A proven program for schools, colleges, and community organizations that elevates voices of youth and young adults in conversations about mental health and wellbeing.
No one can deny the power of a story that is rooted in lived experience. -Personal stories create connection, break down barriers, and change minds. And for most people under 30, those stories aren’t going to be found in a book of essays or at a lecture hall. They will be visual - online videos that are consumed in just a moment or a few minutes.
The #Stronger-Together Video Challenge will enable your organization to help young people employ strategic storytelling and create opportunities for self-reflection, building resiliency and peer communities, or advocating for the policies and services they need to ensure their mental health and wellbeing.
The Impact of the Video Challenge
Research shows that peer connectedness and sharing personal stories are key protective factors to avoid multiple, negative outcomes for youth mental health, including academic failure, increased dropout rates, and untreated mental illnesses.
These connections become especially critical at points of transition, in family life, to a new academic year, or new school or college.
Evaluations of the #Stronger-Together Video Challenge indicate this program has a lasting, positive impact on the lives of the students who participate:
Addressing the mental health and wellbeing of today’s adolescents and young adults is a vital priority for families, schools, colleges, and the community at large. There’s widespread agreement that we need targeted interventions that can mitigate mental health issues before they get to crisis levels. We also need voices and testimony from them about the services they need. The question is how.
The Reilly Group (TRG) offers an innovative program that holds a powerful piece to this complex puzzle. Its evidence-based #Stronger-Together Video Challenge initiative helps youth and young adults share their personal stories and lived experiences while also providing them with video skills and tools that will serve them throughout their lives.
TRG’s team of experts in media production, school-based mental health, and prevention programs have created and implemented an initiative that gives them a safe space to develop and record their personal narratives.
Then the program helps them leverage those videos on multiple platforms so they can connect with other teens, adults, as well as policy and decision makers to effect real change.
How Can My School, College or Organization host a #Stronger-Together Video Challenge?
The Video Challenge is conducted online and provides five successive tasks. We make it quick and easy to implement with our step-by-step expertly-guided process.
Each task includes a short instructional video, handouts, and an interactive dialogue among students and the video expert instructor and story-telling facilitator as they help them, step-by-step, craft their narrative and then translate it into video. (If the challenge is being done as part of a classroom exercise, teachers can be instrumental in supporting students during the lessons.)
Video themes from youth and young adults range from inspirational stories drawn from their own experiences to powerful testimonials advocating for mental health and wellbeing services.
Research has shown that shared testimonies in a learning peer setting can lower stigma, and enhance the unique resiliency of the story-teller, leading to greater self-esteem and a wider network of support.
How It Works:
#1. Schedule an introductory call with The Reilly Group (TRG). Our goal will be to explore the themes and goals of your video challenge and the age group involved, so that we can craft an age-appropriate experience.
#2. Create a Youth Executive Board. TRG will help you assemble this panel to reflect the geographic and cultural diversity of your school, college campus, county or state. The Youth Board helps craft the “theme” of the video challenge, ensuring that the voice of youth and young adults is at the heart of the program
#3. Schedule and Launch the 11-day challenge with our team of media experts
#4. Post the Videos - Powerful visual stories / videos will be developed from the Challenge, giving youth and organizations an opportunity to post, host, and amplify the messages and themes of mental health and wellbeing on social media platforms, at meetings, or with key decision makers.
#5. Report on the Results. TRG will provide an end-of-challenge report, including a survey of participants and an overview of program outcomes
Video Examples
To learn more about how your school, college, or community group can employ this powerful tool to encourage engagement and sharing by children, teens, and young adults, please reach out to Colleen Reilly.