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Support Groups Articles and Episodes

Teenagers are longing for caring adults to take the time to connect. Check out our time-tested resources on leading support groups and building life changing relationships.

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Motivation Monday: Searching for Hope

Motivation Monday: Searching for Hope

As we continue to share stories from our Teen Lifeline Support Groups, we hope that you are seeing the benefits that these groups bring to the students, school districts, campus counselors and the facilitators that lead these groups.

We are so passionate about our #TL5K is because the funds raised by this one event help make these groups possible! We have the opportunity to continue to grow and reach teenagers with 100 volunteer facilitators trained to use our Life Lived Better Curriculum to lead support groups in their local school or church.

Motivation Monday: Open Doors

Motivation Monday: Open Doors

Teen Lifeline was able to reach 837 teenagers in 2015 – our biggest year yet! What is even better about this number is that it happened because of our awesome volunteers who take time out of their week to facilitate support groups with students.

Jacob Baker, Youth and Family Minister at Decatur Church of Christ, is one of these facilitators and our guest blogger for Motivation Monday, part 2. We love hearing stories from our facilitators – about the students they reach, conversations they have and doors that are opened through these groups. As you’ll see from Jacob’s experience, support groups can open doors for relationships both with the school administration and students.

Helping Students Find Hope in Hopelessness

Helping Students Find Hope in Hopelessness

A few weeks back, I was sitting with some students from a really tough part of our city and working through some of their resources. Part of our groups involve identifying and building up the student’s sense of courage, connectedness, self worth, and capability. What we noticed with this group is a general lack of self-reported capability. This seemed to be the trend throughout the group of young men.

This was a strange happening in my experience. Generally, a group of young men will tend to overstate their courage and capability from a place of machismo or even lack of self-esteem. It’s a coping mechanism everyone uses from time to time to protect us from being real with each other.

Motivation Monday: A Lesson in Empathy

Motivation Monday: A Lesson in Empathy

We are less than 9 weeks away from our 7th annual #TL5K! In order to celebrate our biggest fundraiser of the year and bring awareness to what actually happens through Teen Lifeline Support Groups, we are going to release a bonus blog once a week until our 5K on April 2nd! These blogs will be a small glimpse into the stories of teenagers we work with and some of the facilitators who make these groups possible.

We are passionate about these groups because we get to see the faces, hear the stories and speak truth every single week. If you are just now getting introduced to Teen Lifeline or are wanting to know more about how we are helping teenagers live life better, these stories over the next 9 weeks are going to be a great way to take a behind-the-scenes peek at our non-profit.

How to Stop Teens from Confiding in You

How to Stop Teens from Confiding in You

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to encourage teenagers to have meaningful relationships with adults. We talk about who they are close to and who they can go to for help. I love encouraging them to find adults that they can confide in and who will speak truth into their lives.

Unfortunately, when we talk about parents, teachers, and other adults, students often say something along the lines of, “I can never tell them anything because…(fill in the blank).”

Some of this can be attributed to those teenage years when many students want to separate themselves from adults as much as possible. However, there are also many adults who are acting (probably unintentionally) in a way that insures teenagers will never talk to them about anything serious/important.

Celebrating Change: Support Groups for Teens

Celebrating Change: Support Groups for Teens

Support groups for teens offer an oppotunity for celebration.It is no secret that the success of Teen Life comes from the incredible volunteers who give up their time and energy to make support groups for teens possible on school campuses. One of these facilitators,...