The 2021 CICBeyond Wellbeing Challenge saw more than 1700 young people engaged in creating new and bold ideas to reshape their school communities, and tackle wellbeing challenges that affect all Australians.

The Challenge, developed alongside Suggest it (Si), and with partners Swisse and One in Five, tapped into the imagination and ingenuity of students, helping them create more than 200 ideas for services, programs and products to enrich the lives of those around them.

Working in teams of 2-5, students follow a four-step design process to:

  1. discover new insights about wellbeing in their school community;

  2. generate crazy good ideas;

  3. prototype how these would work in their schools; and

  4. promote their ideas to the community.

All the ideas were then showcased in a national campaign, with schools supported to implement ideas that make a difference.

Mindcess

A year 6 team from Brighton Grammar School tapped into the growing recognition that mindfulness and meditation is a fantastic practice for mental wellbeing. Mindcess is a program the students have developed that aims to implement mindfulness practices for students during the school day during recess.

CounsellorMeet

Year 8 students from Bradford College in the ACT developed an idea for an app which would provide immediate counselling support to students through text, call or video chat, minimising the time waiting for a counsellor to reply to their email or set up a meeting time. 

Around the World Challenge

The Around the World Challenge invites teams to complete a certain amount of exercise across the week, which corresponds with a distance travelled across the world. When targets are achieved, the team will find themselves in a set region of the world, where they will learn wellbeing tips from this culture, and participate in popular wellbeing activities from this region e.g. 20 minutes of yoga.

In the end, there were six brilliant ideas that were deemed the winners of the Challenge:

'Love Yourself' - A Positive Picture Book

Year 10 students from Ballarat Grammar developed their idea to address concerning research they came across regarding body positivity. The team are currently developing key themes and messaging for a picture book that will reinforce to young people that they are beautiful in every single way.

Cupcake Compliments

Ava and Naomi at Mater Maria Catholic College have designed cupcakes with a message of positive affirmation on top of the icing. A delicious cupcake, and a reminder to be proud of who you are.

Teenage Teachers

Ava, Nat and Xander designed Teenage Teachers to get teenagers to teach other teenagers and young people about mental health and awareness about it. Participants will learn from their peers and be connecting with one another on wellbeing strategies and resources.

“Resources are brilliant... seriously. Teachers love it. We haven't seen anything like it before!”

Duncan Wise, Principal
Blackburn Lake Primary School

“We are delighted to support the Crazy Ideas College and this school's initiative of putting the future of wellbeing into the brilliant young minds of students. The impact of the pandemic on our health has been significant for all groups in society but perhaps none more so than our school children.'

Nick Mann
Swisse ANZ Managing Director

The challenge was supported by Swisse, who hosted two teams at their offices to help them work on bringing their ideas to life. The teams were fortunate to work with some awesome Swisse team members to test and twist their ideas and continue building out certain key aspects. This included working with a nutritionist, content creator, brand manager, copywriter and more!