Themes: Resiliency, Healthy Communication, Stress, and Mental Health and Wellness
Audience: Grades 9 to 12
Program Description
Anxiety can negatively affect a teenager’s day-to-day living. For some, the situation may be made worse by past or ongoing experiences with violence, neglect, substance use, or homelessness. The Resilience Squad series of 4 workshops can help high school students better cope with stress and adversity.
Resilience Squad is available to schools and communities free of charge and offers tools for students to build healthy relationships, manage high levels of stress and trauma, and increase their ability to communicate effectively.
Workshop Series
1. Building Community
- Builds trust and empathy by sharing observations and expressing concerns in the community.
- Encourages teamwork and unity through improvisation games and group processing.
- Guides abstract art creation to help participants reveal inner strength and personal fortitude.
2. Stress Management
- Identifies stressors through a visual art activity and science-based exploration.
- Provides tools so participants can discover and share coping methods.
- Introduces a physical theatre activity to help build community support for reducing stress.
3. Healthy Communication
- Models healthy communication and expressing needs through role plays.
- Facilitates the creation of personal illustrations to understand both current and aspirational boundaries.
- Engages in stimulating group discussion to solidify best communication practices.
4. Mindfulness
- Presents an innovative use of technology to hone critical observation skills.
- Improves concentration, focus, and self-awareness through a dynamic breathing exercise.
- Explores the 5 senses to extend mindfulness concepts to daily activities and relationships with self and others.
Educational Goals
Through this program, students learn
- How to build trust and empathy
- How to identify and cope with stress and trauma
- Healthy communication skills
- How to improve concentration, focus, and self-awareness
Additional Information
- Free of charge to schools and community groups
- Target audience: high school students, grades 9 to 12
- Offered for groups of up to 30 in each session
- Workshops are 90 minutes
- See information sheet [pdf] for more details
Venue Requirements
- An indoor space
- A minimum 32’w x 32’d workshop space
- A minimum of 30 to 45 minutes for set-up before the workshop and 30 to 45 minutes for break-down after
Eligibility Requirements
Our mission is to focus on the most vulnerable and high-need communities. We use several factors to determine eligibility, including percentage of students enrolled in the Free and Reduced Price Meals Program. If you have any questions about your schools or community group’s eligibility, please contact us at 1-877-353-2223 to speak with one of our staff.
Learn more about booking Resilience Squad.