About Us

VISION

A flourishing Upper Hunter community that understands the importance of wellbeing.  

MISSON

To embed evidence based wellbeing literacy and practices through leading and promoting ongoing cultural change in our Upper Hunter schools, families and community.

Scott Shann, Chair

On behalf of the Where there's a Will Board of Directors, welcome to our website!

Where there’s a Will exists to create a new normal where enhanced mental health and wellbeing  allows our Upper Hunter community to thrive and flourish.

Our approach prioritises prevention through education. It is a tried and true approach. The ‘Slip Slop Slap’ campaign taught us how to prevent skin cancer, the ‘Healthy Eating Pyramid’ taught us about food choices. Where there's a Will is following this lead by adopting an education approach for wellbeing and mental health.

Currently this education, based on wellbeing science, begins when two-year olds in the Upper Hunter enter our pre-schools. Ultimately, we hope it will begin at birth when these now two-year olds  become parents that are capable of modelling positive wellbeing for their own children.

While we don’t focus on treatment, we do recognise that these resources are sorely needed in our community and throughout Australia. The system is not coping with demand, there is a national shortage of practitioners. The circuit breaker in addressing mental health is to tackle it with prevention equipping people with the tools to ride the highs and lows that life can throw at us, and how to identify when things are not going well and be able to seek help.

Creating this sort of generational change via prevention requires a plan and patience. We are very proud that the Upper Hunter community has both a plan and patience.

I encourage you to be curious and explore the information included on this website. Interesting searches include:

  • Professor Martin Seligman, universally recognised as the founder of Positive Psychology,
  • Professor Lea Waters, the current President of the International Positive Psychology Association. We are fortunate to have Lea leading Visible Wellbeing in the Upper Hunter schools
  • Search for: PERMA, PESA, VIA character strengths.

While there have been many wins during our six years of operation that keep our team motivated and  inspired, we have systems in place to ensure that this is a sustainable model capable of achieving much longer term goals.

We understand that the Upper Hunter is the only ‘whole community’ implementing positive education and positive psychology on this scale. That this can happen relying on community commitment and financial support makes the Upper Hunter truly unique and trailblazers for the future of positive education, wellbeing and good mental health for our community.

Scott Shann
Chair
Upper Hunter Where there’s a Will