International Students

Gong Xinyue is moving abroad to study. There’s so much to think about! Thankfully she’s been given early access to Preparise, so that she can start learning about the first things when she arrives (like a phone plan) and how to avoid being scammed.

She also starts thinking about if she should find an English name and what it should be. She quickly discovers that her first choice ‘Princess Xena’ is not a good one and may limit her future job prospects.

Being naturally a bit shy, she also starts going through the content to build her confidence and communication skills.

Coming to another country to study is scary, but she remembers that Preparise has stress management content on it, so she starts going through that too. She loves that it’s in bite-sized chunks and turns on the English subtitles to help her improve her English.

She soon realises that she never learned budgeting skills (after running out of money) and that many of her peers have already started looking for a job. Gong Xinyue has never worked before, so connects back on to Preparise to go through the I Just Need A Job module, which conveniently, also is linked to some of the confidence and communication content she’ll need to get a job.

Feeling more confident in her job hunting, she wants to make sure that she doesn’t get ripped off, so she goes through the Tax, Super and Employment content, so she knows what her rights are.

Now more settled financially, Gong Xinyue decides it’s time to use all of those new-found interpersonal skills to find friends. The events on campus and at her accommodation are all big and loud, so she downloads the AllCrew app and puts out her first callout – a game of badminton.

To her surprise, two people respond and she starts a chat with them. They have so much in common – much more than the three things the algorithm initially matched them on.

As the year goes on, she returns to Preparise to support her with her exam and study stress, reminders about paying tax and managing her changing budget.

RUCs & CUCs

Regional Student Britney Smitherton lives in NSW on her parents’ farm. She’s always dreamed of attending a big city university, but deep down knew that she’d need to stay on the farm to help out.

When the Regional University Centre opened nearby, it was a game-changer! Access to other ‘country kids’ with dreams like hers, real study spaces with resources she could never imagined and staff that ‘get it’.

What she didn’t count on was the feeling of dread and shyness when it came time to needing to attend class (and even the Centre some days) in person. At uni everything was SO BIG, and there were more people in one spot than she’d ever seen. She felt insignificant. She discovered the emotional pain and despair of being alone in a crowd.

She was pretty sure she wasn’t depressed, she just wished she knew how to ‘just be confident’ – something that her well-meaning (and charismatic) sister kept saying to her.  She kept thinking that if she knew, she’d already be doing it!

She heard about Preparise and decided to give it a sticky-beak. Being more of an introvert, she liked that she could ‘stealth-watch’ the content, rather than having to attend online (or worse), in person “mental health” programs.

Checking out the content, she discovered a whole new world of being-ness – ways of being – through the personal development and self-leadership principals. Over time, even her sister noticed the changes in her.

She even built up the courage to go through the Job module – she didn’t know that 80% of jobs happen through networks – especially in the country.

And going through the financial literacy modules taught her about budgeting and finances that helped her save up to buy her first car, and be less financially reliant on her parents.

She returns to the Confidence, Calm and Communication modules every now and then, to help remind her that she can be, and is, the boss of herself.

Private Education Providers

Being a Private Education Provider is challenging. Smaller student numbers, but the same requirements as the big end of town means that the staff end up multi-tasking – reception / wellbeing / compliance officer anyone?

Preparise is designed to support smaller providers with budget-friendly, Australian government best practice wellbeing and mental health content, that’s been independently assessed as meeting or exceeding most of your student wellbeing compliance requirements… and leaving your students happy, confident and satisfied.

With the much-needed I Just Need A Job and Financial Literacy modules supporting students to find work and create living budgets, the number of defaulting students is dramatically reduced.

And compliance becomes simple too, with built-in reporting.

Study Abroad students

Study Abroad students are living and studying in time zones that don’t easily work with their home base, meaning that there’s big gaps between reporting and supporting confidence and mental health challenges.

What we know is that when small problems aren’t addressed quickly, they can snowball into larger, more complex mental health issues and that these are the leading cause of discontinuing, way more than physical injuries or things like theft.

Preparise’s on-demand practical, strengths-based proactive approaches to wellbeing, confidence and stress management create opportunities for students to empower themselves through the challenges that they face, reducing early removal from the program. and increasing full program completion.

PBSAs

Student Accommodation providers do more than just house young people – the good ones recognise they have a duty of care. But all too often, front of house staff are young themselves and inexperienced in managing mental health presentations.

When students are feeling depressed and anxious they’re not jumping out of bed to hit the lecture theater – they’re staying ‘home’ under the doona, ordering UberEats and binging Netflix. Even having a shower is 50/50 at best.

Their last thought is attending a uni clinic to be triaged for ‘mental health’ – if the stigma doesn’t stop you, the wait time and often questionable ‘advice’ just might.

Most students don’t need costly psych services, they need timely guidance and tools to learn how to manage life’s challenges better. And when they get it, they stay, play and pay – connected, engaged and satisfied.

Especially when you provide them with ongoing opportunities for personal and professional growth and friend-making with the AllCrew App.

After all, these students are in their ‘results’ phase, wanting to take on the world, so giving them the same stuff in year 2 as in their first year – well that’s a recipe for ‘been there, done that, see ya later’ attrition.

And for the staff, well they get free access to the platform, so that they can build skills that help them, the students and your reputation.

Agents

Education Agent Gary is used to getting WhatsApp distress calls at ‘weird o’clock’ from students (and parents), mostly with minor problems that have been blown up out of all proportion. He vaguely remembers the childhood story about Henny Penny, Chicken Little and a falling sky.

Gary and his team spent hours responding to these false alarms to keep his clients happy and referring others to him.

But all that time was really impacting his bottom line. Like really and his margins were already pretty tight.

That was when he took the plunge with Preparise and included it free for every client. The students thought it was useful. The parents noticed their kids were happier and more confident, as if they were ready for success.

His referrals took off! and he needed to spend less time managing the ‘impending doom’ his clients used to call him about.

He instructed his staff to watch the content, so that everyone could be singing from the same page of the hymn book and they started recommending ‘lessons’ which resolved a heap of low level problems quickly.

What started as taking a chance on a little giveaway became one of Gary’s best marketing tools – even better than the water bottle and branded pen. He loved that his part of the platform was custom branded with his logo and message, making him truly stand apart in a crowded marketplace.

Trans National Education (TNE)

The TNE Team was hearing stories of ‘inconsistent’ wellbeing advice being given by their overseas partners.

It’s true that in some places, student wellbeing is a pretty new concept and not up to the standards that on-shore students would expect and receive.

With Trans National Education being such a HUGE (mostly educated) gamble and MASSIVE expense with only long-term positive financial expectations, a lot was riding on it being successful.

And a small number of BIG IMPACT things could go wrong, including reputation, if things went south.

Consistent wellbeing messaging from Student Confidence through Preparise ensures ALL students receive the same best practice content and opportunities at budget-friendly prices.

And the confidence of knowing the universal modules are Australian government research-backed, as well as multi-award winning (including an IEAA Excellence in Innovation Award and Highly Commended in the global PIEoneer Awards) meant that the team could provide them with ease.

The built-in reporting made compliance time a breeze, and knowing that the programs had been independently assessed by compliance experts, IEP Advisory, made the decision a no-brainer.

ELICOS, Foundation Studies & English Language Prep Schools

Running an ELICOS School, Foundational Studies or English Test Preparation School often feels like a race to the bottom – with students constantly chasing the cheapest option and then hanging around for the shortest possible time, driving marketing costs through the roof (and profit margins through the basement) with the constant churn and burn.

Preparise creates a real point of difference at a real budget-friendly price point (even for smaller providers). Including individual Preparise videos (with English subtitles on to increase comprehension) as part of everyday lesson plans, creates the sense of a built in confidence coach at a fraction of the price.

Teachers have free access to the content when bought for all students, meaning that they can pick and chose the content that most relates to their curriculum.

At home, students can re-watch lesson with one of many included subtitles and can even build confident mindset for those taking any of the English Language Tests (including Pearson, IELTS, Cambridge etc) with a specialist module to boost scores.

The base platform also includes the I Just Need A Job Module, supporting your students to access the 80% of jobs in the hidden job market, so that they can pay their fees ON TIME.

When they speak to others about their experience, they realise even more the head start you’ve given them through the provision of Preparise.

Psych Services

You know what’s great about mental health awareness programs? The same thing that’s wrong with them… multiple times more presentations, but not multiple times the resources.

Limited budgets, limited sessions, maximum reporting.

And then the students with the small/micro challenges taking up super valuable (and expensive) time away from students that have significant problems that need more case management.

Providing Preparise to students awaiting or engaging with current psych or counselling services compliments your in-person offerings by providing on-demand, strengths-based, practical, easily digestible content pieces that’s recognised as Best Practice Stigma-Busting though research from Deakin University for the Australian Department of Education.

Preparise is based on programs recognised as Innovation Excellence by the International Education Association of Australia for their preventative and proactive approach and Highly Commended in The PIEoneer Global Student Services Awards.

UNSW research showed that regular and consistent (weekly) group coffee chats had a huge wellbeing ROI especially if paired with targeted discussions. Preparise is ideally suited as a pathway to channel discussions, which can be peer-led.

High Achievers, Award, PhD, Ambassadors etc

High achievers are very often riddled with doubts, imposter syndrome, perfectionism – the exact things (and more) that are covered in Preparise.

High achievers also face high levels of non-completion, due to a range of challenges identified by research studies, notably financial pressure and poor mental health.

The Preparise platform also has modules covering financial literacy, job hunting and performance confidence, to support high achievers in staying and completing their studies.

When you’ve put so much into their success, including Preparise (together with 1:1 confidence and/or career coaching sessions) is like that little insurance policy, supporting the student and quietly protecting your investment .