‘I’ve always had a passion for helping people’: Craig Foster Scholarship recipient Chelsie Dawber on what drives her to support those in need through her business

When Chelsie Dawber was a kid, she had a dream.

However, an unfortunate turn of events led to the Adelaide United striker having to pivot.

It’s a move which ultimately culminated in setting up her business and being one of the recipients of the 2024 PFA Craig Foster Scholarship – which recognises the important role footballers play in shaping their communities and society.  

“For me, growing up, I always wanted to be a doctor,” Dawber told the PFA.

“In year 11, I suffered post concussion syndrome, so I didn’t do chemistry and all those sorts of subjects, because I wasn’t at school for most of year 11.

“I’ve always had a passion for helping people and wanting to work in the health field. One of my friends said: ‘oh, I think you would be really good at support work’. So I threw my hat in the ring, and I really, really enjoyed it.

“It’s great to see all the smiles that it puts on everyone’s faces and how much support and help you give to the those families as well. I just really enjoy having fun and helping people at the same time.

“It’s a really great honour to receive it (the scholarship), to be recognised for all the hard work that I’m doing outside of soccer, trying to balance it all can always be quite difficult, but it’s nice to be recognised for the efforts I’ve put in.”

Dawber and her partner, Mitch – who she met while working for another support group – set up Next Step Support Services South Australia in 2023 after identifying a gap in the market.

In between her football commitments with the Reds, the duo have been able to create an entire program for their clients, which entails a number of social activities on a week-to-week basis.

“I guess it’s hard to find a job while playing in the A-League, obviously, with the limited amount of money provided, and then the forever changing schedule and things like that, you kind of need to have an adaptable work schedule,” Dawber said.

“I found that support work was a good fit for me. So throughout my studies in university to become a speech pathologist, I took up support work for another company, which is where I met my boyfriend, who I run the business with, and we kind of found a gap in the market of there not been very many social groups to access for people that have disabilities.

“So we formed our own business. We started off doing one to one support work to build up our client base, and then we decided to form the social groups aspects of it.

“Every Friday night, we run different activities at different locations, such as Bounce or cooking (classes) or things like that, for young teenagers to young adults to attend our groups and build friendships and work on life skills and those sorts of things.”

Importantly, their work is having a positive impact on both the clients and their families.

“I’m not sure words can describe accurately how you feel,” Dawber said regarding the feeling of putting smiles on faces of their clients.

“I guess the impact you have on each individual is different, and the experience and the joy that each individual brings to you is also something different, whether that’s their personality, their disability, their family, or whatever it is.

“I just really, really, really enjoy it, and to provide the opportunity for those people that might not have any friends, or that might not have been to Bounce before, or might not have been asked to go to certain group or be able to do those things confidently.

“(This might be) because their parents can’t drive, or the parents aren’t able to do it because they need extra support, or all those things providing opportunities these people that they probably would never have otherwise. It’s pretty cool to do that.”

Dawber – along with Brisbane Roar’s Chelsea Blissett – received $2,500 to put towards their development.

“I think I would like to put the money from the scholarship to advertising and building a bigger platform so that more people from the disability community can access our social groups,” she said.

“We’ve only been around for six or seven months, so we’re still in that building phase, and I would love more and more people to be able to access our social groups. I think that’d be amazing.”