Strong YOUth! Strong Wyoming

Strong YOUth! Strong Wyoming Project

The Strong YOUth! Strong Wyoming Project provides youth in middle/jr. high and high schools with the skills and knowledge they need to navigate the challenges of adolescence and help them build a foundation for healthy and successful lives.  The project empowers youth to make informed healthy choices to achieve optimal health and well-being, emphasizing healthy relationships, goal setting, self-regulation, effective communication and conflict resolution, strategies for overcoming peer pressure, healthy decision-making, and prevention of risk behaviors by learning about the dangers of drug and alcohol use and STIs. Additionally, youth have opportunities to build leadership skills and abilities and enhance connectivity to peers, family and community resources by engaging in community service projects, community events, or school assemblies to raise awareness on issues affecting teens.


The Strong YOUth! Strong Wyoming Project uses three evidence-based curricula selected to meet the needs of participating youth in partnership with teachers/facilitators in middle/junior high and high schools and is currently in full swing in Laramie, Sheridan, Campbell, Platte, Sweetwater, Fremont and Weston Counties.

1) Students in middle/junior high school are offered Love Notes 4.0. Middle School Adaptation by The Dibble Institute.  Love Notes builds skills and knowledge for healthy and successful relationships with partners, family, friends, and co-workers. Within the context of a positive youth development approach, Love Notes empowers students to develop relationship and life skills that will prepare them to transition into adulthood and achieve academic, employment, and personal goals. It is packed with lively activities that use real-life relationship, work, and parenting scenarios, written by teens and young adults.  All lessons are age-appropriate, evidence based and medically accurate. Each lesson includes a Trusted Adult Connection activity designed to build bonds by communicating with a caring adult or mentor on these important issues. Key topics include:


  • Self-awareness
  • Goal setting
  • Healthy decision-making
  • Emotion regulation
  • Resisting peer pressure
  • Building and maintaining healthy partner, family & friend relationships
  • Personal boundary setting
  • Effective communication and conflict management
  • Recognizing unhealthy relationships to prevent intimate partner violence
  • Pacing relationships and consent
  • Success Sequencing
  • Navigate technology in relationships


2) REAL Essentials Advance from The Center for Relationship Education is offered to youth grades 9th-12th.  It is specifically designed to equip young people with skills for combating challenges they face in adolescence. Lesson content captivates the heart and directs students toward positive decision making.  All lessons are evidence based and medically accurate. It is evidence-based, medically accurate and age-appropriate. Included are Parent/guardian and trusted adult connection activities that offer conversation starters on developing and maintaining healthy relationships, as well as choosing partners and friends.


Key topics from REAL Essentials Advance curriculum include:


  • Self-discovery & self-awareness
  • Understanding difference in others 
  • Effective communication and conflict resolution
  • Healthy decision-making skills
  • Navigating and setting boundaries
  • Strategies for overcoming peer pressure 
  • Relationship red flags
  • Making plans for the future
  • Pacing intimate relationships
  • Financial Literacy


Get a look inside! Go to 

REAL Essentials Sample Lesson | The Center for Relationship Education (myrelationshipcenter.org) to download a free sample lesson!