Standing Strong™ is a social enterprise developed to support and enrich the lives or children and teens through proactive and preventative approaches to mental and physical health and wellbeing.
Hello, my name is Kim Henwood and I would like to share with you the story of Standing Strong®.
My goal when creating Standing Strong® was to provide a space were children and teens could go to explore the challenges they were facing without judgement, fear or comparison. I wanted to offer children and teens a place where they could share their thoughts and feelings, build positive relationships with peers and be inspired and empowered by motivational mentors and role models. Since 2013 Standing Strong® has provided over 3000 classes and programs to children aged five to seventeen years as well as providing an online support platform.
At its core, Standing Strong® provides evidence based programs designed to support and empower children to build confidence, self esteem, resilience and connection through holistic and preventative approaches to health and wellbeing. Our programs have been developed utilising three core components of Strong Body- Movement, Strong Mind- Mindset and Strong Heart- Mindfulness. In 2013 Standing Strong® launched with a single program for girls aged twelve to seventeen years, over the past six years it has now grown to offer nine signature programs for both boys and girls aged five to seventeen years.
As a social enterprise, Standing Strong® is able to support families directly without referrals, waiting periods or specific criteria's, enabling us to offer immediate support. We help children with challenges include anxiety, low confidence and self esteem, depression, bullying, loneliness, self doubt, friendships challenges, family breakdown, social isolation, stress and much more. Our programs are ongoing, encouraging a community of support, connection and belonging for both children and parents. Standing Strong® has been supported and endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Chanel 9 News, The Today Show, The Sunday Times, Girlfriend Magazine, Dolly Magazine and many more media outlets.
In 2015, after taking on our first commercial lease and opening our first full time centre, we realised how limited our programs were. We received enquires nationally and international including regular emails from parents and organisations asking how they could access our programs in their local communities. It became apparent that although we were doing so much locally, there were many more families in need who could not reach our programs.
In 2016, we commenced work on a program licensing model to enable us to expand our programs into more communities. By 2018, our program licensing package was ready and in early 2019, we officially launched our program licensing model enabling other businesses and professionals to become trained and licensed to facilitate the Standing Strong® programs.
As a result of the program licensing model, Standing Strong® has grown over the past nine months to now offer ten locations across Western Australia, NSW and the USA and is continuing to grow.
Our program licensing model was created not only to support children, but also as a social initiative to support and empower other women to start their own small businesses. We provide everything needed to build their own Standing Strong® Club from marketing materials and program content to administrative tools, business coaching and ongoing support. Our vision is to not only support children and families, but also provide a business opportunity for people, particularly woman, wanting to find independence through their own small business while enriching the lives of children in their own communities. To date, two or our program licensing partners are mums who’ve brought Standing Strong to their own communities after their daughters attended our programs.
As a social enterprise we are dedicated to making Standing Strong® available to as many children as possible. Through our social responsibility strategy we have launched the Standing Strong® Together initiative. For every five program partnerships formed, we gift a program license to a not-for-profit organisation working with children and families. Our first donated license was gifted to WREN in Western Australia, a not-for profit organisation helping woman recover from domestic violence. Through the program license partnership, WREN is able to run the Standing Strong® programs for children associated with the organisation at no cost.
Standing Strong® is my life purpose. It's everything that's in my heart brought to life. I had my first vision for Standing Strong® as a teenager after going through years of bullying, anxiety, depression, and loneliness as a child. My dream was to help prevent other children from going through what I did and to offer parents much more support and resources than my mum had.
I have build Standing Strong® from the ground up with the support of my incredible team and partner. As we are a social enterprise, it is difficult to source funding and support to help us grow. We are now at an exciting stage were we are able to expand to reach more families and we are on the search for people and businesses who would like to help us growth. If you would like to learn more about Standing Strong® and how you might be able to assist us, I would love to hear from you.
There are no limits to how you, or people you know can help. We are searching for businesses and individuals to assist in promoting the Standing Strong® programs through marketing, public relations, donations, social media and business sponsorships. This is a wonderful opportunity for businesses and passionate individuals to give back to their community by sponsoring our programs and making them available locally. We would be greatly any support or encouragement we receive.
I’d like to sincerely thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to hear from you.
Warmest Regards,
Kim Marie Smith
Standing Strong™ | Founding Director
