Articles

Translanguaging Tip Sheet for Educators Translanguaging is a powerful way to help students learn by allowing them to use all the languages they know. It’s more than just switching between languages—it’s about making full use of their linguistic skills to understand new ideas.

Multilingual School Staff enrich our school communities with their language skills, cultural knowledge and a strong desire to support student learning and wellbeing. The STARTTS School Liaison Team has produced an In-depth Article as well as a Checklist on how schools can maintain a safe work environment for their multilingual staff members. Supporting Multilingual Staff…

All One Under the Sun ‘All One Under the Sun’ is a remedy to racism campaign for the whole community, driven by young people and using the arts to promote inclusion, belonging, connection, education & empowerment. ‍ In May 2022 the campaign collaborated with schools to create a theatre show ‘Stand Up Stand By’ to…

The STARTTS school holiday break program is funded through the Office for Regional Youth to provide young people across NSW from a refugee background, with access to free opportunities to connect, learn new skills and have fun. For more information, visit the STARTTS school holiday break program page on the STARTTS website.

A core aspect of STARTTS’ approach to assisting children and young people to overcome the impact of trauma is through providing counselling and psychotherapy. This is provided at STARTTS offices and also in schools and other outreach locations such as youth services when appropriate. These interventions utilise different approaches including play therapy, sand tray, music…

STARTTS provides a broad range of services for children and young people. We employ specialist youth workers and child and adolescent counsellors to work with this age group. They also work closely with others that are important to children such as parents, schools and youth services. Often, we use fun activities to connect with children…

What is Neurofeedback? Neurofeedback is a type of treatment that provides the person with specific information about their own brain activity. When information about brainwave patterns is provided, the person can learn to change them. This can be thought of as exercise, or training, for the brain. The brain plays a role in regulating sleep,…

The STARTTS LGBTIQA+ project recognises the diversity of communities with diverse sexualities and genders with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. Our program provides peer-led support groups run by people with lived experience. These groups are open to anyone who identifies as having a diverse gender, sexuality or body and is an asylum seeker, refugee or…

By Deb Gould Image credit: HaticeEROL, Pixabay  “I can’t do this anymore”, “Nothing I do makes any difference”.  By the time this edition comes out, NSW students will have been learning from home for about 10 weeks and probably have another 5 weeks to go. We all have had to adjust expectations to accepting that no-one…

Fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces intensified since May 2021 in response to the gradual withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan. On 15 August 2021, the Taliban captured the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul. Afghanistan is a multiethnic country comprised of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbeks and several other ethnic minorities. The current crisis in Afghanistan…

By Maeve Galea  Image source: Piqsels Deb Banks’ knows that trust can (and should be) hard-won, ‘I will tell kids in their first session, “I’m just going to ask you a few general questions, give me the information that you feel comfortable with, but I’m not going to tell you to trust me today because you’d be…

By Maeve Galea  It’s widely accepted that schools can play an instrumental role in supporting the recovery of children with refugee experience (Kia-Keating & Ellis, 2007; Matthews, 2008; Correa-Velez et al., 2010; Tozer at al, 2018). But did you know that the community atmosphere of a school could also be a healing space for their…

By Deb Gould  Image source: pxfuel Initially, Nicole and I had flagged ‘gaming’ as this term’s topic. But, with the average gamer being 34 (Brand et al., 2019), this doesn’t really cover the concern that many of us have about young people in the online world. And, let’s be real, the humble phone is where most of us play: games that are small bites but…

By Rafik Tanious, School Liaison Counsellor/Project Officer Rural and Regional NSW, STARTTS Image credit: Steve Snodgrass 16 October 2020 How do we make education engage with the life-worlds of learners and families with refugee experience? One of the primary challenges of our educational systems is related to how we can best connect schools with the…

By Maeve Galea Image Source: Sarah Horrigan, flikr ‘For young people with a refugee background, grief experiences could vary from having lost a close family member to grieving the loss of their country or grieving the loss of life as they knew it’, notes Nercy Clarke, who has facilitated the Seasons For Growth program at STARTTS since…

By Deb Gould Image credit: Abhinav Thakur (CCO) This is not a hints and tips piece; very far from it. Hopefully, it will stimulate reflection on the fact that 32,300 NSW public school students received short-term suspensions in 2018 with more than 9000 of them in primary school. The issue came under the spotlight in 2020 with…

There are a number of factors that educators might need to be aware of in the current COVID19 climate that have the potential of adversely impacting on learners with refugee experience. The article linked below expands on these topics.

The horrific explosion that ripped through Beirut, Lebanon on 4 August came on the back of a crippling economic crisis which has decimated people’s life savings, rising COVID-19 infections, food insecurity, power cuts lasting most of the day, widespread fury at the government and a long history of collective and personal traumas for the Lebanese…

The STARTTS School Liaison Team are thrilled to announce that the third edition of the Settling In Kit is now available for purchase here! If you missed the online launch, it’s still available for you to enjoy online at any time. The ‘Settling In’ group program aims to help newly-arrived students adjust to life in…