WellNest Centre
The WellNest Centre
The WellNest is home to our on-site, accessible, flexible and affordable in-house consulting team of specialists in the areas of psychology, learning support and wellbeing. In addition to an in-house team of experts, St John’s Grammar has established partnerships with a number of additional providers who can use the WellNest as a base. The aim of the WellNest Centre is to provide a place where our St John’s families are prioritised and mums and dads enjoy the convenience of that help being administered without interruptions to their busy schedules.
The idea for our WellNest service was generated a few years ago when we identified a need to provide more available, on-site wellbeing and learning support in addition to the excellent visiting service of a number of allied specialised learning professionals.
The WellNest Centre is located on the Junior School campus at 42 Sheoak Road, Belair. The consulting rooms are adjacent to the Junior School Front Office on the northern side of the staff complex. It is accessible from the street as well as from the school campus.
Referrals to WellNest
At St John’s we have developed a formalised way of supporting class teachers and parents to seek and access additional, expert support for our students. This could be in the field of Allied Health, School Counsellors, School Wellbeing Team, Paediatricians, Educational Consultants or Psychologists or St John’s Exceptional Learning Programs.
We want to ensure that we have a streamlined and consistent process in place to ensure our St John’s families can access the most appropriate additional support for their child.
Junior School
St John’s Grammar Junior School Student Review Team (Simon McKenzie, Luke Ivens, Anna Trento, Sarah Hillard) will enact a process for referrals to external service providers through a Flow Chart system – which supports teachers and parents to access appropriate supports for students through a systematic and consistent process.
Should parents want to enquire about additional supports for their child in the space of Allied Health, Educational Assessments, Literacy intervention, wellbeing or counselling support, we encourage them to have a conversation with their child’s classroom teacher. Teachers will document the enquiry by filling in a Student Review Team Referral form and will forward this to the Student Review Meeting for weekly action.
The Student Review Team will discuss and decide on a pathway and will then communicate this to the classroom teacher and parents. This will occur in a timely manner, with weekly turnaround time from request to referral suggestion. The Student Review Team will provide parents with a list of specialist providers as referral options. Parents will have full autonomy over choice of provider.
Secondary Campus
In the Secondary School, our Head of Learning Support, Kelly Neumann, will work in a similar way with these partnerships, often reaching out to parents, conducting regular meetings to plan for all the interventions and support needed, coordinating seamlessly with the Junior School and working closely with the pastoral team.
Meet Our In-House WellNest Team
We have a number of in-house experts who are based at our WellNest Centre:
- Positive Minds Australia – New partner specialising in counselling, confidence development, resilience, social-emotional intelligence and wellbeing
- Kay Bosworth – Specialised Learning Expert
- David Scholz – Psychologist
Madhavi Nawana Parker – Positive Minds Australia
Finding the best in everyone they meet, Positive Minds respect people’s existing strengths and build from there, so they can reach their full potential and enjoy life to the fullest. Proudly South Australian owned and operated, Positive Minds specialise in counselling, confidence development, resilience, social – emotional intelligence and wellbeing.
Kay Bosworth – Specialist Learning Expert
Kay Bosworth is a Specialist Literacy Teacher and Consultant for both Junior and Secondary students of St John’s Grammar. Kay has been working in the field of literacy improvement for more than twenty years, both in schools and her private practice. Part of an advocacy group at the forefront to raise the knowledge and skills for leaders, teachers and families, Kay is heartened to see the movement in education for incorporating the science of reading, writing and spelling into classroom practice. While Kay provides explicit, intensive reading, writing and spelling support to individual students with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, her services are engaged by schools from all sectors to support their literacy improvement journey. This includes whole-school professional learning, classroom modelling, team planning and training, parent workshops and more.
David Scholz – Psychologist
David Scholz is a provisional psychologist and is quarantining spaces for both Junior and Secondary students from St John’s Grammar. He uses cognitive behavioural therapy and acceptance commitment therapy to support and guide the young people he works with through their own unique journey. Dave has experience in working with children and adolescents through a range of difficulties including depression, anxiety, poor sleep patterns, academic performance, sporting performance, perfectionism, self-esteem and anger management. He also has significant experience working with parents to provide strategies and tools to positively influence their children’s habits and behaviours. Most often his therapeutic method requires some form of parental involvement when he is working with children and adolescents. Dave is able to carry out psychoeducational assessments. Dave will return to the WellNest in May 2023.
Our Learning Support Professional Partnerships
Complementing the support services of WellNest, St John’s Grammar also has well established partnerships with a host of allied health and educational experts who are regular visitors to our campuses and work in collaboration with our exceptional learning teams in supporting our young people.
Our partners include:
- Learn, Sense, Grow Occupational Therapy
- Connect Psychology
- Laura Law Literacy Specialist
- Sally Shulze Speech Pathology
- Jen Robertson – Language & Literacy Speech Pathology
To read more about our partners, view our introduction email.
