by Sybil Wolin, Ph.D., Al Desetta, M.A., and Keith Hefner

Description

A Leader's Guide to The Struggle to be Strong: How to Foster Resilience in Teens provides specific practical suggestions for using the stories in The Struggle to be Strong to inspire teens to persist in the face of challenges. It offers ways of:

• engaging teens in reading the stories and discussing them and writing about them.
• structuring experimental learning exercises for teens that will actively involve them in the stories' dilemmas.
• helping teens use the names and definitions of the seven resiliencies to recognize and build their own strength.
• supporting the academic success of teens by promoting their analytic thinking, reading, writing, verbal expression, and vocabulary skills.

Serving also as a self-directed training program, A Leader's Guide to the Struggle to be Strong: How to Foster Resilience in Teens explains the concept of resilience and its component parts - the seven resiliencies. It tells leaders how to identify the resiliencies in teens who are struggling. It also builds empathy for their setbacks and respect for their achievements. It teaches the skills necessary for talking to teens about sensitive topics, and it probes the leader's role in the lives of all teens and particularly those who are grappling with serious troubles.

Praise for The Struggle to Be Strong: True Stories by Teens About Overcoming Tough Times

"What a gem [the] Leader's Guide is. Steeped in the science of resiliency, this fine work offers practical strategies for helping beat the odds. I recommend it highly--to both youth and adults."

-Peter L. Benson, Ph.D.
President, Search Institute
Author of What Kids Need to Succeed and All Kids Are Our Kids

"A unique and empowering guide for anyone concerned with youth development. A Leader's Guide to The Struggle to be Strong presents a creative and insightful connection of thirty stories written by teens about their own struggles to the seven resiliencies developed by Sybil and Steven Wolin. This is a masterpiece of strengths-based practice! It is refreshing and truly empowering to find a book that uses kids' struggles and pride to help other kids identify their unique resiliencies... The concrete session plans offer suggestions for group leader preparation and practical suggestions for using the thirty stories in The Struggle to be Strong. An excellent and one-of-a-kind resource for changing hearts and minds! I will immediately give a personal copy to my teachers and group leaders."

-Eric K. Laursen, Ph.D.
Director, United Methodist Family Services Residential Treatment Center
President, Strength Based Services International

"The authors of this guide have touched the heart of human relationships... Those of us who have the privilege of entering the struggle with young folks as they wrestle with resilience and strength are given a dynamic and efficacious structure in which to work. Their work offers hope because its foundation is right and its method is doable."

-The Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon
Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington

"The moving stories in The Struggle to Be Strong and the accompanying Leader's Guide are very important resources for all working to improve the lives of young people. The teens' own words stress the importance of resilience, building on inner strengths, asking tough questions, being one's self, connecting with people who matter, using imagination and humor, and doing the right thing. We adults should act on their valuable insights."

-Marian Wright Edelman,
President, Children's Defense Fund
Author of The Measure of Success: A Letter to my Children and Yours

Leader's Guide to the Struggle to Be Strong: $21.95 200pp., S/C, 8 1/2" x 11"

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