PLAYING AT BEING BAD: NURTURING THE HIDDEN RESILIENCE OF TROUBLED CHILDREN AND YOUTH ACROSS CULTURES AND CONTEXTS
1-2 November, The Epping Club

In this two-day workshop, executives, teachers, and student welfare advisers will:

• Understand how individuals and families with complex needs use problem behaviours to enhance their resilience and wellbeing when more socially acceptable solutions are not available
• Become familiar with the principles of a social ecological approach to intervention
• Discuss the Child and Youth Resilience Measure, an assessment tool that can help professionals explore the hidden resilience of children and youth
• Learn about seven aspects of resilience necessary for positive development
• Develop strategies for working without resistance with hard-to-reach, culturally diverse children and adolescents
• Discuss ways services can be structured that make resilience more likely to occur.

Dr Michael Ungar is both a family therapist and a Killam Professor of Social Work at Dalhousie University where he directs the Resilience Research Centre that coordinates more than $5 million in funded research in a dozen countries. That research is focused on resilience among children, youth and families and how they together survive adversity in culturally diverse ways.

Your professional learning budget from Compass can be used to cover the registration fee.  Please contact Victoria Loy on 8627 8459 with enquiries or to register.

On Thursday 11 October, the Sydney University Law Society (SULS) and Compass hosted students from Liverpool Boys High School at a Sydney Law School experience day.   

The group of boys from Years 9 – 12 included students in the Refugee Transition Program, as well as others pursuing an interest in legal studies. 

The day began with a mock trial in the Moot Court at the Law School.  SULS had created a scenario that allowed the students to take on the various roles in a criminal court case – plaintiff and defendant, witnesses, jury, and judge.  Isabelle Youssef, incoming SULS president, was impressed with the students’ level of knowledge and their ability to interrogate witness statements in the jury room.  

After justice had been served, the students set off in small groups on a scavenger hunt, navigating themselves through various locations around the campus.  

In both these activities they were joined by SULS staff and student volunteers, who quickly formed a rapport with the boys that was effective in the afternoon session on university pathways.  The small groups of five to six students and a SULS volunteer meant that students could ask questions and share experiences relevant to their particular educational background and profile. 

The Compass program’s activities for high school students are designed to further develop interest in lifelong learning, while also helping students and teachers gather they information they need to pursue opportunities in higher education.   Compass and SULS are pleased to partner in a number of initiatives to provide support and information to students from low socio-economic status backgrounds.

Thank you to: 

• Sydney University Law Society, Educational Initiatives Program
• University Venues

Professor Jonothan Neelands, National Teaching Fellow, Professor of Drama and Theatre Education and Warwick Business School Professor of Creative Education , University of Warwick

 Sydney Ideas is the University of Sydney’s premier public lecture series program that aims to bring some of the world’s, leading thinkers to the wider Sydney community. 

Co-presented with the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney

In this lecture Professor Neelands proposes that Shakespeare offers us a lens for exploring the vital political relationship between theatre and democracy, in which theatre becomes part of our social conversation and the circulation of social energy in a society.In this context plays, players and the social playfulness of childhood become forged in a vision of how we might live, learn and work together. In a world which is becoming increasingly environmentally and geo-politically unsustainable, play offers the young both a mirror and lens for seeing and transforming themselves and their worlds and the beginnings of the proto-democratic behaviours needed for our survival. 

• Date: Thursday 1 November 2012
• Time: 4.30pm to 6.00pm
• Venue: Law School LT 104, Level 1, Law School Annex, Eastern Avenue, the University of SydneyClick here for venue information
• Cost: This event is free and open to all, with no ticket or booking required. 

Professor Jonothan Neelands is a National Teaching Fellow, Chair of Drama and Theatre Education in the Institute of Education and Chair of Creative Education in the Warwick Business School (WBS) at the University of Warwick.He enjoys a close working relationship with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has developed accredited teaching Shakespeare courses for teachers and actors. He has been involved in developing resources and the business plan for Teaching Shakespeare which is a partnership between the RSC and The University of Warwick producing professional development for teachers that can transform the classroom experience of Shakespeare.