Journeys: Supporting innovation in teacher education throughout Australia

Since the late 1990s, the Response Ability project team has been working to support the inclusion of certain adolescent health and social issues in pre-service secondary education. This is an initiative of the Department of Health and Ageing and began under the National Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy. With subsequent shifts in policy and emerging research about resilience and mental health, the project has evolved considerably in its aims, principles and processes. While implementation has always been collaborative, the project's evolution has been marked by stronger partnerships between health professionals and teacher educators and by a critical shift from a health risk focus to an educational one. Drawing on consultation with teacher educators and reflections of project team members, this paper will explore the process of working within universities on a national level and identify factors that make lasting change difficult in pre-service secondary education. Critical issues include the crowded university curriculum and tertiary cultures that may not be supportive of innovation in teaching and program design. While the project has achieved considerable success—producing award-winning resources and gaining support from many teacher educators throughout Australia— difficulties remain in regard to positioning this issue within teacher education and ensuring sustainability. This paper presents not only the story of the project itself but also the journey of those wrestling with curriculum change.