Matter reflects that parents, carers and families are essential partners in all aspects of learning. Research clearly shows that children’s health, well-being and learning outcomes are improved when parents, families and schools work closely together.

The Families Matter initiative provides resources and training to enable parents to set up and run a workshop for other parents, to explore the ways in which families can work effectively together with their school to support students.








Families Matter is about:-

  • Strengthening links between family, school and community
  • Focusing on parents, carers and families – empowering parents as workshop presenters and mentors of other parents
  • Improving parent and family awareness of the support needs of young people
  • Developing their understanding of resilience-building initiatives happening in their school, including MindMatters
  • Encouraging families to work together, accessing help as needed in their community, to support their children’s social and emotional well-being, development and learning.

Families Matter has been developed by the two peak parent bodies working in partnership. The Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO) represents parents of children in Australia’s public schools. The Australian Parents Council (APC) represents parents of children in non-government schools.

Families Matter was piloted in a range of secondary schools across the country in early 2004 and comprehensively evaluated. A wide cross-section of schools in all States and Territories were invited to participate in the first stage roll-out in 2004. At this point some 375 schools have expressed their strong interest in participating.

Further information about participation is provided on the enclosed leaflet, and on the new Families Matter Website (see below)

Launch of Families Matter Website

We announce the launch of a dedicated Families Matter initiative Website at this direct address: http://www.familiesmatter.org.au. This can also be accessed via the ACSSO site at http://www.acsso.org.au. The site at this point is work in progress and further information, service and support features will be progressively added through Term 4. The development plan includes these functions:-

  • More information about Families Matter and where it goes from here
  • Stories and anecdotes from schools reflecting the ideas they tried and things that work
  • Other related initiatives e.g. the National Action Framework for Family – School Partnerships
  • Conferences and Events Calendar on activities relating to Families Matter
  • Proposed Training Schedule for Parent Presenters 2005 (see below)
  • Participating Schools and contact details– to encourage building links and working together
  • Bulletin Board
  • Resources and links – providing access to further relevant information

In addition, the Website will feature a “members only” Information Exchange for participating schools, where people from these schools can raise discussion topics and share information and ideas.

Proposed Training Schedule for Parent Presenters 2005

Enclosed is the schedule of training days planned to be run in the locations shown between the beginning of March 2005 and the end of October 2005. These training days are provided to support those currently interested schools, including those who were unable to participate in 2004, and those who have a need to train additional parent presenters in 2005 to support the further continuation of the program through 2005 and beyond. They are also provided to enable additional schools to take up the Families Matter initiative in their school community in 2005. This is to assist schools to plan ahead for the particular training day which best meets the needs of their parent presenter team and school staff liaison person. This schedule (and any future revisions) will be published on the Website.

Family – School Partnerships: Discussion Draft of Action Framework for Community Input

Over the past year, ACSSO and APC have been working jointly with the Federal Department of Education, Science & Training and Education Minister the Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP, together with a wide range of individuals and organisations from across the education sector, on the development of a National Action Framework to build and sustain effective Family-School partnerships.

This draft Framework has now been released for community consultation. A copy of the Discussion Draft is enclosed. Also enclosed is a copy of the Feedback Form.

It would be very helpful if you could discuss this material in your school community, and provide your response comments on the Feedback Form. Additional comments can be provided as an attachment if you wish. It would assist if you could provide these comments before the end of Term 4; and send these back:

If it is not possible to respond before the end of this school year, don’t despair – final input comments will be sought at the beginning of 2005: we will send out a reminder to schools.

To access the Discussion Draft and Feedback Form electronically and to find out more about this project, you can visit the ACSSO Website at http://www.acsso.org.au and follow the link from the front page. The site also provides access to these background documents:

ACSSO Discussion Forum on Education Issues

ACSSO operates an open-ended Discussion Forum on education issues, which provides the opportunity for anyone interested in aspects of education to raise contentious matters for wide community discussion.

A new discussion has begun with a letter from a student tutor on the broad topic “why don’t teachers do what they are supposed to be doing….”

If you are interested in checking this out, and making an input to this or subsequent forum discussions, you can access the Forum at: http://pub49.bravenet.com/forum/4128299373/fetch/391973/

To Contact the Families Matter Project Team:-

By Phone (toll free) 1800 183 066

By Email: projects@acsso.org.au
click through to Australian Council of State School Organisations click through to MindMatters click through to Australian Parents Council