Education webinars and training
View and download the full Education webinar calendar for 2025 and access the links for each session.
Presentation 1: Understanding the Impact of Adversity and Trauma on Behaviour in Schools
In this webinar, Michelle Murray, Senior Manager Education, discusses the neurodevelopmental impacts of significant adversity or trauma on children’s development and engagement, and will help you develop a better understanding of the impact on student behaviour.
Presentation 2: Strategies To Support Students Who Have Experienced Adversity and Trauma
Michelle explores evidence based strategies that we can use to support children and young people at school, who have experienced significant adversity and/or trauma, help them to break down the barriers, and engage in learning.
Presentation 3: Making the most of education plans to advocate for children and young people in education
Michelle talks about making the most of education plans to advocate for children and young people in education. Children in Out of Home Care have a right to an education plan that genuinely removes barriers to doing well at school.
Presentation 3 Q & A: Making the most of education plans to advocate for children and young people in education.
This Q&A session focuses on education plans, complementing the webinar on education plans listed above.
Presentation 4: Educating our 3-5-year olds
Michelle provides a snapshot of developmental milestones for 3 to 5-year-olds and information about the disruptions that may occur for our children and young people, such as trauma and attachment disruption.
Presentation 5: Developing education and training pathways as part of Leaving Care Plans
The Learning Without Barriers team are joined by panel members Dr. Joseph McDowall, CREATE Foundation, and Carly Perrett, Life Without Barriers Youth Advocacy Program, to discuss the education and training component of Leaving Care Plans.
Presentation 6: School Reports: What do they tell us and how can we use them.
Michelle talks about school reports and how they can provide us with much more than just the academic achievement levels of children and young people. They guide us with useful information that we can use to make sure the child or young person is best supported in their education journey.
Presentation 7: How to support the cultural identity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students.
Clea North, Education Consultant, speaks to the importance of ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people experience culturally responsive education to achieve their learning potential.
Presentation 8: Strategies to build the cultural capacity of your school.
Clea discusses the cultural capacity of a schools, highlighting the maximum way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait culture can be present in the wider school community and in the learning culture is by being culturally responsive.
Presentation 9: Back to school.
Clea and Megan Hall, Projects Lead, discuss what is going on for our children and young people when they return to school for a new school year and suggest strategies to support student attendance and engagement in learning.
Presentation 10: Education data including making the most of education plans to advocate for students.
Michelle and Megan discuss the importance of capturing accurate and timely education data to support the learning progression of our children and young people. They also touch on the importance of each child and young person in our care having an up-to-date Individual Education Plan that is meaningful and reflective of them as learners.
Presentation 11: Education Transitions: Early Years Transitions.
Megan speaks about the importance of supporting considered education transitions in the early years. Transitions in the early years include from home, to early learning and care, into kindy or preschool, and to formal school.
Presentation 12: Education Transitions: Primary to High School.
Michelle speaks about the importance of supporting considered education transitions between primary to high school.
Presentation 13: Education Transitions: Leaving School.
Helen Halse speaks about the importance of supporting considered education transitions beyond the school gate, leaving school. Transitions post-school include further education, training, or employment.
Presentation 14: Using Education Plans to advocate for children and young people in education.
Children in put-of-home care have a right to an education plan that genuinely removes barriers to doing well at school. Michelle unpacks what education support plans are and how you can use them to support children and young people in their education.
Presentation 15: Early Years Education and Care.
The research shows that the first five years last a lifetime. When children are encouraged to talk, read, sing, and play every day, these positive interactions help build a strong foundation that sets them up for educative success and a lifelong love of learning.
Presentation 16: School refusal with Dr. Glen Melvin.
Sometimes the idea of going to school can be a cause for severe distress for a child or young person and can result in a reluctance to go to school and an increase in nonattendance. High levels of distress and a reluctance to go to school is known as school refusal.
Presentation 17: Let’s talk about suspension.
The Learning Without Barriers team will talk about suspension and the policies and legislations that direct the practice is schools. The team also share case studies and examples of student suspensions and strategies to employ early before the disciplinary action occurs, and advocacy techniques for during and post suspensions.
Presentation 18: First Nations' Perspectives in Education.
The Learning Without Barriers team discuss ‘why’ it is important to talk about First Nations' perspectives in school, cultural inclusion, and cultural safety.
Presentation 19: Hook into Books™.
The Learning Without Barriers team are joined by three wonderful author illustrators; Aunty Fay Muir, Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, and Kate Foster, to chat about how we can create conditions that support the literacy of children and young people.
Presentation 20: Building your confidence to support children with ADHD, ASD, and ID.
Cat Lancaster, Director of Disability and Mental Health Centre for Practice Excellence, talks broadly about neurodiversity which encompasses Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, and Intellectual Disability, all of which affect a significant number of the children we care for and support. Find insights into the neurodivergent mind and provides tips to build your confidence looking after and supporting these children to grow and thrive.
Presentation 21: Behaviour Support for children and young people with disability
Cat talks about supporting behaviours of concern for children and young people in OOHC.
Presentation 22: School Refusal School refusal is when children find it difficult to go to school. It might be that they experience severe emotional upset, they are at home with their caregiver’s knowledge, there is an absence of antisocial characteristics and reasonable efforts have been made by caregivers to enforce attendance.
Presentation 23: Problem Solving
Learning without Barriers supports children and young people’s agency in finding solutions to things that might be blocking their attendance, achievement, enjoyment of learning and school. Understanding what is happening from the child’s perspective will help in finding the right strategies. Using problem solving approaches:
- Builds life skills
- Increases buy in to the solutions/actions
- Provides a safe and predictable response when things go wrong
- Allows repair – if something goes wrong there is a way to fix it.
- Minimises the need for punitive responses like suspensions
- Should be reflected in education and behaviour plans.
Presentation 24: Supporting neurodiverse students
You asked the questions and Cat Lancaster Exec. Director of Innovation and Practice Excellence, Disability, Mental answered them.
Education-focused care presented by Dr. Iain Matheson
Dr Iain Matheson draws on Australian and international examples and explores the idea of education-focused out-of-home care and what Life Without Barriers can do to champion and better promote and support education.
- Education-focused foster care
- Education-focused residential care
- Education-focused transitioning from care
Advocacy always links back to policy - State/Territory education policy and how to use it!
Michelle talks about the key education policies in Australia and how you can use them to advocate for children and young people in education settings.
The slides and links provide a reference point to return to if you need more information.
- Western Australia: WA Policy April 2023
- Queensland: QLD Policy April 2023
- New South Wales: NSW Policy 2023
See more events from the team at Learning Without Barriers at the Foster Care Events Page.
Reach out to the team at Learning Without Barriers for more information.