Teacher Professional Development
Better Conversations with Boys - A Program Design & Facilitation Skills Training
This professional development program gives educators a simple, clear framework to harnesses young mens' desire for adulthood, independence and mateship to empower them to take responsibility for their own emotional development and the impact they have on those around them.
‘Better Conversations with Boys’ outlines a highly practical, engaging and therefore highly effective approach to exploring every aspect of wellbeing. This enables boys to explore the experience of being empathetic, being respectful and being resilient on a practical level to help them to develop the essential social and emotional wellbeing toolkit they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
When we give teachers a clear guide for making open and honest conversations safe and engaging, young men enthusiastically lean into meaningful reflection on healthy masculinity, resilience, empathy, respect, consent and all aspects of wellbeing.
The program consists of 8 discrete professional learning modules that can be delivered to your wellbeing and pastoral staff over a format that suits your timetable, covering the following and more:
Unpacking the ‘Man Box’ and harnessing boys desire for mateship to drive collective honesty and supportive accountability;
Using the Good Blokes Co program map to guide groups into meaningful reflection;
Shifting from instructing to facilitating to make conversation and contemplation easy for groups of boys;
Real Talk. Engaging boys in honest conversations;
The facilitation toolbox. Using fun and creative activities to stimulate meaningful social and emotional learning and to get boys thinking differently about their behaviour and wellbeing;
Using disengagement as an opportunity for building trust and strengthening culture;
Designing your own programs that are relevant for your community, consistent with your school objectives and easy for your staff to facilitate.
Emotional Professionalism. EQ tools for educators to care for their own wellbeing and to lead with honesty and integrity.
“This training was more valuable than all other professional learning I have done, combined!”
“One of the best PDs I’ve ever done”
“This should be implemented in all schools. It was of huge benefit on so many levels.”
Keynote Staff Presentations
Good Blokes Co founder, Mike Dyson delivers an inspiring 90 minute keynote presentation, ‘Growing Good Blokes’ that helps your whole staff group to understand masculinity as a significant influence on boys wellbeing, relationships. The presentation outlines our approach to ‘collective honesty’, ‘supportive accountability, and ‘embodied wellbeing' and gives practical tools that can be immediately put to use in wellbeing, social and emotional learning and leadership programs to enthusiastically engage boys in practical explorations of resilience, empathy and respect.
Collaborative Program Design
Whether you’re reinvigorating existing programs or creating an entirely new program, we can support you to develop anything from a short series of workshops, to a school camp, a father son event, a year-long wellbeing program, rites of passage programs, pastoral care sessions or leadership programs.
We work collaboratively with schools, bringing our wealth of experience in concert with your intimate knowledge of your school community to design meaningful programs that students and parents love.
Parent Presentations
Mike Dyson, Good Blokes Co founder, delivers positive, inspiring and hopeful keynotes to parents:
Growing Good Blokes: Guiding your son towards resilience, empathy and respect. This talk helps parents to understand how boys wellbeing, the quality of their relationships, and their behaviour towards others is intimately linked to our cultural expectations on boys and men. It gives parents an understanding of how they can encourage a healthier alternative at home and makes it easy for parents to have meaningful conversations with their sons on all of those difficult subjects that arise throughout the teenage years.
Getting Comfortable with Consent (With sexual health expert, Lucy Peach). With consent education moving more comprehensively into the curriculum, parents need support to continue the conversation at home. Many parents find these conversations awkward and difficult. This talk demystifies the skills involved in supporting your son to understand how to have great relationships as he grows to become a young adult.
Father & Son and Mother & Son Events
Parent/child camps, weekends and evening events are incredibly popular with parents and a powerful way to bring your school community together for fun, laughter and honest conversations on masculinity and manhood. We can support you to design and facilitate uplifting and meaningful events that parents will rave about and boys will love.
“A terrific presentation last night. Meaningful, realistic, to the point, lots of practical, workable ideas to nurture positive relationships with our young men.”
“Brilliant! A great training opportunity to try and ‘get’ to these boys at risk and have better conversations with them.”
“All teachers should be made to do this training.”
“This training takes a complex issue and makes it feel possible, accessible, even easy!”
“One of the most outstanding presenters I’ve workshopped with. A massive collection of strategies and insights.”
“Today was extremely informative & I got so much out of it in terms of ideas and strategies.”
“The practical components are immediately applicable.”
“It has been a pleasure to work with Mike over the past five years. His experience in the Rites of Passage space is second to none, and his enthusiasm, energy and passion is highly valued by the whole team.
Mike has been a sounding board for me, giving feedback, offering advice when I asked for it and helping to lead parts of our Rite of Passage program to an exceptionally high level.
My life has been better since Mike has come into it.”