Your Partner for Student Wellness and Resilience
WhyTry will help you become an expert at building resilience in students.
Tackle the complex emotional, social, mental health, and wellness needs of students with our programs, tools, and training combined with our unique WhyTry Approach, to create relationships that motivate and engage every student.
Our Programs and Toolkits for Educators
We offer two distinct programs that are designed to help you foster resilience in your students. Each program approaches the subject of resilience from a unique perspective.
WhyTry teaches students the specific skills needed to develop resilience
Resilience for Youth helps students understand how to access the sources of resilience.
K-12 Flexibility
Both of our programs provide a flexible toolkit and curriculum for K-12 teachers, counselors, social workers, school psychologists, and administrators. They provide simple, hands-on strategies and resources to help motivate unmotivated students, support students with trauma, improve engagement, and increase academic success.
The idea is straightforward; teach them the “why” of education, help them see the relevance of school, and teach resilience to youth in a way they can understand and remember.
Schedule a Demo
Have questions? Speak with a program director to get answers, learn about individual and school license pricing, and see how WhyTry could work for you!
The WhyTry Approach
We help students answer the question… “Why Try? Why should I put effort into life, school, or work?” The WhyTry approach can help you engage and motivate all students, even those that are sometimes difficult to reach.
The Foundation of The WhyTry Approach
Relationships
No program is effective on its own. To motivate our students, we need to get to know them, learn their names, and find out what makes them tick. Research shows that students who have a positive relationship with educators are more motivated to listen, engage, and show pro-social behaviors in the classroom. The WhyTry curriculum has over 150 strategies any educator can use to build a relationship with any student.
Relevance
If a student can’t see how the choices they are making today are having an impact on their future, they will struggle to answer the questions “why try,”… “why should I put effort into school, into work and into the important things in life?” They most likely don’t see the relevance of school. WhyTry focuses on two areas related to relevance. 1. helping students see the “why” and 2. delivering our message in an engaging, relevant way.
Resilience
The end goal for all of our programs, tools, and training is to help increase resilience in students and teachers. We can’t always control the challenges that students and teachers face. We can, however, impact their ability to thrive amidst those challenges. At WhyTry, we’ve found that the combination of strong relationships and relevant messaging is one of the best formulas for accomplishing this goal.
Why Focus on Resilience?
We need resilience education now more than ever. Students who score higher on resilience measures have improved social skills, higher grades, a greater love of learning, and better decision-making skills.
Training You to be a Resilience Expert
Do you want your teachers, counselors, and administrators to be able to motivate any student? WhyTry can help. We train educators to increase resilience in themselves and in their students.
Parent Resources
We provide free resilience resources for parents and families along with our school programs and curriculum. These tools can help families to grow closer and increase resilience in the home. To view the online guide, click below:
Schedule a Demo
Have questions? Speak with a program director to get answers, learn about individual and school license pricing, and see how WhyTry could work for you!
Book a Keynote with our Founder
Christian Moore, LCSW
Christian Moore is an internationally-renowned speaker, licensed clinical social worker, and advocate for youth. He is the author of The Resilience Breakthrough: 27 Tools for Turning Adversity into Action. He frequently delivers featured sessions and keynote speeches at education conferences nationwide. Christian’s engaging style combines humor and research with his powerful personal story. He consistently earns the highest ratings at conferences and events.
Additional Free Resilience Resources
Our Resilience Webinar Series
Guests explore topics like suicide prevention, equity, and student motivation. Explore our webinar archive.
With Christian Moore
Guests share powerful stories of turning pain into power, transforming life’s adversities into opportunities.
WhyTry staff development and training.
WhyTry training shows you powerful techniques to use music, videos, art, visuals, and engaging activities in the classroom. Speak their language, get their attention.
After the WhyTry training, our school was buzzing!! The culture has transformed from pessimism to optimism… from no hope to a renewed feeling of power and new ideas.
See what educators have to say about WhyTry.
For over 20 years, WhyTry has inspired students to discover freedom, opportunity, and self-respect. Here’s what they say about our social-emotional learning programs.
“We implemented this program through a small group with 20 girls. To select these 20 girls, we identified them as leaders in our building who were not leading in the most positive ways. I have to say, the hands-on activities were perfect in portraying the message, and we had so many great discussions as a result. In fact, we saw a measurable change with our group. Our students made much better decisions going forward. These changes occurred as a result of the group and the WhyTry materials.”
“WhyTry gives them the vocabulary that my class last year lacked because the program is so strong with giving them the tools and the words to describe how they’re feeling.”
“Very, very well done and organized, this program is incredibly complete and well thought out, masterfully scope and sequenced, it’s all here, totally visual and participatory. There is a very solid base to this “pyramid.” If presented to kids (with full fidelity) we will see them attain greater success.”
