Seasons for Growth was featured in the Australian Research Council’s Engagement and Impact Assessment 2018-2019 National Report.
The research received a ‘High’ rating for impact in the National Report, which assesses how institutions are translating their research into economic, environmental, social and other benefits.
Overview of Impact
- Loss experiences are common. Almost one in four Australians aged 18-24 experience divorce or separation of their parents (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010) and 6% experience the death of a parent during childhood (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013)
- Professor Anne Graham, Director of the Centre for Children and Young People (CCYP) at Southern Cross University, authored Seasons for Growth to provide children and young people (6-18 years) with knowledge and skills to adapt to significant changes following death, separation, divorce and other loss experiences. Launched in 1996, it is the only such program developed in Australia that is nationally and internationally available
- Seasons for Growth is structured around the metaphor of seasonal change. It promotes resilience and self-esteem, normalises grief, builds peer support and fosters positive coping strategies
- The program continues to evolve. Revised in 2015, the updated program synthesised
- and integrated the findings of much of the CCYP’s research from the preceding decade, including contemporary interdisciplinary understandings of childhood (emphasising children’s agency as well as vulnerability), children’s rights, grief theory, understandings of wellbeing (subjective wellbeing grounded in children’s conceptualisations) and Honneth’s recognition theory
- Seasons for Growth supports those affected by suicide. In 2015 headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation requested a trial of Seasons for Growth as a suicide postvention resource in schools. CCYP researchers modified the program, and having conducted a successful trial, trained 72 companions and rolled it out into communities across Australia impacted by youth suicide
- Seasons for Growth provides the Government with a credible program to support children and young people facing loss. While schools were previously the major sites for Seasons for Growth in Australia, 27% of programs are now run through community agencies
By the Australian Research Council’s Engagement and Impact Assessment 2018-2019 National Report.