Thank you to everyone who joined and enriched our Resilience discussions led by Nick Oddy last Friday. A wonderful mix of knowledge, personal experience and tips on how to build resilience. If you are interested in viewing the recording, you find it right here.

Resilience is not about being bull-headed and face the storm, it's about understanding our vulnerabilities – our weakest points – becoming aware of these and building approaches that support us to bounce back. This can be about establishing routines that keep us on track or processes that kick-start resilience, like cleaning or exercising. It's also about knowing who to go to for what and when.

Having someone around who's available to talk with is at the core the Girls Academy, an organisation we've worked a lot over the last year. They are a major provider of school-based engagement programs for secondary school Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls in Australia. We are extremely proud of working with this organisation and today would like to share some of the work we've done with them.

Girls Academy

The Girls Academy is the flagship program of Role Models and Leaders Australia, founded in 2004 by Olympian and champion basketballer Ricky Grace. The full-time program, available at 46 schools across Australia, works within schools to provide community-led solutions to overcome obstacles that prevent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls from attending and achieving at school.

74% of staff are highly accomplished Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. The program increases the skills, employability, mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls around Australia – providing them with better opportunities to contribute to the social and economic outcomes of the wider community.

The senior leadership of the Academy have made a commitment to developing their staff to take over and run the organisation over the next few years. Integral has been involved in developing and conducting a tailored leadership development program for staff. This has involved providing 360 Leadership Development feedback and individual coaching for each manager. 

Terry Boland, the Chief Operating Officer at Girls Academy describes the benefit of the Integral program.

“The Integral Leadership Development program has been a very effective way of providing our team leaders and managers key skills they need in their roles. It has also built the confidence of our leaders by exposing them to best practice research on leadership and practical skills. The Integral coaches have been especially skilled at providing guidance and coaching related to the key challenges each of our staff are facing and in understanding and respecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values and cultures. 

All Girls Academy staff have greatly appreciated the opportunity they are receiving in building their leadership and teambuilding skills at a time when schools and the Academy are facing considerable challenges.  This program has strengthened our culture and values as well as built our leadership capability for the future.”

Continue reading to learn about the competency framework we designed for this program, as well as the online workshops we ran with Girls Academy.

If you are interested in learning more about this program, contact Ron Cacioppe. Should you be interested in designing your own leadership program, contact our Head of Coaching & Leadership Development Jill Dare. 

Upcoming

• Meditation, every Tuesday at 9am > Details.
  If you're back in the office and feel awkward meditating in an open office, why not book a meeting room with some of your colleagues and join the session from there. 
• Q&A: Mindfulness and Coaching: for Leaders and Professional Coaches with Rob Kramer of Kramer Leadership. 25 September > More info to come.
• The Leadership Journey with Edgewalkers & Ron Cacioppe. A 6-day retreat in Margaret River to journey through nature, to refresh & review leadership contributions and discover visions for the future. If you're interested, you should read more here or download the flyer.