KRISTEN DOUGLAS

Kristen also specialises in Education Executive & School Principal mental health, school staff self-care, and the impact of critical incidents in school communities. headspace is one of the largest mental health platforms and organisations in the OECD. headspace is contributing to a national ground swell of conversations and strategies to ensure that education staff take care of their own mental health and prioritise their wellbeing.

Kristen has significantly contributed to the synergy between education and mental health, combining her experience as an educator and principal, with her passion and experience in education and mental health and wellbeing, from government policy to leading transformational change in education systems and in the mental health sector.

Kristen Douglas, leads a large national multidisciplinary team through headspace working across all Australian Primary and Secondary Schools to enhance the mental health and wellbeing of whole school communities with a focus on school leaders and staff. And was instrumental in collaborating with Beyond Blue to curate the Be You national online mental health initiative, which supports educators and schools in developing positive, inclusive and resilient learning communities.

Kristen Douglas, leads a large national multidisciplinary team through headspace working across all Australian Primary and Secondary Schools to enhance the mental health and wellbeing of whole school communities with a focus on school leaders and staff.

In doing this work, Kristen has worked with, and alongside, thousands of Australian school leaders and their communities when they have been impacted by a critical incident or distressing event. This has included death, suicide, homicide, shootings, natural disasters, and large-scale events like COVID 19.

"VUCA Leadership: What leaders do when things get difficult"

Leadership is good when things are good .. but how do you go leading when things aren’t ?

This session explores practical and explicit skills and strategies for school leaders to actively support the immediate wellbeing needs of their teams and reduce the longer-term impact when they have experienced stress or distress as a team. Enhancing the skills of leaders to reflect, re-balance, recalibrate, and reorient after complex experiences. Kristen guides leaders to understand psychosocial skills and the micro-behaviours of skilled leaders in responding to volatile, uncertain, or complex environments. The session highlights the critical nature of processing experiences for growth, reducing and offsetting cumulative harm and getting back to resilience. Essentially slowing down to speed up.

Kristen Douglas, National Manager and Head of headspace Schools, specialises in working with leaders in complex, acute, and high disruption environments, and supports leaders to see through the fog of volatile, uncertain, complex or ambiguous environments. She’s worked closely with school and sector leaders during some of the most distressing, traumatic, and emotionally charged events.