Be REAL Logo Be REAL Youth and Young Adult Program

Promoting the Well-Being of High-School Age Youth, College Students, and Staff

What’s Be REAL?

Be REAL (REsilient Attitudes and Living) is a 9-hour program that promotes the well-being of teens and college students. It equips students with cognitive behavior skills to manage emotions and cope with challenging situations, mindfulness skills to strengthen self-awareness, and practices that promote compassion for themselves and others. Each weekly Be REAL session is 90 minutes and includes group discussions, partner activities, and guided contemplative practices.

Who is the Be REAL program for?

The Be REAL program is offered to teens and college students, with a complementary version for staff and instructors (REAL Pro). We provide an online Be REAL Facilitation Training for youth-serving staff working in nonprofits, recreation, and out-of-school settings and for higher education staff and instructors.

The goal is to equip staff in these settings with prevention programs and resources that they can implement with the teens and college students they serve. In this approach, the staff are trained to offer Be REAL or to incorporate practices from our programs into their work. 

Learn about Be REAL in this 3-minute video:

What We're Studying

The transition to college presents significant challenges as late adolescents are often living away from home for the first time, navigating a new campus, course schedules and demands, and academic pressures. High rates of anxiety and depression are reported on college campuses. Our goal is to learn the best ways to adapt the program to support students’ well-being.

Be REAL is assessing key well-being measures for students, including executive function, coping skills, emotion regulation, perceived stress, resilience, flourishing, mindfulness, social connectedness, and self-compassion. The current campus evaluation is also assessing the programs impact on depression and anxiety symptoms.

What We’re Learning

In 2017 and 2018, we conducted an evaluation of Be REAL in the UW residential halls. More than 200 students enrolled in the study. Results from this study showed that, compared to students who had not yet received the program (e.g., the waitlist control), students who participated in Be REAL improved significantly on a number of well-being measures, including:

  • Enhanced attention focusing and  inhibitory control (executive function)
  • More effective coping, using more active coping, acceptance and reframing
  • Increased self-compassion, mindfulness, resilience, and flourishing
  • Greater social connectedness
  • Lower perceptions of the stress

These positive changes were maintained three months after the program ended. Also, students were highly satisfied with the program: 98% of the students said the program was helpful to their well-being. 

Offering well-being and prevention programs to students may help reduce the stress and mental health challenges that can arise during college. Programs combining mindfulness and self-compassion with cognitive-behavior skills may increase their resilience by strengthening key protective factors, such as executive function, effective coping, perception of stress and self-kindness.

Publications

Long, R,. Kennedy, M., Malloy Spink, K., Lengua, L. J. (2023). Promoting College Student and Staff Well-being Through a Mindfulness-based Coping Program. OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine; 8(3): 034.
 
Long, R., Halvorson, M., & Lengua, L. J. (2021). A mindfulness-based promotive coping program improves well-being in college undergraduates. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 1-14.
 
Long, R., Kennedy, M., Spink, K. M., & Lengua, L. J. (2021). Evaluation of the Implementation of a Well-being Promotion Program for College Students. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12.
 

What’s Next

We are currently evaluating the implementation of Be REAL in a variety of campus settings. This includes being integrated into mandatory undergraduate seminars led by academic advisors, a course for credit, a course for students of color led by academic advisors, and through campus mental health clinics. 

Get Involved: Bring Be REAL to Your Community

Staff working with High-School Youth

Since Fall 2023, CCFW has been working with staff from youth-serving organizations to adapt, implement, and evaluate the Be REAL program to be engaging and meaningful for teens. Our goals are to make this evidence-based prevention program readily accessible in a range of youth settings by building capacity with individuals who represent and are trusted by the communities they serve, and to share innovative prevention approaches to mental health needs for teens. 

We are particularly interested in offering the program to teens from historically underserved, diverse, and low-income communities.  

As we continue to offer Be REAL for teens we are excited for future partnerships and to continue supporting the well-being and resilience of teens. To learn more or sign up for the next Youth Professionals Cohort, please contact Kizz Prusia at Prusik@uw.edu.

Higher Education Staff or Instructors (Non-UW)

We offer an online Be REAL Facilitation Training for higher education staff and instructors across the USA working in a range of student engagement roles including advisors, counselors, instructors, program managers and more.  For more details about our multi-campus training, please visit our Multi-Campus Training Website.  

University of Washington (UW) Staff or Instructors

Be REAL is offered in partnership with the UW Resilience Lab to UW staff or instructors working on any of the three UW campuses.  Staff and instructors can take part in a Be REAL Staff group to build their own resilience in reducing stress, managing emotions, navigating challenging situations and strengthening compassion.  Those who participate in the program and want to deliver it to students can continue on to complete the Be REAL Facilitator Training.  To learn more or sign-up for the next UW Be REAL Staff Cohort, please fill out this form or contact Sasha Duttchoudhury at sasha9@uw.edu.

Try Out Our Free Guided Mindfulness Resources

The Center for Child & Family Well-Being (CCFW) has created guided audio practices that anyone can use for mindfulness and self-compassion. You will also find our downloadable resources with tips and inspiration for weaving contemplative practices into your day.

CCFW also offers free online drop-in Mindfulness sessions.  Check out our events calendar for more information.

What Participants Are Saying

“Connecting with other students made me feel much less self-conscious about my own efforts and I feel the practices were genuinely helpful and empowering in my own life.”

“I started to fall really low winter quarter and I began to feel like UW wasn’t where I belonged. I started meditating for 10 min as a study break and used the anchor phrase ‘I belong here’.”

“After using these methods, I treat myself better and tried not to put too much pressure on myself. When I’m tired or felt pain, I will leave myself enough time to relax and recover.”

Questions?

Contact Sara McDermott, Be REAL Program Manager at saramcd@uw.edu.

Contact Kizz Prusia, Be REAL Adolescent Program Manager at Prusik@uw.edu.

This work was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Maritz Family Foundation and from Brad and Judy Chase.