Meet the passionate people powering our Mentally Fit Primary Schools Program
At Gotcha4Life, we build a unique, three-year program to bring mental fitness to whole primary school communities – and we build an incredible team of educators and facilitators to design and deliver it.
After a successful pilot year, our talented team is working with teachers, parents, carers and students in schools across Sydney and regional NSW.
And thanks to our valued donors and supporters, our Mentally Fit Primary Schools program is fully funded.
Here, our fabulous facilitators share their passion for the program, its purpose, and the positive impacts they’re already seeing in primary school communities.
Jolene Barilla
Gotcha4Life Mentally Fit Primary Schools program Team Lead, Educator
The longer you teach, the more you realise what students need to get results is connection, and social and emotional wellbeing. That is so important in helping little people become successful learners, and successful adults out in the big, wide world.
A program that teaches the importance of connection, emotional adaptability and help seeking in primary schools is so valuable.
You can push all you like as a teacher in the classroom, or as a parent at home, but if a school doesn’t have that emotional wellbeing balance, or there’s a culture of pressure without connection, a child is not going to achieve their best.
Getting that balance is so important, especially today when people are less connected and technology and anxiety is making it really hard for kids to build those habits.
I want primary school kids to know how to talk about their emotions, how to ask for help, and to understand their role in looking after their ‘village’. To have little daily mental fitness practices and know we have to work on our mental fitness, just like physical fitness.
If they understand that, they’ll go into high school a little more self-confident with strategies under their belt. So if they feel emotions rising, they can say, ‘I’ve got some tools that I know work for me’.
I’ve seen the impact our program is having in schools, like Thirroul Public School.
Even before we arrived for our first session, they were using the resources. They had posters printed and a wellbeing week scheduled. They made toasties for staff and called them Mental Fitness Melts.
At Nicholson Street public school, Year 5 kids converted a disused old cubby house into a quiet mental fitness space.
I see the impact in those ‘aha’ moments as our amazing facilitators deliver to staff and you know, yep, they get it.
I see it in the sharing when staff show vulnerability and talk about the pressures and stresses of teaching. I totally get that, because I lived it too, for 23 years.
Those little moments are a window to the big difference this program will make in schools and lives.
Paddy Casey
Gotcha4Life Mentally Fit Primary Schools program Facilitator
My grandfather took his own life when I was young. I was told he was killed in a farm accident. My family dealt with it by not talking about it.
There wasn’t much talking at school either. The emphasis was on high performance academics and sport, and ‘turning boys into men’. There was no space for emotions, so I suppressed mine to fit in.
As a young adult, I had mental health challenges after a break up. I felt completely alone, and didn’t have the skills to know what to do.
When a friend told me he’d reached the point of suicide ideation, I was shocked – and didn’t know how to handle that information.
I wanted to be more equipped for myself, and the people around me.
Now, I’m helping primary school kids, teachers and parents build the skills and have the conversations I wish I could have had. It’s such a vital toolkit.
A lot of wellbeing programs focus on students, but our first contact is with teachers. We want them to look after their mental fitness, so they can teach it.
Quite often in workshops, they realise they all have similar challenges and worries they’re not talking about.
I ran an activity with teachers where each person speaks for 60 seconds. I could see all this emotion coming up between two of them. When they finished, they embraced in a beautiful hug.
They’d shared challenging things they hadn’t talked about before. They were friends, but neither knew what the other was going through. It lifted a weight off their shoulders and they felt a beautiful connection.
A principal in western Sydney told me our first session opened up a line of communication between staff and the leadership team. They’ve seen a reduction in staff absenteeism, and more staff are willing to come and have conversations around what’s going on for them, in terms of challenges and struggles.
It’s a three year program. They saw those positive changes nine weeks in.
Katie Pearce
Gotcha4Life Mentally Fit Primary Schools program Facilitator, Educator
As a teacher, I found my passion in special education, enrichment and diverse learning roles - often in small, alternative schools for students with emotional or behavioural needs.
Working in those settings really drove home the importance of knowing your student - the whole person and their family life – before trying to teach them any content.
The Mentally Fit Primary Schools program aligns with everything I believe in professionally – and personally.
When my son was born, I went through postnatal depression. I’ve had my own mental health journey. People I love have too. One in two teachers have anxiety symptoms. Teacher wellbeing is really important to me. You have to look after your people and our program helps schools do that.
It’s one of a kind. It’s prevention-focused. It involves the whole school. And it’s rare to see a program that brings parents and carers into the conversation too. We’re building a shared language around mental fitness, so when kids go home, the conversation can continue.
It’s about a cultural shift, and that takes time – that’s why schools have us for three years.
It’s about preparing children for little tough moments now, so when big curveballs come in their life, they have some tools in their toolbox.
How to stay emotionally adaptable when things aren’t going their way. When they’re having a tough day. When friendship issues pop up. When they don’t make the soccer team.
Connection skills so they can look after their ‘village’, and know they have people who support and cheer them on.
And help seeking, so they don’t worry alone. Sometimes, the people at home aren’t the ones they can freely ask for help, so expanding that circle for children is really important.
Schools are so grateful. Teachers are implementing the lessons and using the strategies to scaffold tricky conversations with parents. Kids are doing brain breaks and mindfulness. Parents are learning how to connect with their kids.
Every time we finish a session, they tell us we have to come back. And we do!
Ben Lucas
Gotcha4Life Mental Fitness Facilitator - Workplaces, Communities and Schools
My dad was diagnosed with bowel cancer just as I started high school. I’d felt very supported, but when he passed away as I started Year 12, suddenly I was doing all the supporting.
A student whose mum was diagnosed with brain cancer came to me. ‘My mum’s about to die and I don’t know what to do. What do I do?’. I’m 17 and I’m coaching another 17 year old through that.
Another student’s father took his own life. We were paired for school activities, and he shared things with me about losing his dad to suicide and what he was going through.
It was a lot to deal with, but I felt a real sense of purpose. I’ve been through this, now I can help and support others too.
Then when I lost some people to suicide in my early 20s, I got my friends together and drew a line in the sand. ‘From here on, we’re having tough conversations and we’re looking after each other’.
Now I share those line in the sand moments with corporates, community clubs and schools. The conversations are different, but the message is the same.
Facilitating Gotcha4Life workshops for all ages has made one thing very clear to me. We need to build awareness and mental fitness skills in kids from a young age.
The later we start, the further upstream we have to swim. In high school, we’re already trying to undo so much negative behaviour they’ve formed.
We need to reach kids earlier, so they’re more aware and comfortable with emotions, and acknowledging and sharing their feelings, and connecting with people in their lives so they don’t get conformed back into a ‘no emotion’ box in high school.
Mental fitness is for everyone – but it needs to start in primary school.
You can help equip more people to live
Every donation powers Gotcha4Life to keep developing and delivering life-changing programs and initiatives to equip more people with the mental fitness skills to live.
