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Grant success for Dr Nicole Merrick and her team

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We are delighted to share the news that Healthy Trajectories team member Dr Nicole Merrick has been awarded funding by Melbourne Disability Institute as part of their Interdisciplinary Disability Research Seed Funding program. Nicole’s new project aims to investigate how students with disability feel about belonging in school and to find ways to help all students feel like they belong and are included. It also aims to understand the experiences of people with disability and use this knowledge to guide future research, making sure their voices are heard. 

The project is called ‘Enhancing belonging for students with disabilities in mainstream schools: setting the framework for inclusive practices that benefit all students’. Nicole will head a team including Ms Kelly Day (Faculty of Education), Professor Wesley Imms (Faculty of Education), Healthy Trajectories’ Professor Christine Imms, and consumer partners Freya Munzel and Nicole Kozelj. 

The project team explain:  

A sense of belonging means feeling accepted and valued by others. For children, this usually means being part of a group of friends, especially at school. When children don’t feel like they belong, they can feel lonely and left out. 

Research has shown that inclusive education, where all students learn together, has many benefits. However, there are bullying, lack of support, and exclusion can make students with disability and their families feel ignored and stressed, affecting their mental health

There is not a lot of research on how students with disability feel about belonging in school. Conversations with young people have shown that students with disability may experience belonging in a different way, and they want more research on this topic. 

We are so excited for Nicole and the team, and to see what this important project discovers. Congratulations to all involved! 

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