Chatting CHAT in schools

SU Australia’s CHAT Program is an innovative way to talk about our faith and cultural diversity in modern Australia, and fosters love, skills and confidence in our encounters with people different to us.

Recently, we are seeing more schools recognising the relevance and value of CHAT for their students and the wider school community.  SU Australia’s Tim Fawssett – Group Manager, Cross Cultural Innovation & First Nations – chats CHAT in schools below. 

Tim, can you remind us firstly what CHAT stands for and why its such an important initiative and resource?

CHAT stands for Cultural, Hearing, Asking and Telling. It is a package of intercultural training and a program developed by SU Australia to meet the needs of our increasingly multicultural nation (according to the last census, 49 % of Australia’s population were either born overseas or had at least one parent born in another country). CHAT aims to grow understanding and respect among students by encouraging listening, compassion, and empathy. Students are encouraged to share their beliefs, culture and values, including Christian students!

Where has CHAT been used so far?

Most of our training, for the last few years, has been for school chaplains and volunteers in the understanding and delivery of CHAT with their students or young people.

Recently CHAT has started to make its way more directly into schools. This is very exciting! How has this worked and what has been the response?

Last year we started praying and inquiring about the possibility of offering CHAT directly to schools and their teachers.  And so it was really amazing to be invited by three Christian schools – two in Queensland and one in Victoria – to come and train their staff in CHAT.

A Christian school in Melbourne is now using our CHAT Program through their Year 9 Religion and Values Education classes, with positive feedback already coming back.  The other two colleges have seen teachers using aspects of CHAT in their classes or further teacher training.

Why is CHAT training important and how does it relate to God’s big story?

Teachers, and especially those in Christian schools, are at the frontline of shaping young people to live well with cultural and faith diversity. They also need to work out how they feel, talk and work with these very modern interactions.  

Our hope is that CHAT gives these Christian teachers and students the courage and a resource to share what they believe, with great gentleness and respect, and to create school communities defined by respect, honesty and love.

What do you want us all to know about CHAT? What’s coming next, can you give us a preview, and something to pray for?

We are very excited to share a new form of CHAT for churches, which we will be piloting this year, training churches with a Bible study curriculum resource. How does diversity, cultural diversity, become a resource to help kids become followers of Jesus? How can we love our neighbours more, especially when they are ostensibly different from us? 

To find out more about CHAT visit https://chatproject.org.au/