MindMatters Plus was a national demonstration project involving 17 diverse schools across Australia that explored ways to increase the capacity of schools to support students with high needs related to mental health and wellbeing.

MindMatters Plus focussed on the 20-30% of students who needed additional help in schools because they experienced high mental health support needs or were vulnerable to developing difficulties in the future.

MindMatters Plus:

• built on the existing MindMatters project
• aimed to achieve better mental health outcomes for students with high support needs by undertaking activities that:
  o strengthened life skills and resilience
  o developed supportive environments
  o encouraged partnerships between school and community services.

Figure 3 shows that the MindMatters Plus initiative operated through the Health Promoting Schools Framework within all three areas of the school that impact on providing support for high need students - the curriculum, teaching and learning; the school organisation, ethos and environment; and partnerships and services.

  
Figure 3. Health Promoting Schools Framework 

A list of the 17 demonstration schools involved in MindMatters Plus can be found at Resource 2: List of Schools 

These schools were offered:

• support to help them action the capacity-building possibilities already with the school
• a choice of health promotion and early intervention programs available around Australia (these are listed at Resource 3: Supplementary programs for schools to access through MindMatters Plus) 

More information about MindMatters Plus is available at the MindMatters website