The patron of Solving the Jigsaw is the Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, chair of the National Centre against Bullying and a former Chief Justice of the Family Court.‘It is a great privilege to be associated with the JIGSAW program as its patron.
In my years as Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia and as a Supreme Court Judge prior to that, I became all too familiar with the challenges that face so many children in our community. That awareness has been enhanced by my position as Chair of the National Centre against Bullying and as National Patron of the Australian Drug Foundation in recent years.
We know that both family violence and the excessive consumption of drugs go hand in hand with the abuse, including sexual abuse, of children and young people. Many Australian families struggle with these issues and many are unable to cope with them. Not uncommonly, one of the effects on children is for them to believe that violence and bullying are a solution to their problems, or alternatively render them to be more likely to be victims of violence and bullying as part of their daily school lives.
Jigsaw has addressed these issues by working in partnership with schools and teachers to provide them with new skills and resources that are brought to bear in a practical way in the classroom. Thus creating a safe environment where children are able to build trusting relationships with their peers and adults in their lives.
I have been privileged to sit in on classrooms where the Jigsaw approach is employed. Similarly, I have spent a day with teachers undergoing Jigsaw training. On both occasions I was immensely impressed, in the case of the schools, by the profound effect that the program has upon children and in the case of the teachers, at their ready acceptance and involvement in the program as offering a real way forward in assisting their students.
This is not just a program about bullying and violence but is rather a program that has the potential to impart values that will equip children throughout their school days and into adult life. It helps children confront and deal with all of the issues that they are faced with, including for example, the death and/or serious illness of a family member, mental health issues in the family as well as their relationships with their siblings, parents and peers.
I cannot commend it highly enough and see it as representing a wave of the future for our children and our schools.'
The Hon Alastair Nicholson
