Supporting Youth Mental Health with WhyTry
Shared Info/Resources From The Webinar:
Resilience Bundle
Click on the links below to access any of these free resources shared in the webinar today!
Practical Tools for Building Resilience in Counseling and Therapy
For over 20 years, WhyTry has provided practical, evidence-based resources that help people of all ages overcome adversity, build resilience, and develop the life skills they need to succeed. While widely used in schools, these same tools provide mental health professionals with engaging, practical strategies to reach children and youth who are often the hardest to connect with—those facing trauma, family stress, and overwhelming life challenges.
Tools Designed for Educators and Mental Health Professionals
Our visual metaphor-based toolkits give therapists, counselors, social workers, and psychologists concrete ways to:
- Break through resistance and engage youth who feel shut down or hopeless
- Build trust and connection quickly in one-on-one or group settings
- Teach emotional regulation, decision-making, and self-efficacy through simple, memorable concepts
- Help clients identify strengths, develop coping strategies, and build hope
- Support growth for individuals struggling with peer pressure, family instability, anxiety, or low motivation
These strategies can be integrated into:
- Community mental health programs
- Family therapy
- Clinical psychology practice
- Social work case management
- Youth probation and correctional settings
- Counseling with early childhood through adult populations
A Resource for Every Age and Setting
- Pre-K through Adults: Activities and analogies adapted for each developmental stage
- Youth on Probation or in Detention: Used successfully in justice settings to engage resistant youth
- Families: The Parent Guide to Resilience provides simple tools for caregivers to help their children build resilience at home.
The WhyTry Program
WhyTry is a flexible toolkit and program for educators and mental health professionals. It provides simple, hands-on strategies and resources to help motivate the unmotivated youth, support children and youth with trauma, improve engagement, and increase school success. It focuses on teaching the “Skills of Resilience” to students in a way that they will understand and remember.
The Power of Visual Metaphors
One of the most unique things about WhyTry is how we use visual metaphors to teach these important principles to students in a way they can understand and remember. The powerful thing about using this visual approach is the way it takes abstract concepts and puts them into a context through the use of a metaphor that students can understand. It essentially creates a language for educators to communicate the relevance of these things.
The WhyTry program utilizes a series of ten visual analogies that teach essential life skills like:
- Improved decision making
- Positive self-esteem
- Dealing with peer pressure
- Emotional regulation
- Intrinsic motivation
- Problem solving in life
- Valuing hard work
- Plugging in to support systems
- Self-efficacy and hope
Resilience For Youth
The Resilience For Youth program is a suite of tools targeting grades 6-12 that teach the building blocks and “Sources of Resilience” for youth and also includes resources for educators and parents.
Resilience for Youth Learning Units
- Focusing on Resilience
- Flipping the Switch
- Emotional Fuel
- Relational Resilience
- Street Resilience
- Resources Resilience
- Rock Bottom Resilience
Resilience for Youth Toolkit
Resilience for Youth is a flexible toolkit for one on one counseling or group sessions. To schedule a demo of our complete toolkit and implementation model:
Training and Support
We provide more than just materials. Our trainings (available online or onsite) show mental health professionals how to use the WhyTry approach to create connection and engagement with clients who are often the hardest to reach.
Participants learn:
- How to incorporate the visual metaphors and activities into therapy sessions
- Ways to use the language of resilience to reframe client struggles into strengths
- Strategies to build motivation and self-efficacy in resistant or traumatized clients
- Practical, step-by-step methods for individual, group, and family settings
Ongoing coaching and resources are also available, so you can confidently use these tools to create meaningful breakthroughs with the children, youth, and families you serve.