I HAVE been at Berengarra for just over 18 months.

Before I found Berengarra, I was a school refuser. I would go to school maybe two half-days a week at the most. I would lie in bed and refuse to get up. I hated school so much; it felt like a prison to me. I would cry myself to sleep thinking that the next day I would have to go to school.

I used to shut out the world and just live in my bedroom. I shut out friends and shut out the whole world, and when I went out I still shut everything out. Then my parents stumbled across Berengarra.

I now attend school every day, have heaps of friends and don't shut people out. On the weekends I go out and socialise instead of sleeping my life away.

The things that Berengarra does that no other school does are just simple things that make a huge difference. One of the big things is their motto: 'muck up, fix up'. This means that if you muck up, you fix it and then it's over.

Basically, both my parents and I believe that if we hadn't found Berengarra, I would have killed myself. So when I say, Berengarra is a life-saver, I really mean it.