Voices of Resilience: Monologues for Healing

Mental health

Applying a proven solution to a new issue or sector (using an existing model, tool, resource, strategy, etc. for a new purpose)

Many teens facing physical pain also endure emotional pain due to isolation and limited access to resources outside the home. They experience limited social interactions and lack supportive outlets for expressing feelings, leading to decreased mental health, depression, anxiety, worsening physical conditions, and lower quality of life. Teenage years are crucial for developing social skills, emotional resilience, and self-identity. Without intervention, teens risk long-term negative outcomes, impaired social functioning, and persistent mental health struggles. Teens with chronic pain face significant educational and professional setbacks, underscoring the urgent need for support. "Voices of Resilience" empowers teens to share their stories and process emotions via writing monologues. By articulating and channeling their pain, our program mitigates their feelings of isolation finding emotional healing while learning creative skills with potential career benefits.

“Voices of Resilience”, a 6-part series, focuses on storytelling, visualization and breathing techniques via high quality on-demand, produced interactive videos. Our program brings professional filmmakers teaching theater writing and fuses it with Kundalini Yoga mindfulness techniques for a cathartic release of emotional and physical pain thus creating a new form of art therapy. We will produce 6 original videos leading students to successfully utilize their discomfort by nurturing their creativity with the goal of healing their anxiety and past traumas. Based on our successful Girls IN Focus (GIF) workshop, “Monologue Weavers”, we offer a program addressing the needs of teens facing physical, emotional and mental pain and anxiety by delving into past scenarios to externalize their story. With direction and simple acting tips, the monologues will be said out loud in a private role-playing exercise giving new perspective and release of traumatic patterns or events. Using exercises that ignite the imagination in a safe space, this series helps excavate stories and channels them creatively. Offering both healing and career-building skills, this journey will use writing prompts and visual exercises to create a final monologue on the most pressing topics for each student. The skills developed by the students in this pilot program offer lasting tools for coping with pain and anxiety as well as building blocks for many career positions in the entertainment and healing industries.

We seek to have a positive impact and empower LA area teens aged 13-24 living with chronic physical pain which is clinically proven to affect overall mental health. By the end of year one, outreach will be expanded to LA kids in foster care who struggle with emotional and physical isolation due to their conditions or individual situations through Raise A Child, Foster All, Happy Trails and LAUSD. Those homebound or from underserved urban areas, or those with limited mobility whose access to traditional social and educational environments is restricted will be supported with our virtual platform, which is fully accessible, making its scalability throughout LA County immediate and actionable. Our program with help these teens develop emotional resilience, social skills, and a sense of community, ultimately enhancing their quality of life and emotional healing while fostering career development in the creative field, honing their skills in writing, performance, and self-expression.

CHYP will develop a pre and post survey for qualitative evaluation as they did for their virtual summer camp. Comments from the summer camp collected from previous years scroll at the bottom of website landing page illustrating that the virtual programs have decreased isolation, improved sense of community, and encouraged youth to use tools for their healing that they knew about, but were resistant to, in their own words. As part of a research study done where the modality was photography, showed it was a success and points to the decision to expand and cover more intense offerings in a single discipline (the photography study was over a number of touch points). In this case, through monologues, and in the Girls IN Focus area of expertise, film/cinematic studies, we are confident the results will be successful in lowering the symptoms and enhancing healing. This is the link to the photography study here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0272504

Our non-profit partner CHYP will serve as our advisor as well as professional guidance and counsel on the most effective practices with youth in pain.They will be providing us our initial pilot cohort as well as educational resources, peer connection, and exposure to creative healing experiences using a fully online platform to bridge the gap between common healthcare barriers such as cost, geographic location, and long wait times for appointments with doctors. CHYP's Founder, Lonnie Zeltzer, M.D., is an internationally recognized pain clinician, immediate past-director of the UCLA Pediatric Pain and Palliative Care Program, and an Emerita Distinguished Research Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.