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Bio-Dash for Schools

The University of Melbourne

Bio-Dash is an online wellbeing education program that focusses on empowering and supporting young people to manage their anxiety using practical strategies and biodata.

  • Online

Pricing: Paid

Origin: Developed in Australia for Australian schooling contexts

Affiliations: Approved elsewhere: VIC

Product type: Program

Contact details

The University of Melbourne
ABN: 84 002 705 224

https://research.unimelb.edu.au/commercialisation/business-and-investors/solutions-available-for-licensing/bio-dash

bio-dash@unimelb.edu.au

Focus areas

  • Positive relationships

  • Mental health literacy and life skills

  • Self-regulation and engagement

  • Resilience and optimism

Curriculum alignment

  • Health and PE

  • English

  • Technologies

  • Science

  • Humanities and Social Science

  • The Arts

Prospective users

Audience: Whole class universal (Tier 1)

Context: School or centre-based

Main beneficiaries: Year 7, Year 8, Year 9, Year 10, Year 11, Year 12

Delivery style: Classroom teacher is trained

Aims & approach

Bio-Dash provides a practical and science-based approach to enhancing student wellbeing. It has been co-designed with young people and schools to meet their specific wellbeing and performance goals.

Bio-Dash equips young people with a wellbeing toolkit to help them manage anxiety related to academic, social, sport and creative arts performance.

This program is unique in that it seeks to make learning about wellbeing personalised and tangible by illustrating the mind-body connection and promoting individual insights and strategies using bio-data such as body temperature and respiration rate.

School staff do not need to have specialised wellbeing knowledge, as the expert content is delivered professionally via online modules. School staff run the class activities that complement the video learnings using the Facilitator's Guide. Instructional videos are also available.

The Bio-Dash program involves six key themes delivered via 35 bite-sized online modules:

  1. Smart Breathing
  2. Flexible Emojis (including nature connection, humour and music listening)
  3. Zoning In
  4. Max the Good Stuff (Savouring/Gratitude)
  5. 7D Imagery
  6. Self Coach (Self talk, Self compassion)

The program can be delivered at a pace that suits your school. It is recommended that the program be delivered over at least one school Term and can span across the whole school year. Specific themes or modules can be selected to suit specific subjects.

Bio-Dash was developed by the University of Melbourne and is currently offered on the Victorian DET Schools Mental Health Menu.

Implementation support

  • Implementation training webinars or modules

Evidence

Bio-Dash has considerable support for its effectiveness:

  • Rating of Bio-Dash for the Victorian Schools Mental Health menu: Level 4: Established evidence for program (supported by quality research evidence).
  • Logic Informed evidence (meta-analyses and systematic reviews): Bio-Dash strategies are based on robust evidence from meta-analytic and systematic reviews of similar interventions (e.g. Carr et al., 2020)
  • Co-design and Feasibility studies: In 2018 Bio-Dash was co-designed with Year 10 boys. In 2021, 2022 and 2023 feasibility studies were conducted with school staff and students from government and private schools. Relevance and access were endorsed.
  • Evaluation of Bio-Dash: In 2019 with 167 Year 9 boys in a Victorian school.