Brisbane Adventist College is the first Australian school to be part of the world-renown STARS program developed by mountain climber Graham Dingle in New Zealand in 2001. The program was designed to assist tweens in their transition into high school and encourage the development of resilience, peer cooperation and goal setting.
Mission Statement:
To assist in making the transition into high school a positive experience for Year 8 students and help strengthen the sense of community within the school, by bringing younger and older students together through Peer Mentoring. Senior students are guided and supported through the Peer Mentoring process by teachers.
STARS is a Foundation for Youth Development program that supports Year 8 students through five planned and fully integrated phases - Adventure Camp, Community Project, Community Adventure, Careers Expo and Peer Mentoring.
The Australian Youth Mentoring Network (AYMN), Australia's peak mentoring body, is a national hub for youth mentoring research, tools and resources. We work with interested youth mentoring organisations and practitioners to foster the growth and development of high quality mentoring programs for young people in Australia by providing a national base of collaboration, support, guidance and expertise.
The Australian Youth Mentoring Network is supported by:
The Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) is a member of the Australian Youth Mentoring Network Partnership with a view to supporting the Network to achieve significant outcomes for mentoring in Australia and to support the Government's youth engagement and attainment agenda. Through the new National Partnership on Youth Attainment and Transitions, all governments are now working together to improve educational attainment and engagement of young people.
Mentoring is one of the areas that the Australian Government sees as vital to young people staying engaged in education and training and achieving a Year 12 or equivalent qualification. DEEWR, with the support of the AYMN, is working with funded service providers to encourage them to involve mentoring organisations in activities and strategies they undertake towards improving youth engagement and attainment in their local communities.
