Associate Professor and Educational and Developmental Psychologist
Dr Kelly-Ann Allen
Welcome to the resource page. This page is designed with a simple purpose - to translate the work I do with my colleagues into stuff that is useable, practical and (hopefully) helpful. I also don't want you to feel limited by barriers like journal subscriptions, paywalls or lack of time. So please, feel free to use what you need and I only ask that you give credit for the work if you use it (use a citation) and complete this extremely brief survey which has a couple of questions that allows me to track use and keep improving what I offer:
Resources
Power Points Slides
These free-to-use slides summarise some of the research I have done with my students and colleagues. You are welcome to use them in your lectures, for your workshops, for your talks to staff or students. You will see I have divided the slides into sections: belonging (in general), school belonging and university level belonging. In the notes of each slide you will see the full reference.
Cards for Connecting
The cards provide deep and meaningful questions for student reflections about their experiences at school that have been found to link with feelings of school belonging. These cards could be used with students in upper primary/elementary to high school. They could be used with adults, school staff or university students - either to think retrospectively about their own sense of school belonging or to be adapted for a current learning context. Remind users of the cards that there are no right or wrong answers. You might also like to set limits around confidentiality if responses are shared in a group. People should be able to skip any question that makes them uncomfortable. The cards are presented in slides with instructions for printing.
Free School Policy
This book contains 38 open-access free to use and adapt school policies that cover everything from inclusion to wellbeing. It's been downloaded by thousands of people, districts and departments all around the world. We'll be developing a second version of this book soon, so if this is a policy you would like to see in the future, please use this survey to let us know.
School Belonging Policy
The purpose of this policy is to outline the shared responsibility of belonging for the whole school community inclusive of parents, staff, teachers, students, and school leadership. The policy emphasises that every individual within a school community has the right to feel a sense of belonging to school and has a responsibility to help others feel a sense of belonging to school also.
Also related is a brief plain-language piece that responds to the question do you need a school
belonging policy. This could be used as an article to communicate to parents. Read the article here
Build your own Belonging Policy Tool Kit
The purpose of this policy is to outline the shared responsibility of belonging for the whole school community inclusive of parents, staff, teachers, students, and school leadership. The policy emphasises that every individual within a school community has the right to feel a sense of belonging to school and has a responsibility to help others feel a sense of belonging to school also.
Implementation
After all you can have the best policy or intervention in the world, but if you don't have good implementation, it may not be effective.
Plain Language Articles
Plain-language articles on belonging that could be used for school communities, parents or students. They could be used a prompt for an activity or a point of discussion.
Measuring belonging
Check out the repository of belonging measures over at the Global Belonging Collaborative.
Interventions for Belonging
Unfortunately this book is not open-access, but it contains activities for promoting belonging in the classroom.
About interventions
This systematic review summarises school-based interventions found to promote belonging.
Strategies to foster school belonging
These strategies could be used as recommendations to foster a sense of school belonging.
Research
Journal of Belonging and Human Connection
For belonging-focused research- Visit this website.
Salient Belonging Information
A summary of research with colleagues. This document includes bullet points from a number of papers.
Further open-access readings
Don't forget to keep an eye out for updates to the website under "Books'', ''Chapters'', and ''Publications."