EDUCATION FAQs

We offer two programs, a Middle School and a Senior School program. Each program runs throughout one day and includes three student seminars during the school day and a Staff or Parent seminar in the afternoon or evening. Each seminar runs for 75 minutes.

Our seminars have been mapped to the Australian Curriculum (Year 7 to Year 10) and Keeping Safe: The Child Protection Curriculum (Year 7 to Year 12). 

For Year 12 students, there are two options: the ‘Safety at Schoolies’ seminar or the ‘#Adulting’ seminar. The Safety at Schoolies seminar is only run in Term 3 and Term 4.

Yes, we do travel to regional areas. Typically, this would incur travel costs, but for South Australian schools, travel costs are currently covered by support from Variety – the Children’s Charity until December 2020.

State Government Funding is allowing us to offer significant subsidies to our program for SA schools. We also offer our program nationally on a fee-for-service basis. Contact us today to receive a quote for your school.

We see the best outcomes achieved when we are able to see students and parents or staff on the same day. Where this is not possible, we are able to run the seminars on different days for an additional cost. Contact us today to receive a quote for your school.

We take a holistic, comprehensive approach to alcohol & other drug education – educating students across multiple year levels and educating their parents and school staff. This approach is grounded in best-practice principles and helps the whole school community to be on the same page about alcohol & other drug issues.

In our seminars, we adopt a harm-minimisation approach and encourage students to ‘look after themselves and their mates’. Our program aims to reduce and prevent alcohol and other drug-related harm among young people. We avoid emphasising negative consequences and scare tactics, which are proven to be ineffective. Instead, we equip students with strategies to make choices that are right for them. We provide tools to help students respond appropriately if things don’t go according to plan or if a friend is in a vulnerable situation.

We speak to students from Year 7 to Year 12. For information around the main topics included within each specific seminar, see our seminars page.

We need a space appropriate for all students to be comfortably seated and we require a projector with sound that we can use for the presentation. Teacher supervision is also required to meet duty-of-care and student support needs.

Research shows that alcohol & other drug education is more effective when implemented through a holistic approach. For this reason, we aim to educate three student year levels, the staff within the school and parents/guardians in the program. Along with creating a consistent message around alcohol & other drug education, we also provide helpful strategies and tips for staff and parents to support young people on this important topic.

Staff seminars can be included towards staff professional development hours. For more information, see our Staff and Parents seminars.

The best outcomes are achieved when the same Encounter Youth staff member is able to speak to all the students. This approach builds a rapport with the students and helps the school to build a consistent relationship with one key contact. If simultaneous sessions are required, we can deliver this at an additional cost, subject to availability. Contact us today to discuss your schools’ needs.

As bookings tend to fill up quickly, the best way to check availability is to give us a call on 08 8179 0300.

We do not have a minimum number, but we can consider combining year levels for classes of 15 or fewer students. The maximum number of students we present to in a single year level is 200. If your school has more than 200 students per year level, we can split the class into multiple groups. Contact us today to find out your options.

Asked another way, “You have a Middle School and Senior School program, but can you run seminars for Year 8, 9 & 10 students as part of your program?”

Yes, we are flexible in who we present to, but we do require three consecutive year levels as a minimum. We can also add further seminars to speak to four or five year levels if needed.

Our best-practice holistic approach to education means that we do not offer stand-alone sessions as part of our standard program. For more information, see our Middle and Senior school programs.

The only exception we make is for seminars tailored to prepare students for a specific event such as Schoolies Festival™, as these are best delivered shortly before the event. As such, we offer our Safety at Schoolies seminar as a stand-alone session in Term 3 and Term 4.

Every school that adopts our whole-of-school approach is considered a partner school. By adopting our program for either your Senior School (Year 10, 11, 12 and Parents) or your Middle School (Year 7, 8, 9 and Parents), you’ll enjoy the Silver Partner benefit: a vastly subsidised rate of at least 48% off for 2019/2020. (This is also called our standard program.)

A Gold Partner school receives the program at a vastly subsidised rate guaranteed until: 2021/22. A Gold Partner school also receives:

• A FREE incident response each year worth $1,500
• Gold Partner resources including follow up lessons plans and classroom resources
• Travel costs will be covered for every year of partnership
• Your school logo will be acknowledged among the Gold Partner schools on our website.

Don’t miss out! See our Become a Partner School for more details.