The Contenders · our program for school leavers
Friends, work and a direction of your own.
The Contenders is our program for the first years after school. You join once, and we work on friends, dating and work together.
What we know about this stage
School gave you a peer group without you having to build one.
Every social skill you have was built for a place that gave you people your own age, every day, without you having to arrange any of it. You never needed to start a friendship, because school started it for you.
Adulthood removes that and puts nothing in its place. Nobody hands you a peer group after school. You have to build one, using a skill you were never asked to develop, at the moment your confidence is lowest.
What people tell us
School finished, and everybody went with it.
People tell us it wasn't dramatic. Everyone just stopped being in the same place every day, and after a few months the messages stopped too. Days lost their shape.
Job applications go out, quite a lot of them, and mostly nothing comes back, so there is no way of knowing which part went wrong.
What is hardest to find out
Who is actually responsible for any of this. No institution owns what happens after school, so nobody is there to help you build what school used to supply.
The Contenders
One program, for friendship and work at the same time.
What it provides
A way to build a peer group, now that school doesn't hand you one
Friendships and dating, with the skills actually explained
A direction for work that you chose
The practical changes handled, from starting study to getting to a workplace on your own
You join once, as a Contender, and we work on all of it together, rather than waiting for a job to fix the loneliness.
The people you meet in one part of the program turn up in the others, so trying something new doesn't mean starting again with strangers.
Available at this stage
- PEERS® for Young Adults, including the part on dating that most services leave out
- PathWays, career exploration, workplace visits and job trials
- LiftOff, for the practical changes
- Online gaming clubs
- Functional assessment
Which of these, and when, is something we work out with you.
What we believe
We believe leaving school is a social crisis, not only a vocational one.
Most providers believe once school ends, the priority is getting the person into a job or a day program.
But in reality, what ended wasn't only their education. It was the only environment that ever supplied them a peer group without requiring them to build one, and nothing has replaced it. A job or a program fills the hours, but it doesn't restore that, so the loneliness turns up anyway, usually about a year later, once everybody has stopped checking. Filling the diary isn't the answer, because what's missing is the ability to build a peer group from scratch.
That's why we built The Contenders to treat leaving school as a social event as much as a vocational one. PEERS® for Young Adults teaches how to find and keep friends once school stops supplying them, including four weeks on dating. PathWays works on direction first, so the plan is one they chose. LiftOff handles the practical transitions, from moving into study to getting to a workplace independently. It is one program, and we work on all of it together, rather than waiting for a job to fix the loneliness.
Take the first step
Let's talk.
Request a call back and one of our team will ring you at a time that suits. It takes about fifteen minutes and it's free. If you'd rather, a parent, carer or support person can make the request for you.