Ingleburn Public School, Ingleburn, NSW

Ingleburn Public School, Ingleburn, NSW

In an entrepreneurial partnership with UNSW, Ingleburn Public School has established the world’s first school-based clinic for managing disruptive behaviour disorders (DBDs) in young children.

Under the Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) program, parents receive real-time live coaching from a certified therapist, who observes the parent/child playing from behind a one-way mirror. The therapist then coaches the parent to apply evidence-based parental strategies by speaking into a microphone that connects to the wireless earpiece worn by the parent. For teachers with a student participating in the program, they are given access to informational and in-class support services, to enhance their capacity building and to better manage problematic behaviours within the classroom.

The PCIT program, provided to at-risk students and families free of charge since June 2019, runs from Ingleburn Public School across six schools and preschool in South Western Sydney. It was awarded a Secretary's Award for School Achievement in the 2020 NSW Minister's and Secretary's Awards for Excellence.

DBDs, which include oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, are a serious public health concern that may lead to mental illness, academic failure, family and peer dysfunction, and extreme violence and criminality.