home  background  staff discussion  resources	Background The focus for learning from MindMatters Plus was the 17 demonstration schools which explored ways of providing additional help to students with support needs in mental health and wellbeing. MindMatters Plus occurred at a time when the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing was exploring models for increasing youth participation in activities being conducted within the National Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy. MindMatters Plus as part of the MindMatters suite provided input to the National Youth Participation Project in this context. While MindMatters Plus had not been set up with specific requirements in relation to youth participation in its governance at National or school levels, MindMatters had always included an emphasis on the importance of the active engagement of students in school health promotion activities. In addition, officers working on the MM+ initiative noticed that some of the demonstration schools were becoming excited about the effects of involving students more actively in their schools approaches to mental health promotion. Some of this impetus came from programs such as the Kids Help Line peer skills program. As result it was decided to capture some learnings about ‘student connection’ in the context of MindMatters Plus which could inform future practice. The term ‘connection to school’ has been adopted for later work as it was language that was familiar to schools (as reported by the professional officers visiting the schools) and provided a direct link to the literature on protective factors for young people. The language of ‘student engagement’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘connection to school’ or ‘school connectedness’. However ‘connection’ was preferred in this context as in the education literature student engagement can have a particular meaning related to engagement in learning within the classroom. Two studies were conducted in this context:    •  12 staff were interviewed about their understanding of ‘connection to school’ especially for students with support needs. They were also asked what they did to enable connection for students.    •  a review of the literature (in a range of mediums) to identify relevant views of young people about engagement with school.