Graduating to greater impact
On November 28th we celebrated the graduation of eight awesome social enterprises who had participated in the inaugural Paul Ramsay Foundation Incubator, which took place in the beautiful Yirranma Place social purpose precinct.
The goal of the program was to help existing social enterprises scale up their operations so they can create even more positive impact. The program took place over 10 months and saw teams matched with coaches who provided customised support to help teams prepare for the challenges of growth. In addition, the enterprise leaders were supported with an in-depth leadership training program run by our wonderful partners at TDI.
The celebratory event saw our teams reflect on their journeys with the team at the Paul Ramsay Foundation, sitting down to break bread with people in the social enterprise sector, and celebrate with their coaches. We are grateful to everyone who supported the teams throughout the program, and excited to watch these organisations continue to make the world a better place.
The eight social enterprises were:
Ability Enterprises is a not-for-profit, social enterprise providing meaningful employment opportunities to disadvantaged individuals living in regional Queensland.
An Adelaide based, multi-service, socially inclusive graphic design studio that has been providing real work opportunities to designers with disability since 1990.
Hamlet is a registered charity that exists to empower people who are underrepresented in the workforce, with a focus on people living with disability.
Australia's first social enterprise hotel delivering fantastic holiday experiences to guests whilst providing work, training and live-in opportunities to people with disabilities, enabling them to transition to open employment and become more independent.
A social enterprise that offers opportunities to people impacted by the justice system through their fruit and milk delivery service business.
A social enterprise creating empowering employment opportunities for people seeking asylum & refugees through the creation of shared food experiences.
Social Science Translated is a social enterprise that contributes to innovation and meaningful change in neurodivergent children’s mental health in 7 countries. SST is all about an inclusive world where all children are able to access mental health services that are effective in preparing for and managing life’s social-emotional challenges so they can achieve their potential.
A social enterprise built to empower Indigenous creators and businesspeople by offering a platform to promote the experiences and products of First Nations entrepreneurs.
Improving children’s mental health around the world through gamification
Every day, Emily hears about children having trouble making friends at school. She talks to parents who are feeling anxious and sad about the loneliness and frustration in their children’s lives. These children find it hard to have conversations and are not sure how to form groups in the playground, or are paralysed by emotions that exclude them from learning in class. Like 70% of children on the autism spectrum, these children face emotional and behavioural needs that parents don’t always know how to meet.
Emily connects parents with the Secret Agent Society (SAS). But rather than learning how to become a spy, these children learn skills and techniques to help them regulate their stress and frustrations, solve social-emotional problems, identify and seek help with bullying, talk and play with others different to them, and make friends. This gives them lifelong skills that help them thrive.
Today, more children experience mental health challenges than ever before, and with increased severity. Neurodivergent children experience even more acute barriers and systemic disadvantages that negatively impact short and long-term determinants of health. These children have higher rates of developing co-occurring mental health diagnoses, lower treatment outcomes, lower educational engagement, and have lifespan unemployment rates seven times higher than the national average. Sadly, they also have lifetime suicide rates that are in excess of five times the national average.
Changing life for 30,000 children and counting
Social Science Translated (SST) wants to create an inclusive world where all children can access effective services that prepare them for managing life’s social and emotional challenges. Since 2009, SAS has helped more than 30,000 children gain new life-skills and trained more than 3,000 professionals to make meaningful change in children’s lives around the world.
Secret Agent Society includes gamified learning where children crack codes and collect gadgets, all whilst learning skills to reach their goals. Children learn to decode how people feel and act (including themselves) and build their own formula for friendships and teamwork. They also develop skills to cope with change and the unpredictable, solve social-emotional problems and recognise the difference between accidents, jokes, and mean acts.
The program continually reports impressive results. The original randomised controlled trial held the highest clinical change published in the world for a program of its kind. A recent study found that 84% of parents said the program led to lasting positive changes for their child, while 74% of teachers also believed it contributed to lasting changes in their student’s school participation. Even better, 78% of the children participating say they “like it a lot!”.
“The ‘magic’ that makes SST different is the specialist nature of the professional training and program resources for neurodivergent people. The program and digital tools continue to evolve in response to changing needs. We have a very strong focus on evidence-based programs and have built strong trust in the sector over the past nine years,” says Social Science Translated CEO, Kathleen Davey.
SST and SAS have been collecting awards since 2010! Most recently, in 2021, Kathleen won the Australian Psychology Society’s inaugural Entrepreneur of the Year Award for leading the rapid transformation of the SAS Small Group Program into a sophisticated digital health system during the pandemic. In 2023, SST was a finalist in the Australian Disability Awards for Best Assistive Technology Product.
Only recently reaching the equivalent of three full-time team members, the small but mighty team has achieved great results. And now, with its full digital platform up and running, the social enterprise is set to grow its impact world-wide.
Operation Gaining Ground
Social Science Translated wants to support even more children through SAS as well as invest in developing more valuable resources. It’s also looking to explore opportunities to expand its product lines, licensing, and revenue sources.
But with such a small team, SST needs help to realise these ambitious goals. So, Kathleen applied for the Paul Ramsay Foundation’s inaugural Social Enterprise Growth Incubator, run by Sefa Partnerships and designed to grow the pool and impact of social enterprises working to break cycles of disadvantage in Australia by supporting them to reach sustainable operations.
Over nine months, the incubator helped Kathleen explore new avenues for funding and present the organisation’s impact in a way that will resonate with social impact investors and philanthropic funders.
“In the past, we explored traditional equity and debt investment, which is a whole different approach – different language, different metrics, different expectations. Finding out about the diversity of revenue sources in the social enterprise sector through the incubator, we saw hope to strengthen our core and prepare to scale with values-aligned investment mechanisms,” Kathleen explains.
For her, the incubator also provided a ‘second brain’ during a challenging year.
“As a CEO in a social enterprise, the incubator provided access to support and peer networks I would not otherwise have had. The coaches provided a sounding board, offering feedback and new resources to face new challenges, questioning things, and leading to reassurance of my decisions. I’ve come out much stronger in the belief of my capability at the end.”
Through the incubator, Social Science Translated has a refreshed growth model and mindset. They are now seeking financial support to expand their reach to more underserved and disadvantaged cohorts in Australia. The team are also seeking funds to upgrade SAS’s back-end technology for longevity, grow marketing and communications capacity, and build an in-house capability to support increased access for more families.
If you are a parent looking to find your nearest SAS Provider service, please contact Emily at SST sas@sst-institute.net or search using the Find an SAS Provider map.
