Big Talks for Little People is a collection of evidence-based programs for primary school aged children which aim to develop children’s understanding of their mental health and thereby enhance their wellbeing. The Australian and International Primary School programs and Out of Hours School Care program contain suggested activities for 6 lessons of 35-40 minutes each.

The Health and Physical Education program is mapped to the Australian Curriculum for HPE and contains 10 lessons for Health Education at each of Year 2, Year 4 and Year 6. The Little Sports People program contains 4 sessions of 15-20 minutes each and are tailored for use by coaches or support staff to encourage discussion about mental health in a junior sport setting.

Big Talks for Little People is provided through this website where users will find for every program the lesson or session plans, teacher self-paced professional development, teacher information sheets, animations, and lesson/session resources. The focus of all the programs is on early intervention and prevention for better mental health. The unique and innovative feature of Big Talks for Little People are the digital animations intended to promote discussion in each lesson/session on social emotional learning and the development of children’s mental health literacy.

Each lesson comprises a significant element of social and emotional learning. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) highlights the role of resilient and inclusive classrooms which provide new opportunities for group membership and creation of effective learning environments. In facilitating inclusion, it is important that all class members as well as their teachers develop the skills to understand one another, and to communicate and work together effectively.

These skills are important to all children, both children with special needs and to those without, in terms of overall social development, perceptions of belonging, and promotion of overall mental wellness, as well as mitigation of the development of mental illness.

Social emotional learning (SEL) is aimed at developing these skills and is generally defined as a process by which individuals learn to understand and manage their own feelings, understand and empathise with the feelings of others, communicate, resolve conflicts effectively, respect others, and develop healthy relationships.

Five competencies that are generally agreed to be core to Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) include.