SpiritCorps: Forging Resilience from the L.A. Wildfires

Wildfire relief

West LA San Gabriel Valley City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

The psychological impact of natural disasters on youth is profound and often overlooked. One Palisades school community estimates that 25% of students have lost their homes, as have 1,800+ school families in Altadena. All across L.A., parents in service sectors have lost jobs. And for those who can return to burn areas, their neighborhoods will never again be the same.
While many relief efforts focus on shelter, clothing and food, little enough has been done to address the loss of deep connections to place–housing, school, community– that often lead to severe anxiety, loneliness and depression. In the first 18 months after a disaster, nearly 70% of adolescents experience PTSD, with academic decline, self-harm and suicidal ideation often developing over time. Trevor K., SpiritCorps 8th grader, understands this loss: “A home isn’t just four walls and a roof. it’s the laughter echoing through the halls, the warmth of a familiar street, the safety of a community that feels like family.”

SPIRIT SERIES empowers young people to meet challenge and adversity by taking inspiration from historic heroes and the positive core values they exemplify. Each SpiritCorps intensive begins with personal video stories from SERIES staff and friends that celebrate one such heroic value: Courage, Conscience or Compassion.
Program leaders and Volunteer Story Coaches join with partner classroom teachers in a Circle of Support as students focus on one of these attributes in a Five-Step process to identify, craft and record a SpiritCorps video story of their own. ELA teacher, Scott Arritt, observes: “Writing can be a risky thing for students at this age, especially when they're writing about something so personal. To have that support made telling these stories possible and authentic.”
The first 230 students served by this Initiative demonstrate its capacity as a trauma intervention, providing protective factors for participants that can mitigate long-term impacts of this tragedy. Students awaken to their strength of character and build resilience as they meet the SpiritCorps challenge—successfully completing their video story and sharing it with the community. Classroom teachers model vulnerability by creating their own SpiritCorps story and, along with Story Coaches, show students that caring adults are there to share this hardship. Seventh grader Sasha B. concluded:“This helped me learn that other people are struggling with the same things I am and made me feel less alone.”

This Initiative is intended to help mitigate adverse effects of the wildfire for 2,000 student participants and their families. Our deeper purpose is to turn their loss into gain—to help build from the ashes young people capable of successfully navigating life’s challenges.
That has been our mission with more than 50,000 L.A. area students in 1,850 classrooms since 2001. Born from personal tragedy, SPIRIT SERIES operationalizes challenge and adversity to build both moral and performance character. As founder of L.A.’s Multicultural Learning Center, Gayle Nadler, explains: “Every classroom teacher deserves the chance to work side-by-side with the educators from SPIRIT SERIES to learn new ways to empower students as they discover their true potential, explore life’s biggest questions…and themselves.”
This Initiative is part of a new five-year plan—SPIRIT SERIES 10-2030—designed to bring our transformative, story-based, character and values curricula to 10,000 students annually by 2030.