Is your child or young person struggling with school attendance?
At School Can’t Australia we understand the challenges and distress of caring for a child or young person experiencing school attendance difficulties. As Australia’s largest national parent/carer peer support community for school attendance difficulties, we’re here to offer our support, guidance, and a listening ear.
Welcome to School Can’t Australia!
Who Are We
School Can’t Australia (SCA) was established in 2014, in response to the lack of dedicated support services for families whose children and young people are experiencing school attendance difficulties. SCA provides peer support for parents and primary carers through a Facebook group.
SCA is run by volunteers, who are themselves parents and carers of children and young people experiencing school attendance difficulties. Many of our volunteers have qualifications in allied health and teaching.
SCA provides peer advice and support for parents including:
Connection and mutual support.
A safe space to unpack and make sense of what has happened.
Guidance and lived experience knowledge.
Building parent/carer well-being.
General information and advice on issues relevant to school can’t.
An opportunity to help others.
Direction to external crisis and emergency support.
Direction to resources and support services.
Face-to-face and online parent/carer support meetings.
Other activities of the group include:
Advocating for the needs of parents, carers, children and young people.
Collaborating with researchers and policymakers.
Conducting lived experience research.
Raising awareness and creating shared understandings of school can’t.
SCA currently has over 10,000 members with almost 2000 members waiting to join the Facebook group. Membership has been doubling in size every year since the group started. We urgently require funding to reduce the long wait times for membership to our group.
How we help
Support
We facilitate a peer support community for parents and carers of children experiencing school attendance difficulties on Facebook. Find our community here: School Can’t Australia
Please note due to high demand there is currently a significant wait time in joining the group. We are working to reduce this delay. Please visit our website again soon, as we will continue to develop new content and resources over the coming months.
Empower
We build parent/carer understandings about school can’t and provide resources that enable them to support their child/young person. Topics include: problem solving, collaboration with schools, alternative education settings, self-compassion, stress, self regulation, co-regulation, mental health, disability, and inclusion.
Our resources will soon be shared here and on our public Facebook page here
Advocate
We provide the lived experience voice of children and young people, and their parents / carers to inform and influence systemic change across education, disability, mental health and welfare services.
Access our submission to the 2022 Australian Senate Inquiry into School Refusal here and our response to the final report here
Get in Touch!
Parents & Carers may request to join the School Can’t Australia community Here. (Please respond to ALL questions in your application).
Media, professionals, government, researchers and educators can connect with us through the web form or via email: schoolcantaustralia@gmail.com
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