Teaching kids how to make friends and keep them.
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The skill of reading social situations and then acting appropriately unfortunately does not come naturally for some. This is often the case for children with a diagnosis of Autism or ADD/ADHD for whom the complexities of navigating social interactions can be daunting and anxiety-provoking. This can have a huge impact on your child’s social and emotional wellbeing if they do not receive support. The good news is that these complex social skills can be taught! And the Secret Agent Society (SAS) program is an evidence-based program designed to do just that in a fun and engaging format.​
​The Secret Agent Society is an evidence-based, multimedia curriculum to help children improve their social and emotional resilience. This popular and effective social skills approach is used with 8 to 12-year-old children with a range of social and emotional challenges, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders.
The SAS program is designed to teach children the skills to be able to:
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Recognise emotions in themselves and other
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Express emotions in appropriate ways
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Cope with anxiety and anger
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Talk and play with others
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Cope with change
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Build and maintain friendships
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Solve friendship problems
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Cope with mistakes and losing
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Recognise and deal with bullying and teasing.
The program features a computer game with animated characters, interactive activities and home missions that teach children
how to recognise and control their emotions and cope with social challenges such as talking and playing with others and coping
with bullying. Parents and children have all the tools in their mentor/cadet online portals that help them continue learning and practising skills at home.
How will this group help my child?
SAS is an engaging and evidence-based program which helps children learn how to feel happier, calmer and braver. It also teaches them how to make friends and keep them! The program includes 9 weekly sessions with your child that run for 90 minutes, plus a 3-month and 6-month follow up session. New skills are explored and reinforced each week through conversation, role play and games. Parents and schools are an integral part of the group program and receive resources and support to help young ‘secret agents’ develop and generalise new skills to the home and school environments. At the end of the program, your junior detective will graduate as a ‘secret agent’, armed with the social and emotional tools they need to continue their work in the ‘real world’.
What does the SAS involve?
Child Group Meetings
(SAS Cadet Club Meetings)
Over 11 sessions your child learns a new social skill each week in a fun engaging way.
The first 9 sessions are typically delivered weekly with the following 2 boosters sessions spread over a six month period.
Parent Group Meetings
Parent Group Sessions: commence with a 2-hour parent information session, followed by 4 x 2-hour sessions, over the course of the program.
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Parent group meetings are held throughout the program to advise and support parents on the content of child group meetings and how to help their children apply their SAS skills in real life.
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It is optimal if parents have the opportunity for networking and facilitated discussion on the successes and challenges they have faced in supporting their children to use their newly learnt social skills.
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Parent meetings are typically held as close as possible to the child meeting and without children present.
School Support
Classroom teachers are updated on the skills and content children are learning through SAS and how they can support the application of skills in the classroom and playground. This occurs through a combination of providing a series of SAS Teacher Tip Sheets, the Skill Tracker, and teacher consultation.
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SAS is often written into children’s individual learning plans to assist teachers to meet the social-emotional goals of their students.
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The SAS Small Group Program is mapped to the Australian National Curriculum.
Secret Agent Missions
and Mission Journal
Between each child group meeting, children participate in weekly tasks, including playing 4 levels of online gamified learning, skills practice activities in day-to-day life and completion of a reflection journal.
Skill Tracker System
A short-term daily motivation tool is used to encourage children to practice specific skills at home and school, aligned with progression through each module of the program.
NDIS Funding Options
Self-Managed Families & Plan-Managed Families
NDIS funding may be used if the family are self-managed or plan-managed.
Please note that for participants with plan-managed NDIS there may be an out of pocket expense for the family for people on some types of plans. It is always best to speak with your plan manager.
Which Funding Categories?
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Chat with your plan manager for what is relevant to your situation. It is helpful to know that other families have told us they use these categories:
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a) Community Participation Activities
b) Improved daily living
How much does the
program cost?
The total program cost os $3400. Please note make up sessions may incur an additional charge if you are not able to attend any of the sessions on the given day.