Living Ripples is a process that integrates, supports, and wraps around a school’s existing priorities in student wellbeing. The process provides an accessible online survey tool for students aged 7 to 19 years, teachers, and parents/carers, with anonymous and amalgamated data delivered immediately, in real time, to the school’s own unique reporting portal.
Using the data collected, Living Ripples provides practical support to analyse the findings and, working alongside the self-nominated school team, helps create and support a practical action plan that reflects the priorities highlighted within the data and connected to the school’s plans. Living Ripples is a partnership with the school, supported by philanthropy and delivered with Resilient Youth Australia and the University of Adelaide’s WiLDlab.
In this issue:
Encouraging news from the Resilient Youth State of the Nation 2024 Report
Building clusters of Living Ripples schools, expressions of interest open
Practical wellbeing activities, an all schools round up
Roll out of the Student Wellbeing Action Grants, applications open
Practical guides preparing for and delivering the student resilience survey
Upcoming Living Ripples online sessions in May and June
Positive prospects: 2024 State of the Nation
The 2024 Resilient Youth: State of the Nation Report has just been released. The national report provides a comprehensive snapshot of student wellbeing across Australia, drawing on responses from over149,000 students in 809 schools. To the over 100 Living Ripples schools contributing to these results, thank you and congratulations!
While the findings highlight ongoing concerns such as depression, anxiety, and disengagement among young people, there is also encouraging news. The aggregated data showed positive signs of stabilising or slightly improving wellbeing across many domains, with clear evidence that schools remain a powerful place for positive impact. Most students reported strong family, teacher, and peer support contributing to the encouraging findings. Many also cited an enjoyment in learning, a strong connection to nature, and a sense of safety at school and home as contributors to the more positive orientation.
The findings support the value of whole-school approaches that include students, staff and parents and carers in wellbeing strategies. Where programs that build student resilience are embedded in the school environment this is shown to be effective. Importantly too, the Resilience Survey enables the voice of young peopleto be heard offering school leaders insights that are both data-driven and deeply human.
This is why Living Ripples works with schools directly utilising the online Resilience Survey of Resilient Youth Australia as our survey and data partner and the analytical capabilities of WiLDlab within the University of Adelaide. Schools are uniquely placed to drive change that is appropriate, locally led and practical helping all students be confident, capable and resilient.
Cluster and Collaboration
Expressions of Interest NOW OPEN
Given the vital role of schools to support young people, Living Ripples Ltd is inviting all schools across Australia to apply for a fully funded, three-year opportunity to join our transformative process. We are looking for multiple schools within the same broader community to participate – ideally, a cluster of geographically connected schools. While applications are open to all, we have a strong preference for schools in rural, remote, and regional areas. In rural and remote areas there may not be another school ‘nearby’ but there may be schools that are connected in other ways despite their distance that are keen to collaborate and participate. All schools are welcome, public, independent, distance education, primary, secondary, F-12 schools, schools for special purpose. Where school clusters are created, there is also an opportunity to apply for a part time, 1/2 day a week Living Ripples Local Lead paid role.
Wellbeing Round Up
A number of schools have shared and asked what other schools do for short, quick and regular practices to support student wellbeing. As a start, 18 have been summarised, some for young years, others for secondary age students. Many will be familiar to you and many are focused on smaller schools. We welcome your recommendations and look forward to updating the suggestions. Thanks to Coledale Public School for sharing one of their strategies and one of their chickens.
SWAG Roll Out
We are delighted to share that our first SWAG has been awarded to Ringwood North Primary School. The school is implementing PLAY, a program of Resilient Youth Australia with 30 senior students (Year 5 – 6) who hold leadership roles. The school aims to use the program to help foster inclusion and support for younger peers. Their choice of program is directly aligned to the school’s wellbeing priorities, findings from their student survey and formalised in their Student Wellbeing Action Planning process.
Applications are currently open and we encourage all schools that have completed their Survey and held an Student Wellbeing Action Plan meeting to apply. In your application, provide the context for your program, service or support requirement and here are some FAQs. Include all the costs associated with the program, project or initiative. The aim of the SWAG is to provide a helping hand. Often the SWAG amount is a proportion of the total amount required. The SWAG is a competitive process and will be assessed by the Board. In May and June we are hosting interactive online sessions to assist, please see Upcoming events and register.
Survey Assist
Term 2, as was Term 1, is a great time for schools to launch your school’s involvement in Living Ripples to the whole school community and get underway with the surveys and next steps.
While schools are highly capable and experienced with program delivery and surveys, here are a range of resources to involve the broader community, families and students. Also included is a summary of how the survey data is managed and a link to the complete Living Ripples school guide.
Upcoming events
Living Ripples Plus | Beneath the surface
On May 16, 11.30 – 12.15 AEST, Champion Life providers of Living Ripples Plus (LR+) program will be hosting an online session on how the platform can be used to complement and strengthen your school’s Student Wellbeing Action Plan (SWAP) through meaningful, real-time student feedback.
LR+ enables schools to collect classroom-wide student check-ins at a frequency that suits each classroom. These self-reported insights are accessible via theLiving Ripples Plus Classroom Portal, a practical, teacher-informed dashboard designed to help schools track, interpret, and act on wellbeing data aligned with their SWAP goals.
This session will cover:
Customising check-in questions to reflect your wellbeing priorities
Using real-time, accessible data to monitor the impact of initiatives
How other schools are using data to plan, adapt, and celebrate progress
Accessing and using additional features like Journals, Brain Breaks and school-hosted wellbeing videos
Storing your student data
SWAG Step by Step
On Friday 30 May at 12 noon AEST – 12.30 pm and again on Wednesday 11 June, 3.15 – 3.45 pm AEST, Living Ripples will host a short session on completing a Student Wellbeing Action Grant. The session will be interactive and all questions are welcome.
Applications received this term will be reviewed on17 June and referred to the Board on 24 June. An outcome will be provided by Friday 27 June 2025.
