For the last two years, as the Social Worker running the Wellbeing programs at OzHarvest, I have incorporated Lisa Maltman and The Sleep Connection. Lisa comes with passion and excitement for all things sleep and can convey her knowledge with clarity. She was able to connect with our staff and we have benefited greatly from her visits. Lisa’s knowledge of sleep is impressive. However, one thing that stood out for me was that Lisa incorporated sleep into the whole picture of a person. She talked about a person’s life, work, social aspects as well as a person’s emotional and mental wellbeing. She didn’t just share information but made it practical to a person’s whole life. Lisa’s talks on sleep has become a favourite amongst staff, and many have shared that they have taken on board Lisa’s information and their sleep, and general life has improved. I highly recommend you ask Lisa Maltman and The Sleep Connection in to talk to your staff. Her information is vital for everyone.

Lisa’s informative presentation raised awareness of the impacts of sleep deprivation and encouraged participants to examine their own sleep habits. The workshop was an excellent opportunity for staff and students to identify barriers to good sleep in our context. These discussions facilitated the planning and implementation of individual and whole school strategies to address this issue.

Lisa shared both a passionate and practical message helping us to make the connections around sleep. It's such an important part of our well-being and how we operate day-to-day. Some of the key insights I gained when Lisa presented were:

- How vital sleep is to our children's health, learning and emotional well-being
- The effects screens are having on the quantity and quality of our sleep
- The strategies parents can use to develop healthy sleeping habits for children

Our year 11 Pastoral Care classes were very fortunate to have Lisa Maltman from the Sleep Connection visit Mount St Benedict College giving the girls the opportunity to understand the effect sleep has on their energy, mood, relationships, learning and overall performance at school.

The girls were excited at the prospect of logging their sleep patterns over a two week period and to identify their own personal sleep patterns along with possible changes they could make to their own lifestyles. Through the logs the girls were able to identify their own ‘sleep thieves’ and were able to isolate areas they could adjust to improve their quality of sleep.

Overall the experience has been invaluable in allowing our students to understand the importance of sleep being valued for improving their own physical and mental wellbeing, along with their motivation and performance

The Sleep Connection was an amazing opportunity for us to gain an insight into how important getting enough sleep is for myself and other teenagers. It helped me to realise how simple it is to develop bad sleeping habits, as well as how easily we can make small changes to improve our sleeping habits, thus making positive changes to all areas of our lives.

Lisa Maltman of The Sleep Connection gave a superb presentation on the scientific and social reasons why sleep is so important to us all, but especially for our teenage school boys. Lack of sleep is often the casualty of a busy lifestyle which many of our boys have. In a scientific, but practical presentation, Lisa showed us how our busy lives thieve us out of hours in bed and what that can do to our health, our performance and even our resilience. Sleep affects our learning and our ability to memorise.

We look forward to having Lisa back again next year. All our parents need to hear this message.