Why Build Mental Wellness?

Problem

Solution

Approach

Covid-19 accelerated a growth trend in student stress and anxiety that has led the United States to the current youth mental health pandemic. In 2020, a Yale study across all demographic groups revealed that 75% of high school students felt “tired, stressed, and bored” toward school. Given that they spend at least 1/4 of their waking hours in school, these emotions are troubling and certainly contribute to rises in mental illness, criminal behavior, and overall lack of preparation for post high school success.

A shift towards feelings of being valued, connected and inspired can cultivate youth feelings of joy and emotional intelligence. Youth who complete high school with a personal sense of passion have an increased probability of success whether post high school plans lead to college/university education, employment, or entrepreneurship.

To achieve this shift toward youth joy and positive feelings, 4 simple steps are required.

1) Identify the passion

2) Create the vision

3) Connect school work and activities to the vision

4) Create a detailed path to post-high school success

Why Passion-Based Wellness?

The 18th century Industrial Revolution brought about significant technological and economic progress. With improved food production, advancements in medicine and sanitation, and changes in social structures, there was a great need to efficiently and simultaneously organize rapid population growth. The compulsory education model was a key tool to quickly train employees and fill jobs to support this societal growth. All citizens were taught the same basic skills and prepared to enter the growing job market. A natural consequence of this uniform development was an increasing degree of competitiveness for top school grades and the best jobs. The stress of this competition correlates with the rise in mental health challenges and has contributed to our society reaching its current mental health pandemic level.

With the Age of Information, there is less of a need to for uniformity in citizen development because many jobs are being replaced by operational efficiency techniques, robots, and artificial intelligence. As such, and 'becasue the job market landscape is shifting so rapidly, there is a less for standardized skills to fill jobs and more of a need for a creative and innovative youth pipeline. As documented by the Yale Study for Emotional Intelligence, an overwhelming number of high school students feel “bored” and see no use for some of the skills being taught. This admitted boredom, along with the ongoing effects of Covid-19 and social media prevalence, have further exacerbated our youth mental health challenges, driven by isolation, lack of engagement, and pessimism about the future.

At HLN, It’s not only grades and test scores. HLN offers the guidance students need and the peace of mind that parents seek. When students are empowered to develop focus and live in their passions, they build mental wellness and increase their odds of extracting what is most relevant in school to succeed in the workplace and as entrepreneurs.

PBW Guides Students To:

·      Create a strategic plan based on their goals—starting 9th grade or earlier

·      Examine and navigate their key life pillars with unlimited, 24/7 support

·      Identify their passions and launch a meaningful passion project

·      Polish and exhibit their independent research, community outreach initiatives, or entrepreneurial activity

 ·      Tailor their extracurricular activities, internships, and summer opportunities around their passion

·      Achieve their goal grades, and SAT/ACT score through tutoring and test-taking support

·      Gain admission to their dream schools

·      Build contacts and launch their careers as employees and entrepreneurs

·      Develop ongoing life skills, interests, and personal goals through near-peer mentorship

After years of research, workshops, conferences and personal life experience in the mental illness space, HLN founder, Mark Lawrence, encourages a different approach. Building mental wellness is very different than treatment and prevention of mental illness. “If our entire society were to concentrate on building mental wellness muscles, the mental illness pipeline would sharply decline and nearly choke itself out,” states Lawrence. While there has always been and will always be a percentage of our society that faces mental illness challenges, research indicates that we can slow down, halt and ultimately reverse this trend. To accomplish this feat, members of society must be prepared to become slightly uncomfortable. We must questions some things that we’ve long not known, but accepted as truth. We must learn to embrace the power of gradually accepting that there are things we simply do not know. The power in this approach is that it opens the floodgates for truth.

6 Reasons Why PBW Works

Passion-focused Growth

While academic grades, standardized test scores, college admissions, and job preparation lay at the foundation of an impressive youth development process, our mentoring approach places emphasis on students exploring their passions through participation in extracurricular activities, community projects and entrepreneurial ventures. When students are engaged, their mental wellness improves. We help student identify with their passions and develop balance through music and sports engagement. This combination ensures improved mental wellness, heightened confidence, and increased joy.

Through an emotionally intelligent approach, we help our students identify leadership opportunities in their schools and communities and provide guidance in taking those opportunities to the next level. Not only do our students focus on building their communities and giving back, these projects help enhance their self-worth and mental wellness. 

In developing their projects, students work with our full-service in-house marketing team to build websites, branding and social media strategies.

Near Peer Mentorship

At HLN, our mentors are all full-time, recent graduates, trade professionals and entrepreneurs. Because they are closer in age to their students, they can therefore relate better to them. Our students truly view their mentors as mentors, not as counselors or teachers. In addition to establishing a non-parental relationship through near-peer mentorship, we match each student to a mentor based on their academic and professional goals and interests, personalities and strengths. Each of our students (and their parents) complete a detailed questionnaire before being assigned a mentor. Carefully matching students to mentors enables students and mentors to build strong, productive relationships.

Our mentors can speak to the qualities crucial for success in college, the workplace, and beyond, and help foster these skills in their students. Our mentors have successfully completed rigorous academic courses at their respective colleges and universities, or work in fields directly related to the student’s interests. This allows them to equip their mentees with the studying and time management skills necessary for success at higher level institutions. 

Colleges, employers and investors want to partner with students they believe will succeed in the face of adversity and who they believe will rise to the challenge, playing on their strengths to produce impressive work. Our mentors teach their students how to recognize their strengths and how to create something impactful through those strengths. 

Small Student to Mentor Ratio

HLN is a boutique firm, which allows our team to provide high level strategy and individualized mentoring to each student. We intentionally limit the number of students each of our mentors works with in order to ensure that mentors can devote their undivided attention to their students. Mentors customize each part of the mentoring process, building out personalized roadmaps for each of their students in accordance with their strengths and goals.

While other wellness programs may hire part-time or contracted therapists to help students address their challenges, each and every one of our mentors works full time, ensuring fast response rates and flexible meeting times.

Emotionally Intelligent Mentoring

Each of our mentors are trained in emotional intelligence, and incorporate this philosophy into their mentoring. Based on research from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, 75% of high school students used negative words to describe how they feel at school, including “Tired,” “Stressed,” and “Bored.” Students want to achieve the mindset that will lead to success, but they need help—and that’s where HLN comes in. Our near-peer mentors are trained to inspire, empower, and support students to discover what they are truly excited and passionate about.

Our mission is to empower each individual to find their passion while developing valuable life skills for college, work after high school or entrepreneurship. We motivate students to view education as a path to realizing their potential and making an impact on their generation.

Once our students have reduced their stress and refocused their energy on their passions, we often hear from parents, “I have never seen my child so motivated.” With our mentors supporting and encouraging them, 100% of our students feel empowered to pursue their passions and feel proud of their accomplishments.

All the Support You Need in a One-Time Fee

Fees for wellness therapy begin at a few hundred dollars per hour. What sets our services apart at HLN is our emphasis on the individual student and their genuine passions, goals and strengths. Starting as early as 8th grade, our dedicated Senior Mentors partner with students to create personalized roadmaps, focusing on how they can reach their full potential as both a student and an individual. Through this authentic, emotionally intelligent approach to mentoring, our students organically develop into the mentally sound college students, employees and entrepreneurs.

All of our services are custom designed to fit you and your child’s needs, which is why we only work with a limited number of students at any given time. Year after year, our approach consistently proves that an investment in our services will not only help your child thrive as mentally well-rounded, but also to reach their post-high school and beyond potential.

Unlimited mentoring from any location

Unlike some other therapy programs, we offer flexibility when it comes to scheduling with our students, as we know high school coursework, extracurriculars and youth life responsibilities can be very demanding. While other firms may hire part-time or contracted mentors, each and every one of our mentors works full time, ensuring fast response rates and flexible meeting times. Our mentors are not on a 9-5; they are available to meet with students seven days a week, at their students’ convenience. We work successfully via remote meetings. No matter where our students are located in the world, we work with them on their own time to allow them to make the most of their mentoring year round.

Why Healthy Living Nation?