LifeChanger Foundation provides school wellbeing programmes that focus on building students’ resilience, confidence, connection and the skills to navigate life’s challenges. Started in 2016 by Scott Watters in Australia, LifeChanger programmes are grounded in positive psychology, helping young people to discover their strengths and to find the hero within – recognising their potential and believing they are capable of achieving more.
Over the past four years, LifeChanger has delivered wellbeing programmes to over 35,000 youth in New Zealand, including classes at Northcross Intermediate, Murrays Bay Intermediate, Takapuna Intermediate, Campbells Bay School, Rosmini College, Westlake Boys High School, and Stanley Point School. There are several programmes for schools to choose from, covering Years 5 to 12, with different formats tailored to their age; it may be a single workshop session for Year 5, sets of two to three sessions for other years, or the largest programme, which is the six-session “Awaken the Hero” programme for Year 8. Workshop sessions each have a different theme, covering areas like health, life skills, knowledge of self, purpose, whanau and community. The programmes are highly interactive with skilled facilitators who also provide resources for further mentoring to the teachers and community.
We spoke with New Zealand programme facilitators Matt Conroy and Mike den Heijer about what it takes to help youth find their inner hero.
Matt Conroy
Matt grew up on the North Shore and was a Westlake Boys student himself until 2018. He brings to his facilitation role a real understanding of resilience; he is a young man who has faced challenges and has had to pivot and change, resetting his path when life threw him curveballs. Matt is known on the Shore as a very successful football player; he started playing at just five years old for Forrest Hill (now part of Northern Rovers). He went on to represent New Zealand at the FIFA Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups. At 18, he went to Denmark and then Sweden, under professional contracts. Living overseas was something of a culture shock for a young Kiwi. While Denmark has many similarities to New Zealand, Matt found the culture to be more formal and reserved. “It was less laid back, and the pace of life felt faster, although some of that may have been an 18-year-old confronting an adult world for the first time, too”.
Unfortunately, the launch of his professional career coincided with the first impacts of the global Covid pandemic. The other international players on his team disappeared back to their home countries, but Matt stayed. He was on the other side of the world from family, friends and his usual support network while coping with an unforeseeable twist in his career plans. “It was a frightening thing to confront while being alone in a foreign country. I was by myself in the apartment through the Denmark lockdown, which was a hard and lonely time.”
After lockdown, he continued playing in Europe until a few too many shoulder injuries meant he needed to return to New Zealand for surgery. The outcome of the surgery threw another curveball at Matt; the state of his shoulder compromised his prospects for getting another professional contract. Realising this was the end of his childhood dream was a hard blow, and it was a stretch to have the resilience to come up with a back-up plan. Matt ultimately took comfort in the fact that he could still play high-level amateur football and has continued to have success playing in the New Zealand National League for Auckland United. He also started coaching football and found that he really enjoyed interacting with young people and seeing the difference he could make to their game.
It was through his football connection with Mike den Heijer that he was introduced to LifeChanger Foundation. The work seemed a perfect fit for the lessons in overcoming he had so recently learned. He also had a growing awareness of the impact of mental health issues, seeing other people in his life facing their own difficulties. “When I thought about coming to work with LifeChanger, I thought maybe I can make a difference. Even if it’s just for one person; that would be amazing. It turned out that the impact we have is greater than anything I imagined.”
While LifeChanger is Auckland-wide, Matt loves the fact that he is often working on the North Shore, in the community he grew up in. “Going back to my old school, Westlake Boys, to do the workshops has been a massive highlight for me.”
Michael den Heijer
Michael den Heijer was born and raised in Auckland. As an 18-year-old, he played football in Japan, knowing that he needed to be playing in a bigger environment than New Zealand to start a professional career. He found himself living in a dormitory at a boarding school, learning Japanese in the mornings and training in the afternoons and experiencing some real homesickness. He went on to play professionally in the Netherlands and semi-professionally in Germany for five years until 2021, when the Covid pandemic hit. As the sporting world was in flux and no one knew when normal service would resume, his old football coach convinced him to return to New Zealand. He came home and played for Auckland United, and in 2026 had a stint playing for Auckland FC in the OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) Pro League.
The same football coach who convinced him to come back to New Zealand put him in contact with Lifechanger Foundation when they were looking to expand here. “It was the perfect opportunity for me to give back and do something to help others. I had experienced my own mental health and life challenges over the years, and I knew I could have really benefited from that LifeChanger guidance when I was younger.”
Connecting with kids
Teachers have told the facilitators that they have seen some of their students who are most disengaged with learning become more engaged and positive as they progress through the LifeChanger workshops. Matt says, “I notice the difference between the first workshop and the third workshop, where kids who started off very contained are getting passionate and excited about what we’re doing. I’ve had them say to me, 'This is the best thing ever; when are you coming back?'”
The facilitators concentrate on keeping it interesting. As Matt says, “We try to get the balance right between the serious stuff and the fun stuff. It’s interactive, because no young person wants to sit and get talked at for very long. We have activities where they’ll be up and moving around, but there are also times of self-reflection looking at yourself pretty honestly, and peeling back the layers, so there is depth to it too.”
I asked Mike if a sports background makes for a better facilitator given that he and Matt are both football players. He says, “Having a sports background is relevant and a good touchpoint for some kids, but for others it isn’t. We definitely want a balanced approach, and to make a connection with every kid, not just the sporty ones. Through our sports background, we’ve gained some great stories that we can talk about, moments of adversity we’ve faced. And sometimes the sporting moments can be easier for them to talk about than more personal moments. But each facilitator has their own individual story and brings something different to the workshop. The workshops have a consistent outcome, but the method of getting there can change.
"For example, when it’s relevant to the conversation, I’ll talk about my parents splitting up when I was at intermediate. When we talk about those hard moments from our own lives and connect the dots between things that have happened, it helps the kids to connect the dots in their lives too.”
Matt hopes that the programme continues to spark the students' minds as they become adults. “I’m hoping that they have one of those ‘penny drop moments’ when something tough happens later in life, where they are reminded that these are the kinds of challenges we talked about back in that LifeChanger workshop, and they lean on something that they learned here.”
Partnering with Auckland FC for AIMS Games
LifeChanger is partnering with Auckland FC at the Zespri AIMS Games in Tauranga from 7 to 10 September, where they will be based at Gordon Spratt Reserve. The partnership aims to demonstrate that success is measured not only by results on the scoreboard, but also by the positive impact athletes can have within their communities. If you’re participating in AIMS Games this year, go and check out the activation, and say hello to the friendly facilitators and the rest of the LifeChanger team.
Wellbeing programmes are available to accommodate a range of diverse school environments. Contact LifeChanger for more information: info@lifechanger.org.nz
