David Price

 

Closing Address – Addressing Student mental health and wellbeing

 

Addressing student mental health and wellbeing is an increasingly important dimension of Western Australian teachers’ professional lives. They are becoming more adept at recognising and addressing such issues as they arise and, more importantly, understand the need to create positive, safe and nurturing classroom cultures. But what about teachers themselves?  What do we know about their mental health and wellbeing and should we be doing more to address this? David will explore some emerging data about teacher wellbeing and suggest possible ways to address this in the future.

 

David Price: Assistant Executive Director Student Support, Department of Education

 

David Price has worked in the Western Australian public schools environment for 32 years as a teacher, Principal and Director of Schools. He has also held positions in policy development in the areas of Aboriginal education and training, rural and remote education and the development of cross-sectoral educational partnerships.

 

Currently he oversees Student Support Programs at the Department of Education and Training. His directorate supports schools in the delivery of programs to students with special learning needs and disabilities. It also provides funding, programs, professional learning and policy advice for student attendance, behaviour and wellbeing.

 

In 2000, David was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study community and school partnerships in lower socio-economic rural towns in the United States. In 2004 he undertook a study of school accountability in New York. He has been an educational representative to both Japan and Israel and currently works part-time to support poverty-stricken schools in the Kingdom of Cambodia.