Paddling Out: How The Wave Project Helps Children Gain Confidence

While walking on West Sands, you may stumble across children balancing on surfboards. What you may not notice is that many of the children you see are neurodivergent or disabled, and this may be the first time they’ve been able to participate in a sport. 

2026 marks fifteen years of The Wave Project, a charity that introduces children aged eight to eighteen with anxiety, low confidence, or other emotional difficulties to surfing. The first step in the program is a six-week Surf Therapy course in which participants are paired with a volunteer mentor. This mentor stays with the child throughout the session, catching waves with them and making sure they stay safe in the water. 

The programme’s next step is the Surf Club. Similar to the Surf Therapy course, members’ goals include building friendships and confidence while offering ongoing support. 

The final step in the programme is becoming a Surf Mentor. This optional opportunity is open to members once they are fourteen. According to Derek McDonald-Lee, project coordinator for The Wave Project in St Andrews, about 50% of those who participate in Surf Therapy continue with the Surf Club, and a small percentage become volunteers. 

McDonald-Lee joined the St Andrews branch at its launch in 2021 after his dad sent him an article on the project and encouraged him to sign up. McDonald-Lee volunteered for three years and has been the project coordinator for two. 

“I was doing the nine-to-five, working from home … but I’ve always loved surfing,” McDonald-Lee said, adding that he “signed up as a volunteer, came down to a training,” and has been “hooked ever since.”

For McDonald-Lee, volunteers are one of the most important parts of The Wave Project. In St Andrews, the project brings together a diverse age range of volunteers — the youngest being fourteen, and the oldest 75. The steps to volunteer are simple: contact the charity, attend an online training session, complete a Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) background check, and finally, complete an in-person training session in water at the chosen location.  

According to the project’s website, in 2024-25, 70.5% of those who joined the programme felt more resilient, 70.3% gained confidence, 66.2% felt calmer, and 52.5% developed more trust. “A big thing we try and teach our kids is the lesson of resilience, being like ‘It’s okay to fall off, but it’s getting back up again and then having another crack at it,’” said McDonald-Lee. 

Even though the sessions are only two hours long, progress is made. A girl currently on the course at St Andrews is nonverbal and uses an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device to communicate. When her mother came down to West Sands recently, she informed The Wave Project that her daughter had recently spoken to her teacher for the first time in three years. The words: “Surfing, let’s go.” 

Though many don’t realise just how effective these methods can be, these kinds of therapy are nothing new. According to a 2024 National Institutes of Health (NIH) study, the effects of surf therapy are equivalent to those of other “nature-based exercise interventions” such as hike therapy. Surf therapy, hike therapy, and art therapy all fall under the umbrella of complementary health, which combines a non-mainstream approach with traditional health techniques. A 2026 NIH study found that outdoor hiking effectively alleviates stress, improves moods, and enhances overall well-being. While these complementary techniques may not replace medication and traditional talking therapy, they do offer a new way to look at health. 

“There are lots of different modes of somebody being able to process their feelings, their emotions, their sensory needs through loads of different modalities that don’t necessarily need to be talking therapy,” Dr Hollie Burnett, a senior University lecturer, said. Burnett specialises in clinical psychology and works closely with The Matrix, a Scotland-based psychological organisation that helps clinical psychologists choose the therapy that best suits their patients. 

Burnett’s son is disabled and participates in skiing, swimming, and horseback riding, all tailored for people with disabilities. “One of the biggest barriers I’ve had with my son is the equipment,” Burnett said. “He doesn’t like the shoes they make him wear; he says they dig in. So you have to get all the groundwork right for the intervention to work,” she said. Burnett added that “unless somebody understands the needs of the individual, often you can’t get to that therapy as well.”

Burnett says it’s important to remember that traditional sit-on-a-couch therapy isn’t suited for everyone. If someone struggles with communication, forcing them to look at you and talk might not be the most effective strategy. However, because many of the alternative therapies don’t have licensed therapists assisting them, it’s a struggle to get people to view these options as equivalent solutions. “There has to be more value and understanding about how these things help and work,” said Burnett. “It’s like, ‘oh, you’ll get a nice hand massage.’ People don’t see it as anything meaningful.” 

The Wave Project wants to become more integrated with the University in the future. Some students already engage with the charity, but McDonald-Lee hopes for even more to join, especially those studying psychology. “I just think it would be so beneficial for people to see in real time [what] beneficial alternative forms of therapy [...] look like,” McDonald-Lee said.

The St Andrews Surf Society volunteers regularly with The Wave Project, said Alexa Vinton, a fourth-year Economics and Sustainable Development student and the society’s charity officer.  Surf Society holds several charity events throughout the year to support The Wave Project, Vinton explained. “We do this big bingo night where we raised around £1,000 last year, and we donate our fall fundraising efforts in December because they match the donations.”

Outside her committee role, Vinton is a Wave Project volunteer alongside many other Surf Society members. Because of the constant turnover rate with university volunteers, the society tries to maintain an active relationship with the current project branch managers to continue St Andrews students’ involvement.

As for the project’s future, McDonald-Lee hopes more people will volunteer, help fundraise, and raise awareness to those who may benefit from surf therapy. 

Sport is “such a big thing that could be missing in so many young people’s lives,” McDonald-Lee said. At its core, the goal of The Wave Project is “to create a space where kids can come down, [...] just be themselves, and have fun with no pressure to perform.”

Photo courtesy of The Wave Project