Balanced Choice Education

Walking with Education

Balanced Choice partners with schools to apply our personal development principles in ways that boost student engagement, strengthen relationships with teachers and peers, and support improved learning outcomes. While Balanced Choice facilitators can work directly with students in a school, the preferred model of engagement is to partner with teachers to develop an understanding of how to apply Balanced Choice processes within their own classrooms.

“The incidences of defiance and disrespect shown by participants decreased. Students made better choices around challenging situations. Whilst the level of compliance increased what was really pleasing was that the students were more engaged in their learning in class and in the College as a whole.”’

Dean Cummins - Head of Senior Years, Good Shepherd Lutheran College, NT

Who is it for?

We offer participating schools and teachers an engagement framework and pedagogy that can be applied across all subject areas. The Balanced Choice program provides for young people that struggle to:

Create or maintain healthy relationships with themselves and others;
Experience positive emotions; or
Engage with school and other social activities.

Balanced Choice programs were developed working in institutions involving young people with specific needs. Dr Martin Seligman’s principles of Positive Psychology and Learned Optimism have been adapted by Balanced Choice to generate a culturally and socially safe framework for self-reflection and goal setting.

The processes applied by Balanced Choice facilitators has delivered benefits to people from all walks of life, including:

Young people experiencing anxiety, depression and/or demonstrating difficulties with self-belief, belonging, trust and interpersonal communication.
Young people experiencing poverty and financial disadvantage.
Young people who have experienced trauma and relationship abuse.
Young people at risk of disengaging from school; and
Groups that struggle with collaboration, connection and positive psychology.

The values-based system that underpins Balanced Choice programs is called The Anchor. The name comes from the experience of working with people who identified a sense of drifting or being pushed around by forces seemingly beyond their control. The Anchor identifies 20 values that assist in generating a sense of self and provide a reference for decision making and goal setting.

The Anchor Values

The Anchor is a values-based process that supports everyone’s physical and mental well-being in preparation for the next steps in their personal development journey, with a focus on goal setting, learning and employment. Flexibility and adaptability within the program are vital to ensuring everyone’s voices are heard in a safe and collaborative environment.

Using balance, stretching and physical activity to engage the body.
Getting people on their feet to engage in play-based exercises that translate ideas and concepts into physical experiences.
Working with five foundations of Seligman's PERMA framework (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Achievement) to enable participants to connect to and cultivate their values with positivity and hope.
Every session is themed by a ‘value’ to provide a framework for structured learning. The values provoke reflection on individual and collective experiences and behaviours.
The Anchor assists participants in creating value-aligned goals and commitments, generating meaning through the demonstration of integrity and achievement.