Author takes to Rushworth for incursion that targets anxiety in kids

For the past four years, dynamic duo Rick and Andy have been running incursions in schools across Victoria inspired by Rick’s picture book Why Worry Wally.

Why Worry Wally, illustrated by Jackie Case, finds Wally thinking about everything that worries him, from cats with eight eyes to simply being late for school.

Wally finds that there are ways to deal with his anxiety, like breathing, eating good food or exercising, and by the end, Wally’s worries no longer take up as much space in his head.

The picture book came about when Rick had to take time off from work due to a bad spate of anxiety.

In his recovery period, he combined his passion for writing and confusion about his anxiety and wrote Why Worry Wally. The idea for the book also came from seeing the struggles his eldest daughter had gone through with her worries during primary school.

“I had always wanted to write a picture book for my two girls, but I’d never been in the right space to be able to write,” Rick said.

“I took time off to get myself right, I did a picture book writing course.

”It’s ironic because in order to finally write the picture book, I had to go through what I did, which started the idea for the book.“

After self-publishing Why Worry Wally, he met Andy and he devised a program for schools based on Rick’s book to target student anxieties and worries.

“He reached out to me and said, ‘I’d like to help you’, and myself, not having a teaching background, I knew that if I would try to make a program, I would need someone with that experience,” Rick said.

“Andy’s a highly experienced educator who sent all this great feedback as to what I was thinking of doing, so I just asked him if he would like to join me in doing this.”

Rick said the area has a special place in his heart — having spent a period of his childhood in Shepparton and with his sister living in Lockington.

He ran his incursion in some Rochester schools after the floods in 2022 which helped student leviate some of the worries and stresses felt after that time.

It was their second time visiting Rushworth P-12 College with their incursion, and Rick said it was a chance to see how the consensus of student worries had changed over the year.

“We tailor the program to suit the age of the students,” he said.

“For the slightly older ones, we get them to write down a smaller-type worry, and it’s all anonymous, and then at the end, we get to share them and provide strategies to help manage their worries at school or at home,” he said.

They also provide the school with an insights report which categorises the type of worries of students and where they are on average with other schools.

“When we’ve returned back to a school they can benchmark where they were and where they are now.”

Rick said it was important for students to learn about anxiety and the preventive measures to manage their worries from a young age.

“Action is so much better than the alternative when you suddenly get to that point with your anxiety, so its important to be able to share this message that they’re not alone.

“My own experience and seeing my girls go through the same things – it can be quite isolating when you feel like you’re the only one with these worries or don’t want to talk about them.”

You can purchase a copy of Why Worry Wally? in independent book stores throughout regional Victoria or via whyworrywally.com

Rick and Andy are also planning more regional tours for their program. Schools interested in being involved in a Why Worry Wally? wellbeing incursion can contact Rick Foster at rick.foster@bigpond.com, on 0412 608 359, or find out more at whyworrywally.com