Wellbeing Coordinator - Kayla

Kayla began at Cobden Technical School at the beginning of 2025. She has a background working in agriculture and has previously worked as a veterinary nurse and dog groomer, however, recently she has had a career change to pursue her passion of working with youth and families in the mental health space by completing her Diploma of Community Services. Outside of school, Kayla enjoys reading, loves the outdoors, camping and exploring new parts of this beautiful country that we call home with her family, as well as exercising with her dogs.

Kayla’s passion is to support and provide strategies to young people struggling with the many challenges that life presents them with during their adolescent years, whether this be in the classroom, school yard or home. Her approach with students is to build trust and connection using empathy and understanding what is important to individual students.

Kayla offers a range of valuable services including:

• Mental Health Mentoring: Kayla provides guidance and support for individuals struggling with mental health issues, offering them a safe space to discuss and validate their thoughts and feelings without judgement.
• Referrals to External Services: Recognising that sometimes additional resources are needed, Kayla helps connect students with appropriate external services and professionals when required.
• Managing Stress and Anxiety: Kayla assists individuals in developing techniques to effectively manage stress and anxiety, empowering them to lead more balanced lives.
• Relationships and Friendships: Kayla offers insights and advice on building and maintaining healthy relationships and friendships, fostering meaningful connections.
• Breakfast Club: Kayla, in conjunction with the school nurse, provides a supportive and communal setting through a "Breakfast Club," where individuals can start their day positively and engage in discussions on various topics with wellbeing staff in an informal way.
• Empowerment: Kayla provides opportunities for students to make decisions in their wellbeing journey, this helps students to develop confidence in their own choices and offers them opportunities to make more positive choices

Kayla is committed to creating and maintaining a child safe and child-friendly environment, where children and young people are safe and feel safe. She ensures that young people participation is valued, their views respected, and their voices are heard about decisions that affect their lives. Kayla also supports staff to identify, assess and manage risks to child safety and wellbeing in our physical and online school environments. These risks are managed through our child safety and wellbeing policies, procedures and practices.

School Nurse - Mel

Mel has been a Nurse/Midwife for 22 years, she has a Certificate IV Community Services (Disability studies) and a BA in Nursing & Midwifery. She has supported families toward wellness across a range of services including; practice nurse in Camperdown, South West Health Care and Timboon Health Care. Mel  loves the outdoors and staying fit, she can't say no to icecream. Mel has been a School Nurse for the past 18 months and has completed her training as a presenter for Teen Mental Health First Aid. She presents this to students at two schools as well as the health components of the Respectful Relationship Program. Mel offers the following services;

• Adolescent health concerns
• Mental Health
• Relationships and Friendships
• Smoking, alcohol, and drug use
• Body image
• Healthy eating, Breakfast Club

The Safe and Supportive Team

At CTS we provide an inclusive social, academic and emotional learning environment for all of our students.

Our Student Engagement and Safe and Supportive Learning Team includes a multi-disciplinary group of people comprising our: Wellbeing Coordinator, Sub School Leaders, Mental Health Practitioner, School Nurse, Chaplain and Learning Mentors.

We pride ourselves in our knowledge and understanding of the correlation between learning and wellbeing, and we work collaboratively with our parents, carers and families to ensure we are providing the best possible learning and wellbeing outcomes for all of our students.

Referrals

Students can self refer or be referred by a parent/teacher for appointments. Listed below are the days that the Wellbeing Team are availbale for appointments. Students can also drop into the Wellbeing room. 

• Adolescent Health Nurse: Wednesday & Thursday
• Mental Health Practitioner: Every second Wednesday & Thursday
• School Counsellor: Everyday

The wellbeing team are also involved in - classroom health, wellbeing lessons and lunch time activities.