MHiPS: a parent perspective

Published

Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 4:17 PM

While the focus of MHiPS is children’s wellbeing at schools, its benefits can extend well beyond the classroom. Here a parent shares their experience.

I wanted to mention just how valuable the MHiPS rollout has been for me and my family personally. 

My child is at primary school in year 5, and has ADHD and ASD. The school has always been very supportive, inclusive, caring and available to speak, and Oliver* has had an individual learning plan (ILP) for several years.

Before MHiPS, each year his classroom teachers would ‘hold’ his ILP. We would meet perhaps once a term (sometimes less) and the teachers were always trying to implement strategies to support Oliver. We discussed and developed goals in the ILP but it never quite felt ‘adhered to’ as closely as it does now.

Now our school has a Wellbeing Leader role funded under the MHiPS initiative and she is fabulous in taking charge of the ILP, updating it, setting meetings with us and the teachers, monitoring that the goals are being ‘worked on’ and collecting data where needed.

She is the contact person who supports Oliver when incidents occur, so we are always confident that if something happens in the classroom or playground, the classroom teacher can call on someone to deal with Oliver and the situation (usually in the moment) with time and a dedicated focus.

She has also engaged other resources such as the visiting teacher for autism to observe Oliver in the classroom and playground, and feedback insights to us and the teachers. She has supported the teachers by providing them with ideas for strategies to implement, relieving them of the burden of coming up with all of that themselves.

She trains in various professional development for herself, and sources other professional development for the teachers generally, that supports inclusive teaching and supports at school.

She has also been driving the applications for the Disability Inclusion program, but Oliver has been assessed as not needing that at this stage.

MHiPS has been a really helpful addition to our lives and relieves a lot of stress knowing that there is a dedicated resource at school for kids like Oliver.

*Name has been changed.