About Flourish

Welcome to The Flourish Movement!

The Flourish Movement takes a whole-school approach to wellbeing and effectiveness, recognising that flourishing schools are built by flourishing people. Using evidence-based approaches, we help:

  • All educators build sustainable work practices, promote and support their wellbeing, and stay engaged in their careers.

  • School leaders to strengthen their leadership capability, manage complexity, and lead with clarity and care.

  • At the whole-school level, our programs support the development of positive, effective cultures that enhance collaboration, wellbeing and overall school performance.

Our Purpose

Since 2016, The Flourish Movement has supported over 1,150 school leaders across Australia. Through our work and over 25 years of research, we’ve come to understand just how complex, demanding and vital roles in education truly are. What began with school leadership has naturally expanded and today, we work with educators and school staff at all levels.

At Flourish, our purpose is to help people working in schools build sustainable and effective professional practices. We support educators and staff to stay engaged, maintain their love for the role, all the while having strong personal wellbeing. When educators flourish, schools flourish, and that benefits everyone.

Better educators help build better schools.

Areas we work on:

High Performance

Wellbeing

Burnout

School Culture

Leadership

Communication

Compassion Satisfaction

Secondary Traumatic Stress

Work with us

Beyond the program

As researchers we specialise in numbers, data and accuracy. We don’t specialise in emotion. However, ‘The Flourish Movement’ has been a very emotional project to work on. This project has been eye opening in terms of what an extraordinary group of people school educators are.

The Flourish Movement began as a ground-breaking and altruistic partnership between Dr Adam Fraser, Dr John Molineux from Deakin University, and a passionate group of NSW principals led by Bob Willetts. Designed with educators, for educators, the program focuses on what it really takes to flourish in one of the most demanding professions.

Our research uncovered something powerful: educators don’t struggle because they’re not strong, they struggle because they are too strong. You show up daily armed with resilience, hope, optimism, and deep purpose. This “armour” helps you face pressure, but it’s heavy. It leads to overworking, self-sacrifice, and guilt, especially when it comes to caring for yourself or your loved ones. This constant strain comes at a cost to your wellbeing, your health, and your joy for the work. The weight of compliance, complexity and endless demands can erode the very passion that brought you to education in the first place.

The Flourish Movement offers space to breathe. A place to take off the armour, connect with peers, and have honest, human conversations. What we’ve seen is extraordinary. When supported, educators have the capacity to evolve how they work, reconnect with their purpose, and create a sustainable path forward. As a Movement, we want these results for all educators, as well as changes to the education system that better protect educators.

Meet the Flourish Team

  • Dr Adam Fraser is a peak performance and wellbeing researcher and founder of The Flourish Movement. Adam knows the world of school leaders in great detail and is a passionate supporter of the important role they play in their teachers and students lives, as well as the school and broader community. After researching their world, he founded The Flourish Movement, a wellbeing and effectiveness program for school leaders.

  • Bob Willetts is the Principal of Berry PS and the Vice President of the NSWPPA. He is passionate about promoting wellbeing for School Leaders. His personal experiences, understanding of the extraordinary and exponential challenges facing principals and teachers, as well as a range of research showing the negative impact on the health and wellbeing of principals, led him to instigate The Flourish Movement and is now a facilitator. He’s the man in the chair, who understands the role and the challenges school leaders face.

  • Dr John Molineux is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management in Deakin Business School. John joined Deakin in 2012 after over 30 years in the Human Resource Management (HRM) industry. He is currently teaching HRM and leadership to postgraduate students. His research interests currently focus on industry-sponsored projects, with an emphasis on human performance and wellbeing. John is also keenly interested in strategic HRM, organisation change and action research.

    John serves in voluntary roles with the Australian HR Institute, where he is a Fellow Certified Practitioner in HR and member of the National Certification Council, plus is a board member of the Action Learning Action Research Association.

  • Honoured to have worked as a leader in education for 25 years, at remote small schools, regional P-10 schools, and Brisbane Metro schools. Within leadership, I have held roles such as Principal, Deputy Principal, and Take the Lead Project Officer. For the past 5 years, I have been privileged to work as Wellbeing Support Officer for 1300 School leaders across Queensland. I am passionate in championing others to be the best version of themselves. My daughter has just entered the school system and I am even more energised to help schools Flourish!

  • Chris has a great mind for numbers (a little geek at times) as well as an excellent capacity for understanding people. She brings a unique perspective to the business having run her own for some time before moving to this role full time. 

    Technically she’s an accredited exercise physiologist (yep one of those unusual types who like exercise) but this has meant she has had years of experience in individualising programs and services based on data and providing outcomes – she’s result oriented.

    Chris has a strong belief that everyone can be developed given the right information at the right time in the right way.

    When not at work you’ll find her in the gym, the pool, cooking up a storm or getting her girls to school or their activities. She originally hails from Melbourne so she really loves her coffee!

  • Louisa brings to the team over 20 years’ experience in client relations, business administration, event management and operations in the areas of property and education.

    Working in events during a pandemic allowed Louisa’s knack for thinking outside the square to shine. Her strong eye for detail and solutions-based approach has allowed her to find and execute the best possible solution on each occasion (with Plans B, C and D on standby!) and knock out any curve balls. Louisa’s ability to relate and be empathetic to others has been instrumental in creating and maintaining relationships with stakeholders over the years.

    Outside of work, Louisa is usually running around with her kids or keeping an eye on the property market, but her happy place is in her kitchen with her recipe books – to the benefit of her family!

  • Isabel is our behind-the-scenes Ninja. She loves puzzles and solving problems, so whenever anyone in the team has an issue, she is the go-to woman. 

    Isabel came to Australia in 2015 and she is originally from Portugal where she was studying to become a teacher. This was then complemented by her qualifications in Marketing and Business. One of Isabel’s many strengths include her interpersonal skills (yes, she is a total social butterfly), so she is particularly good at relating to people. 

    When not at work, Isabel is an avid CrossFit enthusiast, so you will likely find her at the gym..... or sitting at a table eating good food, because life is all about balance, right?! 

    She loves being with friends, music, fitness, fashion, and cars (because she is forced to by her husband).