Year 9 News – 21 March 2024

Community Health Tours in Health and Physical Education

In Year 9 Health classes this term, students are looking at ‘Mental and Community Health’. Recently, classes attended the community health tours around Bendigo, visiting organisations that help young people with a variety of mental and physical health-related problems. This included headspace, Anglicare, Bendigo Community Health and YO Bendigo. It was really pleasing to see our students engage with these organisations and learn about the different services they offer for young people within our community.

“While on this tour we saw many different wellbeing places. The first one we visited was headspace. Although we did not go into the building, we were introduced to a headspace video at our final stop. The second place we went to was Anglicare Victoria. They took us to a rooftop and started talking about how they help teenagers with issues such as homelessness, alcohol, drug use, financial counselling, education and family violence. The third place we visited was the Community Health Centre where the staff introduced us to their concerns with mental health, etc. and told us about what they can help with. Community Health offers services for women and men, children and families, counselling and mental health, sexual health, etc. The final place we went to was Yo Bendigo, where Teddy gave us a warm welcome. Once we got to Yo Bendigo, we went through the building to a little set up which had both headspace and Yo Bendigo together. They talked about where we can sign up and their opportunities. Some of their opportunities are workshops, micro-credential training and band practice. They also have room hire for people who want to study after school or hangout.  They have events that people can go to like singing and a magazine for young artists that want to show their art. Yo Bendigo showed a video about headspace and they gave a small tour of the place.” Chelsea Doherty and Laura Foster

Pat Cronin Foundation Presentation

On Thursday 7 March, our Year 9 students attended a presentation from the Pat Cronin Foundation on social violence and the coward punch.

With the growing number of violent acts within our society, it was a timely message to students about the impacts of violence and how young people can help not only others, but themselves when they become angry/aggressive.

More information can be found at their website for those interested: https://patcroninfoundation.org.au/

Pat Cronin Foundation Student Reports

“Last Thursday we were lucky enough to have Katherine from the Pat Cronin Foundation come and share her story with us around physical violence. Katherine spoke about her experience being a witness of a fatal punch outside a kebab store in 2019 and how much it impacted her life. The Pat Cronin foundation was created in memory of Pat Cronin, who was a 19-year-old boy who devastatingly lost his life to a coward punch. Pat was a young, ambitious boy who had a promising future ahead of him in footy, while also studying health science and physiotherapy under the scholarship he was awarded. He was just a normal boy, they were just a normal, happy family until one night their lives changed forever. Pat had just played his first game of senior footy and went down to the local pub in Diamond Creek to have fun with his friends when a fight broke out. He was helping a friend off the ground when unexpectedly someone punched him in the back of the head. At first, they thought nothing of it until later when he passed out. The punch had caused a traumatic brain injury that, by then, was inoperable. That was his last footy game.

“The Pat Cronin presentation taught us that we need to think wisely when it comes to physical violence. One wrong decision can change not only the life of the victim but also the lives of everyone who knew them, their family and the offender. Did you know, 85% of students believe that it is okay to use violence to defend yourself and 32 % of students say fighting is fun and like to watch fights at school. The Pat Cronin Foundation was set up to raise awareness and educate schools, clubs, community groups and young people about how to end the coward punch to change the statistics.

“If it can happen to Pat, it can happen to anyone.” (Ruby Bath and Maddy De Haan)

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“Last week Katherine from the Pat Cronin Foundation came to speak to the Year 9s at CMC. She told us the story of Pat and brought awareness to the overall violence in our community. The Pat Cronin Foundation was founded due to the tragic death of Pat Cronin at the young age of 19. He was killed by a coward punch, which struck him in the head during a pub brawl.  Unfortunately, cowardly incidents like this happen way too much in our society and it’s the Pat Cronin Foundation’s purpose to provide schools and young people with the education and information they need to make good decisions and prevent these things from happening in the future. Some of the ways the Foundation does this is by supplying online education programs and chats, as well as their in-person talks at schools. We believe that these talks should expand to places such as footy clubs and other sports clubs where violence is commonly seen. Overall, we believe that the Pat Cronin Foundation is an amazing organisation which is extremely beneficial for our current and future community, to create a safer environment for all.” (Eliza Evans and Ava McLauchlan)

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“On  Thursday 7 March, Katherine from the Pat Cronin foundation visited our school to talk about social violence and how it can affect many friends and family, such as the story of Pat Cronin. He was a 19-year -old, smart and kind upcoming footy star who had great friends and a loving family but, after a footy game, Pat and his friends went out to a bar where he was struck in the back of the head for no reason when a small fight broke out. His skull was fractured which killed him after only two days. This devastated the community of Diamond Creek and that started the foundation to “stop the coward punch” which is supported by over 400 schools, 80,000 students and over 100 organisations around Australia. The goal of the foundation is to stop violence and to be wise if you get into a fight. Try avoiding it by distracting the attacking person, trying to walk away, talk it out and make it less serious. The Pat Cronin Foundation strives to end the coward punch in hopes that there will be less violence, not just Victoria but around the whole world. We were told that 85% of high school students believe it’s okay to use violence to defend yourself and 32% of high school students say fighting is fun and they strive to change these statistics. If it can happen to Pat, it can happen to anyone…” (Sebastian Dove)