‘Hungry for kindness’: Schools invited to join the mission to empower kids

Hundreds of schools around Australia are harnessing the power of a locally-designed program aimed at building a kinder world, starting with our youngest citizens.

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Launched by Kindness Factory in 2020, the Kindness Factory Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) program helps teachers provide students with the skills to live a life of kindness, while building resilience and connection.

On June 19, you have the opportunity to find out more about Kindness Factory and the SEL program with a free webinar being hosted by ACM, the publisher of this website and a supporter of Kindness Factory.

Register for the webinar here.

Kindness Factory founder Kath Koschel said strong sign-up numbers indicate education providers are looking for ways to deliver meaningful kindness messages to our youth.

“It’s very telling – people are hungry for kindness,” Kath said.

With a curriculum specially designed for schools, the Kindness Factory SEL program focuses on the development of 12 core attributes that underpin kindness, both to other people and yourself, including honesty, perspective, collaboration, positivity, mindfulness, self-acceptance, empathy, compassion, trust, humour, humility, and gratitude.

As well as addressing and teaching these attributes needed to be kind and connect with others, it teaches the internal skills needed to be kind to ourselves.

It’s a program that’s resonated with schools both here and internationally – today more than 3500 schools in Australia the US and the UK have incorporated it into their curriculum.

Kath said the program was designed with teachers for teachers.

“It’s not at all laboursome; teachers can essentially plug in and teach with the resources we have created,” she said.

“While the content is child-specific, teachers are also absorbing the impacts of kindness. With so much burn out and overwhelm that’s been an added bonus that we’re proud of.”

Schools participating in the program have reported the benefits it’s delivering to both teachers and students.

While a detailed study of the impacts of the Kindness Factory SEL program is now underway, preliminary data from 40 of the participating schools showed all 40 reporting that their students now collaborated better, and anti-social behaviour had declined and stabilised.

“The feedback from our schools so far is overwhelmingly positive and we’ve already started to see behavioural changes which was our intention,” Koschel said.

“With so much man-made adversity going on in Australia and around the world, it’s important to keep kindness at the forefront and give our students and teachers an access point to kindness for themselves and others.

“Seeing so many people especially young people accessing kindness education is something I’m very proud of.”

ACM director of enterprise sales Damian Hetherington will introduce Kath during the webinar.

Kath will present her life story, the science behind the benefits of leading a life of kindness, an overview of the Kindness Curriculum SEL program and how schools can get involved.

The webinar will be hosted on June 19 at 3.45pm.

Register for the free event here by 12pm on June 19.

You can also win a 12-month Kindness Factory SEL program for your school. ACM is proudly funding one SEL program valued at $3000 per state to be given away after the webinar.

Schools can be nominated to go into the draw when signing up. Be sure to place the school name and post code.