Our Programs
Schools Up North (SUN)
Now in its eighth year, the SUN Program is sustaining and expanding a School-Based Mental Health Platform in which educators in remote schools are agents of change in enhancing engagement and early referral of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students experiencing mental health difficulties.
SUN brings high-value resources including expert consultants in Indigenous mental health and trauma to secondary schools, supporting their improvement efforts to hold young people in safe, supportive learning environments.
The program is partnering with school communities in Weipa, Thursday Island, Kowanyama, and Bamaga, in the Northern Peninsula Area.
Key partners include the Queensland Department of Education, Queensland Health, RFDS, Menzies School of Health Research, Central Queensland University, James Cook University and the Queensland University of Technology.
SUN Teacher Training Resources
Films for educators: challenging the mainstream narrative and stimulating critical reflection to develop ‘context-informed teacher agency’ for those new to their remote school posts.
These resources aim to address some of the major challenges for teachers in remote schools – helping them to adapt to their new cross-cultural postings, to understand the difficult behaviours they experience in the classroom, and to develop authentic relationships with their students and members of the community in which they live and work.
Kowanyama:
Time Trails: Kowanyama (Preview)
Take Two: Performative evaluation of Time Trails Kowanyama
Napranum:
Time Trails: Napranum (Preview)
Northern Peninsula Area:
James Cook University:
Facilitation Guides designed for interactive group discussions are available on request.
