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Kids as Catalysts is an award-winning creative learning program that equips children aged 8-12 with real world experience in leading positive community change.

The curriculum-aligned program gives students the skills to identify and solve real problems facing their community, through creative and collaborative projects. It has been delivered in 35 Victorian schools since 2011.

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Kids as Catalysts empowers children with real life skills

Children can and should be at the heart of post-Covid community recovery. Across the globe in 2019 we saw young people’s desire for change and their incredible power to muster support for action on climate change through social media and other networks.

Our challenge is to meet their courage and determination and provide a means for them to continue to take practical actions to lead the change they want to see in their communities, ensuring their impact remains visible and their voices continue to be heard.

A young girl offers sandwich tray to older woman

Outcomes & Results

Community impact

Children can have a huge influence on their communities. This data demonstrates the impact and influence of Kids Thrive participants in 2019.

Aims

Kids as Catalysts builds skills for life

  • Builds children’s educational engagement.
  • Delivers educational outcomes including literacy, numeracy and financial skills.
  • Activates children as major contributors to, and creators of their community.
  • Fosters children’s resilience, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
  • Builds and embraces leadership opportunities for children in their schools and communities.
  • Develops children’s passion for social justice, and capacity to drive community change.
  • Strengthens connections between schools and communities.
  • Develops children’s literacy, budgeting, and financial management skills.

Outcomes

Kids as Catalysts is linked to the Victorian school curriculum. Data evaluation shows incredible outcomes in several key learning areas and social domains including confidence, educational engagement and leadership skills. Kids as Catalysts improves literacy, numeracy, confidence and creative thinking skills while at the same time fostering greater social awareness, leadership skills and community networks, empowering children to continue leading positive change in their local communities and instilling in them the importance of learning for life.

Key performance indicators include increases in:

  • Self-directed learning
  • Educational engagement
  • Persistence and Willingness to participate
  • Confidence and Empathy
  • Social Awareness and Community Engagement
  • Leadership and Teamwork
  • Literacy and Numeracy skills

Evaluation

Evidence from this evaluation indicates that Kids as Catalysts:

  • improved children’s personal, educational and social capacities
  • increased children’s educational engagement, learning skills and community capacities
  • built links between families, schools and community groups, and extended children’s safe community network
  • Contributes significantly to building children’s resilience and educational engagement

Given the significant rise in outcomes in the second year of program delivery(2018 –2019), we can confidently conclude that multi-year delivery increases teacher, student and school capacity to engage this creative, real world education model, supported by the increasing acceptance and knowledge of, and confidence in the program throughout the school community.

From the comparative results 2019 to 2021, we draw the conclusion that whilst Geelong Kids as Catalysts was impacted by the Covid lockdowns and changes to students’ schooling, it still contributed significantly to building children’s personal wellbeing, educational engagement and outcomes, and social engagement, suggesting this program as a unique and effective approach to disaster resilience in vulnerable communities –forging personal and educational outcomes through community

Read the Kids as Catalysts Geelong 2019 evaluation report

Kids Thrive.