b'psychological distress. Almost one quarter of them areof students. It will be one of the largest randomised reporting loneliness all or most of the time.controlled trial designs in Australian schools to explore Our strategies are not just for students impacted byhow BSEM can be a proactive intervention for all trauma; youth mental health statistics are not going instudents.the direction that we hope for right now, so the BSEM is aWe have a proactive, strength-based response. The proactive response. This is for teachers to build a culturestudy we plan is to specifically track mainstream schools of community, a culture of psychological safety and aand universal populations of students, to track those culture of learning. outcomes and show over time that this BSEM work is not Newsboys Foundation CEO Sandy Shaw said:just for students impacted by trauma, or just for students Philanthropy is at its best when it helps seed a big idea,in out-of-home care, but can be a promising response for and for Newsboys the satisfaction of seeing the BSEMall students to support their learning and growth.evolve, be embraced so widely and have such a positiveIn August 2024, it was reported in the media that nearly impact on young lives makes the years of support30 per cent of Victorian students are struggling with worthwhile. literacy and numeracy, according to the latest NAPLAN Berry Streets Tom Brunzell said: The BSEM is now aexam results. Experts called for system-wide reform. fully self-sustaining business within a large non-profitEveryone is wringing their hands around equity funding organisation, but we still very much need philanthropyand curriculum, and its at these moments that Im so for our innovation and transformation initiatives. Weproud that Berry Street is on the front foot to say we could never had done what weve already accomplishedhave a response to increase student achievementand by ourselves. We benefited from the guidance andwellbeing as a dual purpose within schools, Tom said. encouragement of Newsboys every step of that last tenNick Placeyears.Thanks to Newsboys, for example, we have been able to establish our 80,000-strong alumni network, and create an alumni portal website to capture great ideas, dialogue and resources for those teachers. When we started, I thought we would work with a school for a time, set them up and then move on to the next school, but in fact, schools often want to continue to do our masterclasses, they want to connect to others who have done the work and receive updates from us. We discovered we needed to build this capacity to support schools far beyond when they have done our initial foundational training course, and thats where Newsboys was there for us again.Even as the BSEM spreads globally, Tom and his team continue to explore what is possible in educational system improvements. They are in the planning stages for a major research project, slated for 2025, to understand and address the continuing, complex unmet needs NEWSBOYS FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT 20247'