Inner West

Rae Usman is a one-of-a kind. A qualified teacher, she also has extensive experience in the recruitment industry, where she provided careers guidance and resumé building opportunities. The combination of these skills has meant that she is able to comprehensively support the young people who come to her at The Burdekin Association’s Learning Space at Addi Road Community Organisation in Marrickville.

69 per cent of the children and young people who come to The Burdekin Association are unable to attend or participate effectively in learning provided through the Department of Education, due to their unique personal situations.

Rae Usman’s knowledge of positive psychology – derived from working with students at a hospital – has informed her teaching practice at The Burdekin Association’s Learning Space.

Her approach is based on the idea that the wellbeing of the young people comes first. It means that she meets each child where they are on the learning continuum and does her best to foster a positive learning environment.

“Research indicates and my experience has revealed, that if we don’t look after the child’s wellbeing first, then it makes it very difficult for learning to occur.”

Rae Usman, Education Specialist at The Burdekin Association

Social – emotional learning (SEL) needs are high on the agenda for young people attending the Learning Space. They often find it hard to self regulate, have poor self perceptions of themselves, which feeds into incorrect assumptions about themselves. They may say things, like “I’m dumb, I can’t do it”. Rae tries to flip the script for them by teaching them a positive sense of self, promoting healthy relationships, and building capacity to manage behaviours, emotions and interactions with others.

The Learning Space at Addi Road Community Organisation in Marrickville.

Advocating for the young people is part of Rae’s role. Her main goal is to transition the young people back to their home school by building their confidence to return or supporting them into an alternative school or educational pathway.

Unfortunately, young people with unmet literacy needs are likely to have low educational attainment, earn less income and are more likely to be unemployed.

Trauma informed training helps…

“Sometimes the young people have learning difficulties that have been undiagnosed, or they struggle to learn. The impact of trauma can lead to a range of behaviours and complexities which present in learning environments.”

Rae Usman, Education Specialist at The Burdekin Association

Rae has completed trauma informed training with The Burdekin Association, which she has found to be valuable in assisting her to recognise the needs in the young people in our care.

Rae Usman, outside the Learning Space at Addi Road Community Organisation

She knows to look outside of the behaviour that would typically attract a comment of ‘what is wrong with them?’, but rather Rae looks beyond the behaviours and through trauma lens and attempts to determine what she can do to better support the young person to learn.

Rae tries to develop strategies for each of the young people she sees by using a resilience meter and/or an emotional wheel for when they attend that day. She asks them to mark or point to how they are feeling, so she can then gauge where is the best place to start the lesson on that day.

“They might tell me that they are feeling stressed or they may display some characteristics of hypervigilance, so we’ll do some calming activities before we get into the learning. If they’re feeling sad or in a low mood, we may need to play music or a game together. The game may incorporate numeracy or literacy and I can witness their literacy and numeracy skills in action. Most kids like a game. It doesn’t matter their age.”

Rae Usman, Education Specialist at The Burdekin Association

Age range of attending students…

Rae typically sees young people aged between 12 and 18 years of age for one hour to three hours at a time. Predominantly it’s the Year 9, 14-15 years age bracket that she sees most.

“Of all the year groups at high school, Year 9 is the pointy end. The young people have a lot happening at this age, they are going through physical, emotional, social and cognitive changes which can have implications with how they engage at school,” Rae said.

“Evidence has shown that Year 9 is the time when young people typically tend to disengage from school, they may no longer see school as important or feel like they don’t have the academic skills to continue. So, I thought if The Burdekin Association implements some preventative measures, particularly with some of our younger children we may catch them before this becomes an issue. As a result, we will have after school hours tutors who will be able to provide extra literacy and numeracy support and build on these vital foundation skills our young people often miss out on.”

Rae Usman, Education Specialist at The Burdekin Association

Last year, Rae supported a young person with ADHD and dyslexia undertake their Year 11 studies. A learning support team came out from Sydney Distance Education, and they discussed with Rae how as a team they could all support this student. The young person came three times a week, Rae acted as scribe for them and they participated in online Zoom meetings, completed assessments and tests and overall had a positive outcome which would not have otherwise happened.

Young people’s life and social skills are an important consideration for Rae. The students participate in activities such as cooking, going to the local food co-op to purchase food, have discussions about sustainability and visit the local community garden, along with assisting with caring for the therapy pet, Toothless.

“I think it’s important that the young people don’t see the world as big and scary, but it’s somewhere that they can navigate. I know that our wonderful Burdekin Team do the same thing. It’s great that I can reinforce the great work all of our staff do with our young people.”

Rae Usman, Education Specialist at The Burdekin Association