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A-MAZE-IN MIND APP USED BY FOSTER CARE ANGELS

Who would have thought a teenager’s mobile phone could help them manage their mental health and provide vital life skills?

The A-Maze-In Mind App used by Foster Care Angels is an online emotional health and life skills education program that is empowering young people aged 13 to 24. Thanks to a grant from Harbord Diggers the Foster Care Angels have been able to provide 200 locals with access to this early intervention program.

The training app provides essential life skills to users such as mental health awareness, stress management skills, anger management tools, increasing self-knowledge and creating emotional literacy.

The program is delivered via the app that contains e-magazines and regular updates of additional tools and strategies that empower young people to manage life stresses which is particularly important after two years of COVID-19 restrictions.

The app is further supported with monthly online workshops that reinforce the messages, tools and strategies discussed and demonstrated in the app.

Foster Care Angels mission is to support, empower and create opportunities for vulnerable young people and was delighted to launch this initiative on the Northern Beaches thanks to the $9,500 ClubGRANTS provided last year.

Wendy Bennett is a mum and highly experienced counsellor, specialising in working with young people and knew that an app was the way to engage young people. As the creator of the program and part of the Foster Care Angels team, she was delighted to see it rolled out to local teenagers on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

“This program aligns with Foster Care Angels’ mission by providing a wealth of resources to support young people’s emotional health and wellbeing, empowering them with a toolkit of skills and resources to build resilience, enhance life skills and enable them to better manage their mental health, creating opportunities they may not have otherwise been able to access,” explained Wendy.

“One of the problems challenges with teens is that they don’t want to learn from their parents. Peers, social media, the internet and to a lesser degree school become the places they go for information and the answers to any questions they may have. The problem of course being that they may not always be accessing accurate or reliable information,” she continued.

The app is a professionally created resource for teens to access when they have questions they don’t feel comfortable asking parents, friends or other people.

“It is a safe place to find reliable information, tools, strategies and resources to help them develop ‘soft-skills’ that are highly valued in order to successfully transition to high school, vocational and employment training,” added Wendy.

The 2022 ClubGRANTS funding to Foster Care Angels has enabled up to 200 local young people to access the A-Maze-In-Mind program.

“We are so grateful to receive financial support from Mounties Group. Thanks to this funding we have been able to expand our resource to support young people for the first time within the Northern Beaches local government area and we’ve seen great results so far,” concluded Wendy.

Last year, Mounties Group’s ClubGRANTS funding saw more than $1.2 million given back to the local community via 75 projects across Sydney, the Northern Beaches and Central Coast.

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