Update from Life Education Queensland CEO Michael Fawsitt

Welcome to the latest Life Education Queensland Pulse – our first issue for the year. I hope 2021 is off to a positive start for you and your family.

Given the current national conversation around issues of respect, consent and women’s safety, in many ways Life Education’s work seems more relevant than ever. For decades, we’ve been teaching children about good nutrition, cybersafety and the harms of cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. Our educators also teach young people about sexual health and respectful relationships through key programs like: Talk About It, Relate, Respect, Connect and bCyberwise.

And that’s vital, because if we want to change attitudes and behaviours, we need to support children to develop appropriate social-emotional

skills from a young age - and just as importantly - parents and community leaders need to model respect, empathy, compassion and equality in relationships too.

I recently had the opportunity to talk about Life Education Queensland’s role in reinforcing these concepts in a wide-ranging interview with ABC Radio Brisbane’s Rebecca Levingston.

In this issue, we share some of the exciting new developments that will help underpin LEQ’s work with more than 200-thousand children across the state including:

• The launch of our exciting new fundraising campaign Healthy Harold Hundred inspiring Queenslanders to get moving in the month of May to help stamp out bullying and violence,

• Queensland schools celebrate the return of the iconic Life Education mobile learning centres after a year of COVID disruption,

• Our award-winning Healthy Eats nutrition program goes from strength to strength,

• And a new partnership with the acclaimed Triple P Parenting Program – part of a growing suite of resources for parents, teachers and students.

There is plenty to celebrate! As always, we thank the Queensland Government, Health and Wellbeing Queensland, our key funding partners, our valued donors and supporters and the hundreds of schools, parents and teachers around the state who work alongside us throughout the year.