Empowering U Forward

Empowering U teaches coping skills, mindfulness, stress management techniques, time management strategies, decision-making skills, and resilience to children from kindergarten through 12th grade. Our lesson plans are designed to encourage healthy behaviors toward self and others, while also teaching communication skills that help build positive relationships with friends, parents, teachers, coaches, and others.

Topics include self-acceptance, self-responsibility, healthy coping skills, self-confidence building, and the one skill we believe is most important for today’s youth — resilience, the ability to bounce back when life gets tough or does not go your way. The goal of our Julia’s Joy Empowering U Program is to help today’s youth lead happy, confident, and courageous lives.

As we speak with students in the schools we visit and with those who attend our programs, we consistently hear about stress, overwhelming schoolwork, lack of downtime, social media drama extending late into the night, feelings of not fitting in, family struggles, self-harm, anxiety, sadness, depression, and more. We have found that hundreds of local children are suffering in silence.

Suicide rates have increased by 200% among youth ages 11–15. One in three teens has been diagnosed with a mental illness, and video gaming addiction is now recognized as a mental disorder. Today’s youth face increased pressure from social media, and the overuse of cell phones has contributed to a decline in communication skills with peers and adults.

Pillars of Light and Love has offered free workshops for children for several years, and stress continues to be one of the most common themes expressed by both youth and parents. Many young people and parents feel helpless because they lack the skills and tools needed to support themselves, their friends, or their children through today’s challenges. School counselors and teachers have shared these same concerns with us.

Our experiences working with parents who have lost children to suicide or overdose further compelled us to create Empowering U. We need your help to bring this program into schools. We need parents and school board members to partner with us to help make this curriculum available in schools everywhere.

“It is not enough to just reach the children and teens who come to our free workshops at Pillars,” says our founder, Kathy Opperman. “We must teach every child, including the bullies and the victims of bullying who feel misunderstood. There are too many children suffering in silence who believe they are the only ones who feel alone in a crowded room. We must reach all children. Empowering U is more than a stress management program — it is about saving lives by preventing suicide, addiction, and self-destructive behaviors.”

To speak with Kathy Opperman about bringing Empowering U to your school, please email kathyopperman@pillarsoflightandlove.org.

We are happy to report that we piloted 16 of our 25 lesson plans with 50–65 students per week during the summers of 2019 and 2021. We are currently compiling feedback from students, parents, and instructors while making recommended improvements to the program.

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