"I have found Lindsay to be extremely professional, passionate, flexible and genuine in his dealings with our school. At St Helena, staff and student wellbeing are extremely important to us. Lindsay’s work has provided us with a really valuable data set and we will be using these findings to further our work in relation to this area."

Principal

St Helena College -

Youth Dimension

Youth Dimension delivers evidence-based measurement and reporting on student and staff wellbeing to any size primary or secondary school within Australia. We resource schools with salient data, presented in a clear and understandable reporting style so that your school can balance educational requirements with student wellbeing and flourishing.

Wellbeing in your School

Measuring wellbeing in your school begins with an online collection of data. Youth Dimension will provide an online link to a short questionnaire. The link is then provided to students at a time designated by your school. Measures within the questionnaire have been validated within Australian and international contexts. While robust, the survey only takes around seven minutes to complete, so there is minimal interruption to class-time. Many schools complete the survey during home-group. After collecting these data, they are analysed by Youth Dimension. The results are then comprehensively reported in written and verbal form to school leadership groups, staff and any other group selected by the school.

Youth Dimension specialises in providing population-wide wellbeing analyses to any sized primary or secondary school. We have the added advantage of referencing your wellbeing scores against Australian normative data.

What is Wellbeing?

The theoretical grounding to your student's wellbeing is referred to as subjective wellbeing homeostasis.

This theory is an integrative model for wellbeing, which consists of objective and subjective levels of life quality.

Objective measures of life quality count the occurrence of verifiable phenomena. These include things like educational achievements, financial resources, maternal survival rates, and literacy levels, to name a few.

Subjective measures record how individuals perceive their quality of life. Professor Cummins has described this subjective evaluation from Deakin University as a positive state of mind that involves the whole of life experience.

Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis

The theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis describes a mildly positive mood-state that is genetically determined for each person. Also, a psychological system maintains this mood within a narrow functional range analogous to other biological systems, such as core body temperature.

Psychological homeostasis regulates mood within a narrow range of values by employing internal and external protective and restorative mechanisms referred to as buffers. The external buffers defend wellbeing from various psychological threats. The external buffers include modifying behaviour, the utility of resources such as money and connecting to other people, to name a few.

The internal buffers consist of automatic processes such as habituation and adaptation, as well as stable positive attitudes to one’s self and the world. In the context of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis, these internal buffers are referred to as self-esteem (your feelings of worth), optimism, and perceived control (how much control you feel you have over your life).

Data from these and other constructs vital for healthy levels of wellbeing give schools a unique perspective into the wellbeing of their staff and students. For example, knowing what factors are actually linked to a person's wellbeing and measuring these, allows Youth Dimension to assist your school in directing resources to the relevant areas of need. Also, it allows leadership to evaluate current wellbeing projects run by your school.

Lindsay Tunbridge

Executive Director, Youth Dimension

Lindsay is the Executive Director of Youth Dimension. Lindsay holds a PhD in Psychology, specialising in personal wellbeing within Australian and international contexts.

Lindsay is on the leadership team of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life and holds memberships with The International Wellbeing Group, ARACY (Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth), and The Australian Psychological Society.

He also holds a Doctor of Ministry from the Australian College of Theology.

Mental Health Concerns during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In response to the current events, YD has developed a new program that can track each student’s wellbeing while they’re at home.

As students work online, many schools find it hard to keep track of their wellbeing. YD solves this problem for schools. The YD program consists of each week students answering four questions about key psychological constructs.

After YD's wellbeing team analyse these data, students are categorised into one of three groups. The groups correlate with extant levels of each wellbeing construct and their impact on mental health.

Conflating theory and results from data is complex. For ease of interpretation, the groups are categorised according to the colours of a traffic light. Students are allocated to either the red, amber or green group and results sent that day to their home-group teachers.

For students who present as requiring additional assistance, one school has organised a specialised group comprising a school Psychologist, the Principal, their Wellbeing Officer and other heads of staff to support students.

Talk to Our Team

Talk to one of our team to find out more about how YD's Wellbeing program will benefit your school.

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