(For information about our Adult Programme follow this link).

The core element of our programme is the promotion of social and emotional well being for young people who have experienced significant loss owing to death, family breakdown, or any other form of separation.

Seasons for Growth Programmes provide the opportunity for each participant to integrate, at his or her developmental level, the appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes to understand and to cope with change, loss and grief. The programme aims to enhance coping resources, build resilience, and develop life skills in young people.

The Programme is run in small groups of between five and seven participants, with a trained Companion as facilitator.  Through the use of a wide range of creative learning activities it develops life skills in communication, decision making and problem solving for participants while simultaneously encouraging peer communication and support.

What does Seasons for Growth do?

  • Supports young people in understanding and managing the issues they experience because of the loss of a parent or significant other through death, separation, or divorce, or other forms of separation.
  • Assists young people in understanding that the reactions associated with their losses are normal.
  • Educates about the grief process. Develops skills for coping, problem-solving and decision making.
  • Builds a peer support network.
  • Helps restore self-confidence and self-esteem.
  • Draws on extensive research in developing a sound educative response to loss and grief.

Seasons for Growth draws on activities, strategies and techniques from an educational and cognitive behavioural framework. This approach to learning encourages young people not only to value who they are and the particular ‘story’ they have, but also to modify their thinking, attitudes, beliefs and constructs about life, and to ‘take charge’ of their behaviours.

The programme emphasises the important process of thinking, questioning, deciding, doing and reflecting. The learning process underpinning Seasons for Growth includes acquiring and practising new skills, learning new ways of thinking and acquiring more effective ways of coping with change and loss.

Who is involved in Seasons for Growth?

A group of children or young people meets in a chosen venue and is facilitated by a trained adult known as a ‘Companion’. Companions can be teachers, psychologists, nurses, counsellors, social workers or others working with young people in the statutory or voluntary sectors.

Companions are trained and supported by our national and regional Trainers.

How is the Seasons Programme structured?

The programme consists of five levels:

  • Level 1 (ages 6-8 years) (40 minute sessions)
  • Level 2 (ages 9-10 years) (40 minute sessions)
  • Level 3 (ages 11-12 years) (45 minute sessions)
  • Level 4 (ages 13-15 years) (50 minute sessions)
  • Level 5 (ages 16-18 years) (50 minute sessions)

Seasons for Growth is implemented over:

  • 8 sessions
  • 1 Celebration session
  • 2 Re-connector sessions

What does this programme achieve?

Seasons for Growth originates and has been widely used in Australia and a number of overseas countries since 1996. It has been independently evaluated in conjunction with the Commonwealth Government of Australia and supervised by an Advisory Committee chaired by Emeritus Professor Beverly Raphael, a leading Australian authority in Mental Health Promotion and Prevention. The evaluation concluded that:

  • Seasons for Growth has a strong, positive effect on young people.
  • Parents, Companions, school principals and agency managers believe without exception that the programme is beneficial to participants.
  • The participants said that the programme has removed their sense of isolation, allowed them to express their feelings without being ashamed of them and helped them to develop trust in others.
  • Seasons for Growth contributes broadly to intervention against youth suicide in that it provides an early system of safety, opportunities for identification and referral, and lessening of vulnerability.

As a result, many said, they had been able to:

  • Seek support, when necessary, from the Companion outside the formal process of the programme.
  • Form friendships and support networks with others in the programme.
  • Communicate better with their parents or siblings.
  • Understand that life moves on and that changes do happen.
  • Cope better with their emotions.