Canberra students tackle tough emotions through The Thriving Minds: Empowered Futures program

"On this stage, looking at all the parents and all the babies are crying... I was very, very nervous," the nine-year-old said.

To help with the nervousness, she talked to her friends to try to work through her emotions.

Last year, she took part in a program with her classmates at St Clare of Assisi Primary School to help equip them with the skills to identify strong emotions and to know what do to to seek help.

The Thriving Minds: Empowered Futures program is now going through a rigorous three-year evaluation to measure whether it makes a difference to the mental health literacy of primary school children.

St Clare of Assisi teacher Kate Warren said the program involved reading quality children's books, such as Jetty Jumping and The Recess Queen, and unpacking the characters' situations.

"I think it's extremely important to make sure that they know that these are normal feelings, and that there's help available," Ms Warren said.

Mental Illness Education ACT is leading the program and the ANU has received a $174,386 grant from Australian Rotary Health for the study at a time when educators are putting a greater focus on mental health and wellbeing.

Chief executive Brad Shrimpton said one in seven children aged four to 11 experience a mental health disorder.

"We know that the vast majority of people who develop a mental illness do so in their adolescent years," Dr Shrimpton said.

"So if we're getting in early and building those skills, then they're the skills which might be preventative as children become adolescents."

Dr Shrimpton said the organisation's services were in extremely high demand, with high school presentations booked out for the next six months.

The importance of good mental health and wellbeing was recently highlighted by the Productivity Commission as good mental health is linked with better academic outcomes.

"Year three students with any mental health disorder would tend to be six to nine months behind in their NAPLAN results compared to those who don't. And similarly, if the year three students who just simply have low wellbeing are eight months worth of learning behind their peers," Dr Shrimpton said.

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Australian National University professor and co-head of the centre form Mental Health Research Allison Calear will be running the randomised control trial.

Classes will take a questionnaire before the program and after the program, and then will be compared with classes who answer questions at the same times but do not do the program. The control group then becomes the next class to participate in the program.

Professor Calear said there was already an increasing rate of psychological distress in young people before the pandemic and there has been a lack of interventions at the primary school level.

"It's really important that we start those conversations early and that's why I really liked the thriving minds program," she said.

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