Caring-Go-Round

Caring for me – Caring for you – Caring for each other

Caring-Go-Round is a therapeutic schools program which supports primary school-aged children impacted by the East Gippsland bushfires to understand and manage their feelings, and to care for one other. 

We know that many of our clients and the schools that they attend were directly impacted by the devastating fires in 2019/20 and that this has also affected their friends and classmates.

Although not every family lost property during the fires, everyone in the area was impacted in some capacity, which is why Caring-Go-Round is designed to support children through a whole-of-school approach.

This program is therapeutically based, activity and movement-focused, within a strengths-based model approach. It can also be utilised to offer support in response to other emergencies such as trauma and stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

How is the program delivered?

Caring-Go-Round works in 30-minute, weekly sessions with small groups (up to 15 children in each group), over a six-week period.

Each session involves a different theme, including: 

• identifying and dealing with feelings
• working together as a team
• learning how to be a good support to friends. 

Each session will start with a mindfulness and relaxation exercise, movement session, and a final activity where each of the children recognises a positive quality in the child sitting next to them.

This part of the activity can be repeated each week so that it unifies each of the sessions together. The whole session will work like a bell curve – starting slow, building up to some movement and then slowing down again.

Therapeutic foundations

Mindfulness: A therapeutic technique supporting children to create a calm mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations. This tool is highly effective in reducing anxiety within children and young people.

Yoga: Movement, particularly in trauma-informed yoga practice, can strengthen the mind and body connection, helping to reduce overstimulation and reactivity and encourage relaxation. Yoga can help give children the power to reclaim control of their bodies and experiences.

Quality Recognition: Based on a program developed by the Butterfly Foundation, this activity encourages peer acknowledgement and celebration of key qualities identified in others. This assists children to recognise qualities and complement behaviours, demonstrated by their peers, that positively impact them.

Discussions on how to enhance these strengths are facilitated by the program leader in group discussion. Each participant receives a ribbon at the end of each session, corresponding to the quality acknowledged by the group about them.

Child safety

Keeping children and young people safe is a priority at Relationships Australia Victoria. View our statement of commitment and Code of Conduct to learn more.