Mind Matters
Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience supports the healing process in young people who have experienced trauma. This research-based curriculum offers strategies to help teens and young adults (ages 12-25) understand the effects of adversity and toxic stress and teaches them skills to soothe and calm their mental and physical stress responses.
Mind Matters is an effective precursor or accompaniment to programs that build relationship skills and equip vulnerable youth for healthy futures because it helps clear away barriers to focus and learning. Young people who have experienced trauma often have difficulty regulating their emotional and verbal responses to common life situations and relationships. In 12 lessons, the course builds students’ resiliency by healing their brains, their health, and their lives.
Each lesson in the curriculum includes activities that build resilience and increase hope.
These practical, hands-on activities and techniques can be implemented immediately, giving students tools to improve their lives starting with the very first lesson. The program also centers on practice. Students learn that “practice makes progress, not perfection,” and are given the space to progress at their own pace.
Mind Matters focuses on six major goals:
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Utilize Self-Soothing Skills
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Develop an Observing Self
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Strengthen Relationships
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Compassion for the Hijacked Brain
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Practice Self-Care
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Live Intentionally
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Self-regulation is the foundation of the program. As participants learn to pair existing negative thoughts with self-soothing skills, they begin to take charge of their lives and improve their states of mind. Through Mind Matters, students learn to address physical, relational, mental, and spiritual needs that are essential to increase their quality of life. They see that they are already the hero in their own life’s story.
The skills taught in Mind Matters are designed to be practiced over a lifetime. The curriculum is not meant to be group therapy or to replace psychotherapy. Rather, it is designed to inspire, uplift, and set young people on the journey of healing as they cultivate deeper resilience.