LYNN — The NAN Project, Women’s Fund of Essex County, and La Vida Scholars have teamed up to provide the program “Healthy Relationships = Healthy Minds” to girls between the ages of 13 and 18.
The program, developed by the NAN Project, consists of three 60-minute sessions that will take place over the course of three weeks, with the first session held Tuesday. “Healthy Relationships = Healthy Minds” aims to improve the mental health of teenage girls and teach them how to build healthy relationships.
The Women’s Fund of Essex County is a foundation that raises funds and provides grants to organizations that serve women and girls in Essex County. Women’s Fund Co-President Trish Moore said the reason the organization provided a $42,000 grant and got involved with the NAN Project was to help adolescent girls affected by mental health crises in any way that the Women’s Fund could.
“We then recognized that after lots of research and talking to our grantees, that there was an opportunity for an organization like ours to fund various non-clinical programs that might build girls’ resilience, self-esteem, and well-being,” Moore said.
In December 2022, the organization applied to the Cummings Foundation with a proposal for the foundation to fund five nonprofits for three years, with each nonprofit working on resilience in adolescent girls.
“We would bring that cohort of five organizations together once or twice a year to learn from each other, to maybe hear from experts in the field and to just establish this cohort learning group,” Moore said.
The foundation narrowed the 25 applicants down to five organizations, including the NAN Project.
Moore said she is excited about the partnership, as it will allow the organization to expand its impact and help more adolescent girls in Essex County.
The NAN Project is a mental-health awareness and suicide-prevention organization that specializes in peer-mentor presentations and professional-development workshops.
Sarojini Schutt, the organizational development coordinator for the Nan Project, said its newest program is meant for small groups of 10 to 15 students at a time. The first session will focus on building boundaries, the second session will emphasize conflict mapping, and the third session will discuss identifying green and red flags.
“We don’t love to do lecture style, anything like that, so it’s just kind of like round-table vibes,” Schutt said. “We have some small groups that we’re going to break out into, and then there’s other pieces where we have big group discussions.”
She said the Nan Project is focusing on relationships specifically because of the connections and social skills adolescents lost during the pandemic.
“During the COVID lockdown period, so many people were isolated, and I think for a lot of young people, they missed a lot of that social-skill building time,” Schutt said. “At the end of the day, (we) think it’s a confidence booster when you know how to identify your own boundaries.”
Schutt said that this would enable teenage girls to identify red flags and avoid toxic relationship dynamics more quickly.
The first and second class of the program will be held at La Vida Scholars, with the first class comprising 15 senior girls.
La Vida Scholars is a nonprofit organization in Lynn and Chelsea that helps low-income, high-achieving students complete their college applications. La Vida Scholars College Access Advisor Sarah Elkondakly discussed how the organization heard of “Healthy Relationships = Healthy Minds,” and why it chose to participate and host the first two sessions of the program.
“Our goal with the NAN Project, and building these healthy relationships, is to really educate our students (to understand) their emotions, their feelings, and those of those around them, so that they can carry that when they go into college,” Elkondakly said.
When the program was brought up to the organization’s students, Elkondakly said that more than 60 students voiced their excitement, asking when they could participate.
“When I officially announced the days, within the first 20 minutes of class, I had 15 students signed up,” she said. “(It’s rare) to see programs like these that are not only educating you, but also providing an environment where they feel comfortable in speaking about these matters.”
Throughout the next three years, the NAN Project hopes to have around 200 girls participate in the program. Schutt said that if any groups are interested in taking part in it, they can fill out a contact form on the NAN Project’s website.
“We don’t have a space that we’re hosting them at, so at the moment we’re going into organizations,” Schutt said.
