Here are two YouTube videos that not only provide excellent food for thought about managing our levels of stress, but also cover many practical and common sense tips about how to do so.

Firstly, a short 11 minute 'animated' talk by Dr Mike Evans: The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do for Your Stress

The second is a lecture by Dr. Martin Rossman: Imaginative Solutions for Stress Relief. Much longer at 1.5 hours altogether (including questions and discussion) but well worth watching if you can find the time!

Our Chair Chi Training Program is proving popular, with several public and onsite workshops delivered already for 2016.

The Level One workshop enables you to deliver a basic 30 minute Chair Chi session which includes gentle exercises and strategies that will help enhance your clients' emotional, psychological and physical wellbeing.

Level Two provides additional activities and includes a segment on Pain Management.

Level Three includes many additional skills to allow you to deliver a full one hour Chair Chi session, and also included components that cover sleep, anxiety and depression from a Tai Chi perspective.

To see the full list of public workshops, see our Public Program Schedule.

29-31 July
Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

For all those working in the non-profit sector, the annual Better Boards Conference is an important event.

It is "one of the largest gatherings of its kind in Australasia, it is a valuable opportunity for those responsible for the governance of their organisation to make connections, share ideas and gather information with other board members, chief executive officers and senior managers from non-profit organisations".

A separate but connected component of the Better Boards Conference is the Sprout Summit on 29 July, designed to "equip emerging leaders and change-makers with the practical tools, processes and insights to drive successful change and create positive impact in society."

This year's conference theme, Game-Changing Moves... Governing for Maximum Impact, "acknowledges the increasing number of boards, CEOs and executives that are creating new game plans as a period of Commonwealth and State Government driven transformational reform draws to a close".

This article is useful reminder for educators about alternative formative assessment strategies.

What strategy can double student learning gains? According to 250 empirical studies, the answer is formative assessment ...

Unlike summative assessment, which evaluates student learning according to a benchmark, formative assessment monitors student understanding so that kids are always aware of their academic strengths and learning gaps.

We like Robert Stake's definition of formative and summative assessments: "When the cook tastes the soup, that's formative; when the guests taste the soup, that's summative."

At the foot of the article there's also a link to downloadable checklist of 53 strategies to use in your classroom.

Developed by Autism Queensland, the Family Goalsetting Tool is for therapists, teachers, social workers and other specialists working with families with young children. It's designed "to help practitioners facilitate truly family-centred, holistic goal setting with parents/carers of young children (birth to early school years) with significant global developmental delay and/or multiple and complex needs".

There are two versions of the FGST available - one for families with children with disabilities, the other to help children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Here is a short video about employee engagement that may be of interest for some Starlink readers. It provides some interesting food for thought. Perhaps it could also be a useful discussion starter at a staff meeting?

"Ahoy! Did you know that 7 out of 10 employees are dis-engaged, and 2 out of 10 are actually trying to sink your boat? Watch and learn the latest employee engagement research, and learn what engaged employers can do to keep their organizations afloat."