Equipping your students with
Self belief whakapono whaiaro Confidence whakamanawa Vision mana  For the future

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SCHOOLS

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YOUNG PEOPLE

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australia and new zealand

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Digital course enrolments

He aha tatau ka ora ai?

Burn Bright exists to empower New Zealand’s young people to become active participants and community leaders, equipping them with self-belief, confidence, and a positive vision for the future. We help young people to look after their mental health and wellbeing in a proactive and preventative way. We do this through a range of positive evidence-based strategies that help young people to take charge of their lives.

 

Burn Bright’s program development and delivery is based upon our Theory of Change. Our Theory of Change is our formal, evidence-based plan that focuses on a young person’s psychological growth and development. Our programs specifically target psychological wellbeing and prosocial behaviour. They empower young people through leadership strategies, to enable peer to peer support for others and promote strategies for mental ill-health prevention within their schools and communities. You can see more about our Theory of Change and evidence we use to build, design and deliver our programs by clicking below.

 

There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach; each and every Burn Bright program is highly focused, tailored and adapted to needs of the students and the school. Burn Bright’s curriculum is focused on demonstrating how students can turn theory into action by practicing and road testing skills learnt before applying them in their own lives. To reinforce this, we provide follow-up opportunities to encourage students to make the change last.

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IN-PERSON PROGRAMS

We offer multiple types of programs to suit different schools and student needs. Our programs have a focus on Leadership or Wellbeing, two key components of …

Student Leadership Programs

We empower young people through leadership strategies to enable peer to peer support for others and to promote strategies for mental health prevention within their schools and communities.

Our leadership programs educate students through the lens of service-based leadership, that to lead others purposefully, they must first learn to lead themselves.  Students leave our leadership programs understanding what it takes to become a servant leader, how to use their influence well and importantly, how to incorporate proven leadership qualities into their own daily lives.

Wellbeing Programs

Burn Bright’s wellbeing programs don’t refer to a general sense of wellbeing but a specific definition of psychological and eudaimonic wellbeing. Our wellbeing programs are specifically designed to enable young people to build a solid foundation of character and values to ignite their lives with the possibility of the future. These programs are a dynamic and engaging way to learn about oneself and the people around them. They build essential resilience and protective factors to help prevent poor mental health. The acquired leadership behaviours, wellbeing habits and character traits help build meaningful, healthy and positive long-lasting skills and friendships that will continue beyond the school years. 

DIGITAL PROGRAMS

We offer both individual and group digital options, ready to be implemented in your school today!

Digital Individual Courses

Continue your student’s leadership or wellbeing journey with our digital individual courses. Specifically designed to be flexibly implemented into your wellbeing or leadership programs, these courses can be completed at any time in any place, providing a self-paced option for students to explore in class or on their own. These modules include individual student logins, a teacher dashboard to track student progress and lesson plans with follow up face to face resources.

Digital Group Programs

Welcome Burn Bright digitally into your school with a hybrid option of face to face and digital components. This digital group program covers your choice of leadership or wellbeing in a 2-hour experience that is co-facilitated by pre-recorded Burn Bright facilitators and you with your students. Including 3-4 face-to-face activities and relevant debriefs by our Burn Bright facilitators, this program is designed with all the tools and resources you need to successfully engage and deliver a wellbeing or leadership program to your students with the support of Burn Bright.

5 STEPS TO STUDENT WELLBEING REPORT

WELLBEING IN THE CLASSROOM

The wellbeing of young people is front and centre in a lot of our conversations, strategies and decisions that we make in a school environment. Finding actionable ways for us to boost the wellbeing in our young people, however, can sometimes be a bit tricky. Through the years of our facilitating wellbeing programs across Australia and New Zealand, we’ve come up with 5 actionable steps to boost your student wellbeing. Click the button below to start implementing them for free today.

Start making change for your students

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FREE ACTIONABLE STEPS TO STUDENT WELLBEING

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Wellbeing and Leadership in your school

I found Burn Bright in the midst of studying civil engineering at the University of Wollongong, just as I wanted a richer, deeper, more full experience of life.

Through Burn Bright, I have met many students and volunteers who are all seeking to find their place in the world. When we come together at NLC or SLC, no matter our age, we begin on the same page, of wanting to do good for ourselves, our community, and the world. And then we are thrown into a program that brings us closer to each other, our purpose, and how to bring forth this impact. It’s like having your cake and eating it too.

Volunteering with Burn Bright stoked a fire in me – It helped me feel comfortable in myself and made me realise life isn’t just about work, study, or productivity, but our relationships and how we connect with others along the way.

I have learned skills in videography, worked for a top-tier corporation in marketing, and most recently published a book called “18 and lost? So were we” 

I have a passion for storytelling, bring loads of energy wherever I go, and am dedicated to helping young people move through the initiation of leaving high school and going into the ‘real world’. 

The best part for me is being able to stay connected to the latest generation growing through high school. To see them grow, expand and express more of themselves is like watching an artwork paint itself. It’s magic.

I am Simon Thurston, a Kiwi based in Perth. I work as an Instructional Designer and in my spare time I enjoy reading, running, and board games.

Since my initial connection to Burn Bright I have been onboard with their mission. Burn Bright’s focus on building the capabilities enables students of all ages to see how they can shape their world through connections with others and their own self discovery.

Seeing others grow, learn, and open up is what keeps me coming back, to help others realise their potential and how they can influence their future and their community is a definite highlight. It’s infectious, the atmosphere when they run a program or camp is welcoming, exciting, emotional, and rewarding all in one.

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5 ACTIVITIES TO BRING ENERGY INTO YOUR ONLINE CLASSROOM

Hi, friends! I’m Kelsie, a psychologist from central QLD working in private practice. I got involved with Burn Bright officially in 2016, but the journey started long before that. I attended the National Leadership Camp (now hosted annually by Burn Bright) in 2009. It had such a profound impact on me that I returned as a mentor and volunteer. Those connections ultimately lead me to joining the Burn Bright team as an adult.

When I transitioned from facilitating with the Burn Bright team to working as a psychologist, I was so grateful for an incredible foundation of skills (particularly facilitation, communication and interpersonal skills) along with a strong grounding in positive psychology that Burn Bright integrates into their ethos.

I can’t imagine my life without volunteering for Burn Bright. I have met some of my dearest friends through the Burn Bright crew. I’ve found that volunteering for BB is rewarding, humbling, and often brings as much personal growth for the volunteer as it does for the young person.

From a professional perspective, I love that Burn Bright programs/camps support the adolescent individuation process by providing an exciting and supportive environment for teens to explore their own sense of self, personality, identify and values alongside other young people.

Imagine this POV: you’re back at school wanting to figure everything out and fit in – and you find
yourself in a room with amazing music that uplifts you and hooks you in. You meet the team of
dynamic, interesting, caring facilitators whose own friendships inspire you. Their facilitation skills bring about amazing light-bulb moments and lessons that light a fire inside you… It makes me want to feel that for myself again. The next best thing, for me, is volunteering for the team who passes that on to other young people.

My start at Burn Bright is one of the best cases of one door closing and another door opening. After losing my job at a local pub while on uni holidays, I started looking for new opportunities that were different and decided to volunteer. Searching for opportunities, I found working bees, community driving and nursing home visits, but the chance to become a National Leadership Camp intern stood out. Over nearly six months, I worked with the team to pull off Burn Bright’s first National Leadership Camp, and had an absolute blast in the process. After camp, I started working for Burn Bright while studying, doing anything and everything — data analysis, hiring strategy and even picking up furniture.

Finishing up working for Burn Bright in 2019, I am still actively involved with the Burn Bright volunteer community. I’ve found that the emphasis placed on investing in your relationships, understanding your values and making an impact allow you to be accepted for you. This has given me the tools needed to make the difficult decisions that life will inevitably throw at you. Besides all that, I’ve had a ton of fun and formed life-long friendships with people I may have never crossed paths with otherwise. “Get involved — you’ll change your life for the better and make life‑long friends in the process”.

I am a health science student from Perth wanting to get into the mental health realm of occupational therapy. In the meantime, I work as a barista and supervisor at a beachside café. In my spare time, I love to play netball, be around my friends and I have just gotten into crocheting. I went to Perth College where I was lucky enough to go to the first Perth College Leadership Camp in 2018 as a student and absolutely loved it. What really drew me in was the atmosphere that was created, the open conversations, and the lasting relationships formed.

Since then I have been a mentor for the Perth College Leadership Camp in 2019, 2020, and 2021 and had the opportunity to go to the National Leadership Camp in 2019. When Burn Bright comes to Perth I also love helping out at their programs as much as I can.

Volunteering for Burn Bright has given me so much that I could never have imagined. I have learned so much about myself and I have so much more confidence in myself and my abilities that I know I wouldn’t have had if I wasn’t exposed to the amazing opportunities volunteering for Burn Bright has given me. Before being involved I would never have seen myself being a mentor, role model, and facilitator to students, but now I can confidently say that I am, and I have made an impact on others that I am proud of. I have also made so many meaningful connections to so many amazing people from all around Australia through Burn Bright. I get asked quite a bit why I keep coming back to my old school to volunteer and it’s simply because I was given this amazing opportunity to be a part of the Burn Bright programs and if I can help facilitate that experience to someone else then why wouldn’t I?

I was born in Perth and moved to Sydney in my early 20’s to continue work as a youth worker and surfboard maker. This was followed by 30 years working in IT as a computer programmer.

Following retirement in 2016 I searched for an organisation that was aligned with my values of servant leadership and service, especially in the youth space. This search led to Burn Bright where I am now volunteering one day a week and mentoring at the National Leadership Camp. Volunteering with Burn Bright gives me a great deal of hope and confidence in the next generation of leaders. It is a pleasure to be a part of the Burn Bright family.

I have been married to Denise for 41 years and we both very much feel part of the Burn Bright team.

When not at Burn Bright you may find me running along Manly beach, riding my mountain bike or indulging in my passion for photography.

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DIGITAL INDIVIDUAL COURSES

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5 TIPS FOR MAXIMISING ZOOM ENGAGEMENT

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FAMILY WELLBEING CHALLENGES

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DREAMING BIG - TOOLS FOR INSPIRED FAMILIES

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20 QUESTIONS TO DEEPEN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR YOUNG PERSON

Hi! I’m Rosie, a 20-something full-time public servant, part-time Tassie tourism advocate.

I am passionate about seeing young people succeed, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than watching them become the next generation of change-makers.

I have been a champion of the ethos and work of Burn Bright since its inception in 2014, and consider them to be the leading experts in their field. By delivering impactful leadership and wellbeing programs to students across Australia, they offer the knowledge, skills and engagement to invoke lasting positive change in school communities.

The Burn Bright team are dedicated, inclusive and values-driven, which is why I love working with them.

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5 MESSAGES TO EMPOWER YOUNG PEOPLE TO LEAD