You want to make a difference in the life of Rangatahi
You are a
- Youth worker
- Teachers Aide
- Youth Librarian
- Teacher who understands the importance of creative thinking skills in the future success of a student in an AI world. And you have the freedom to create a co-designed project-based local curriculum that amplifies youth voices and stimulates creative well-being.
This course is for you if
- You see our youth struggling with mental health and are frustrated that you don't have all the skills you need to really help them bring their gifts forward.
- You would like to have a group of colleagues from around the country that you can study alongside and practice new skills to support well-being and creative thinking.
- You believe in the importance and value of youth, and you believe that they are gifts to the planet (even the challenging ones.)
- You would like to deepen your own creative practice.
- You are willing to look at yourself and deepen your own self-compassion.
- You believe in the power of the outdoors, creativity, and conscious movement of the body to help restore mental well-being.
What is the Creative Grit Pilot?
Ideas are just vapour. Not yet materialized possibilities. Our bodies are tools that convert whisps of ideas into fully formed material creations. However, historical traumas can disrupt the flow of ideas through us. Trauma can block the flow or warp the original idea into something that no longer benefits the greater good.
The Creative Grit program is a creative trauma-informed pilot to teach you how to diagnose where someone is blocked, and it gives you tools to share to help get unblocked creatively. It is based on a framework that has won a Health and Wellbeing Community Service award as well as an Arts and Culture award.
At Every Body is a Treasure Trust, we believe we are born to be creatives, all of us. And if something is blocking it, the world loses out because we all have a gift to share. This is a program that uses creativity as a tool to support holistic well-being. It is the opposite of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff program. It is instead a program that teaches you a new way to be a sherpa taking your rangatahi up the mountains of their dreams. And might even help clear the way for your own dreams.
(We are applying for funding for it to be free for our 2024 pilot program cohort - So managers, read this as we are not trying to sell you anything, we are offering to train your person for free)
Why? Because we deeply believe in the power of the Creative Grit Framework, and we want to see it's use spread around the country to support more rangatahi. We also know that by ourselves, we make a tiny impact. But collectively, we can make a huge one.
"Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou ka ora ai te iwi." – "With your basket and my basket, the people will thrive."
We know that we have a piece of the puzzle, but together we will have much more collective wisdom. The program, although structured around the framework, is one that allows space for co-design and input from the participants. We will share our tools and invite those who wish to share what has worked well for them as well.
Removing Barriers to Voice
We also want to support marginalized voices to have equity in being able to create content for Create Happy Media (the platform our youth started). Digital inequity is real. There is nuance to supporting the development of young Indigenous and Ethnic content creators that our primarily online platform cannot provide. We figure if we train the trainers and share some of what has worked for us, you can take what will work well in your community and learn from others in the pilot as well. Together will be able to support the development of more diverse voices, which will deepen and enrich the content available nationally through Create Happy Media and ultimately in the Mainstream Media.
It is a 2-stage program.
Stage 1 - Creative Grit Facilitator Training -
We have developed a framework that has unleashed the youth we work with to the point that they have co-designed and then taken over an award-winning media company and platform that amplifies youth voices. We will share the framework with you and the tools that we have hung on it to help. These tools include:
- Non-Violent communication skills
- Positive Psychology tools
- Needs Based Coaching Skills
- Co-design skills
- Visual Storytelling skills - Click Happy - so that you have the option to use photography as a creative medium that most students can access from their phones.
- Compassionate Journalism skills - Writing for Peace
- Mana Tohoi - NZ Youthworker framework and ethics
- Diagnostic tools to assess where blocks lie and how to break them down.
Stage one is held through zooms 2 hours a week for eight moons of training. When you graduate, you will be a Certified Creative Grit Facilitator.
Stage 2 - EcoTherapist Training
Stage two is done in the bush over ten days, where you will train to become an Ecotherapist to use nature to support youth wellbeing. This deepens your Non-Violent Communication skills training and introduces you to Parts training inspired by Internal Family Systems, Somatic Therapy, and rights of passage work training.
We believe that rights of passage experiences have been stripped from society, and this has an impact on the maturation of our youth. We also believe that holistic well-being is our inner nature and that Papatuanuku is the greatest teacher of this. Ecotherapy teaches you tools gathered from many modalities. This will support your own well-being so that you can support a youth’s well-being.
If we get the funding we are going for, it will be free to the pilot cohort of 15 participants.
“We don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
The Problem
The Problem we see
To put it simply we have handed our youth the world in a state of trauma. Their collective nervous systems are under fire from all directions. Environmental Crisis, Wars, Cyber bullying, Impacts of Colonization, NCEA pressures, parents under extreme pressure... Everything is rapidly changing faster than most can keep up, and pressure is mounting. So what skills do they need to be able to handle the future we have handed them? And what skills do we need to develop to help?
In the coming AI future, two skills have been predicted to be the most important; Your creative capacity and your ability to work well on a creative team. Unfortunately, a recent study has shown that our schools are likely to decrease our creative capacity as we progress from primary to graduation.
Couple that with the mental health crisis that our youth are experiencing, and you have a need for extra support for our rangatahi to stay creatively vibrant, mentally well, and, well...employable.
Trauma is often defined as being in a dangerous situation that you have no power to control. Our youth are in a position where their daily doomscrolling feeds them stories where they often feel their voice doesn't matter. They are watching older generations make decisions that will negatively impact them and their potential children, and they are often feeling powerless to stop it. Couple this with the continued effects of colonization and abuse, and you can understand why we have a youth mental health crisis.
Our Story
Our Story
In 2017 a small incident happened in a kitchen that would change a small part of the world.
"Auntie Mandi?"
"Yes Harper?"
"Am I fat?"
This was the conversation. Harper was five at the time. It was at this moment that Mandi realized how much trouble we were in collectively. Why in goodness' name was a 5-year-old worrying about a thigh gap? As a nurse and artist, she decided to do something to change it. You can learn all about the journey in this TEDx talk.
Spoiler Alert - Every Body is a Treasure Trust was founded
Mandi rallied locals who were also interested in women and youth wellbeing as she was and founded Every Body is a Treasure Trust.
The Trust focused on youth work primarily and has been taken over by the youth that were helped. The rangatahi have codesigned the programs that support them and now run a media platform Create Happy Media. The trust holds space for them to amplify their voice, and we run a program to help them learn about Non-Violent Communication Skills, boost their creative content creation skills, and teach them holistic well-being skills as well. That framework is called the Creative Grit Framework, and the proof that it works is all the national and international awards that the students are scooping up for their achievements in the program and with their art outside of it.
Framework Lineage
Framework Lineage
The Creative Grit framework tracks the path of an idea through our body's energy systems to its final manifestation in the real world. It is holistic, somatic (of the body), as well as creative. It is rooted in the energy centre concepts of Ayurvedic and Eastern Philosophies; and Western research-based wellbeing modalities. The framework folds within it MANA TAIOHI, New Zealand's youth worker framework.
Mandi Lynn is the creator of the Creative Grit Framework. She has studied wellbeing frameworks since she was seven years old when she found her first copy of the Tao Te Ching in a used bookstore. She has been on a quest to understand it ever since. She spent 20 years working as a holistic women’s health nurse, then 16 years as a practising artist, and the last seven years as a youth worker applying her diverse knowledge into a framework. This is the course where she shares the tools she has found and asks you to add your tools to the framework so we can all benefit.
The Eco Therapy components fold within them Somatic Ecotherapy, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, Creative Arts Therapy, and Mindfulness.
The Magazines our Create Happy rangatahi have made so far:
Our Creative Co-Designed Solution
How is the course run?
Phase 1
Highly Interactive, Project-based training with concepts experienced instead of heard in a classroom lecture.
- 8 Moons of Learning
- weekly two-hour-long interactive masterclasses spread out over eight moons.
- creative coaching skills (to use the creative process as a map to point out hidden traumas that impact wellbeing.)
- somatic coaching tools ( to use the body as a tool to enhance well-being)
- Buddy, work with another participant to increase your practical coaching skills.
- Monthly Youth work challenges to actively apply your learning.
- Creative Youth Work Project development support - To have support with innovative co-designed projects.
- 4 Supervision sessions over the eight months - so that you have extra support and a sounding board.
Phase 2
- 10-day Ecotherapy training in the bush to learn how to use nature as a tool to support mental wellbeing.
When Creativity is Flowing
Imagine each person contains within them a rushing river valley with hills on either side containing it. This river starts as tiny springs above your head that are fed by IO (the creative force that animates life). As the stream progresses into the head and down through the body, it ultimately connects with Papatuanuku at the meeting of river and sea. The river contains the Mauri of the person, their spirit, and their gifts.
Ideas can drop in at the top in the springs that feed the river, like tiny baby fish. The idea fishlings are fed and supported by the mauri of the person. With each bend in the river, each twist and turn, the idea grows and grows and develops. By the time the idea fish have reached the sea, having been bathed and fed by the mauri river they slip into the salty water fully formed as gifts to the world. This could be a kind action; a goal scored; a painting; a graduation certificate held in their joyful hand.
When Creative Capacity is Blocked
However, for many of our youth, there have been slips where boulders and trees have fallen across the flow in the form of traumas. This can cause some areas to flood and some areas to be parched, and the idea fishies will struggle to make it from inspiration from IO down river to Tangaroa. To make the shift from idea to reality.
Youth work, at its core, is a hero's / heroine's journey of helping youth see that they are creative gifts to the planet and to help them excavate anything that is keeping those gifts from freely forming. So the root of what we do really is teach trauma repair skills (removing the boulders that have accidentally disrupted the flow of Mauri). Of sharing tools to soothe nervous systems and supporting the rangatahi to remove blocks from their own path.
The Creative Grit framework provides a scaffolding where we can collectively hang tools to support rangatahi (and ourselves).
Taught over 8 Moons
The new moon welcomes new ideas and exploration in the dark.
The waxing moon encourages the development of ideas.
The full moon enables you to see clearly what you have created.
The waning moon encourages editing and refinement.
Light and dark. Yin and Yang. Growth and release.
Plants know this. Indigenous wisdom and permaculture principles know this. As our program is an Ecotherapy, Somatic, and Creative program it seems very fitting to use the moon as our timekeeper as we move through the training.
The First Moon - The idea - Ether / Spirit / IO level
This is where we explore the hopes and dreams of our youth. Where we challenge them and ourselves to dream about what is possible above what is. This stage is where you find the balance between the chaotic chasing of ideas to being rigid about there only being one route to explore. The goal of this stage is the selecting of a "full body yes" goal to move forward bringing to life.
Embedded Mana Taiohi Constructs:
- Mauri - Life force or essence
- Whai wāhitanga - Agency of rangatahi to choose how they participate.
- Mātauranga - knowledge, wisdom, understanding and skill in how to generate diverse and useful ideas
- Taonga tuku iho - honouring someone’s culture or values by following or making space for their practices, kōrero, or
tīkanga and kawa. - Ethics
The Second Moon - Problem Solving - Head level - Worldview
At this stage, we have decided on an idea, and now we are looking at it from multiple angles to figure out what is the best way forward. This is the stage where we battle the critical voice that could gobble it up before it has a chance to grow. And where we have to battle the white rabbit that keeps singing to us to follow it down deep, confusing rabbit holes. This is where our goal is to break the challenge down into doable steps.
Embedded Mana Taiohi Constructs:
- Te Ao Taiohi - How our youth are impacted by big picture influences such as social and economic contexts and dominant cultural values.
- Whakapapa Taiohi - Acknowledges our shared histories and the impact of colonisation in Aotearoa. Also embraces our mental tūrangawaewae, or place to stand.
- Whai wāhitanga - Agency of rangatahi to choose how they participate.
- Mātauranga - knowledge, wisdom, understanding and skill in executive function goal setting and problem-solving
- Ethics
The Third Moon - Communication - Throat level
We take the idea out of our heads and share it with others. At this level, we battle the frog in our throats that can steal our words. Or the verbal diarrhoea that can flow when we are overly excited and not reading the room well. This is about learning to share our dreams in a way that is magnetic and brings people in.
We will learn Compassionate Journalism skills in this module. How to tell a story that has the needs of both sides considered.
Embedded Mana Taiohi Constructs:
- Hononga Taiohi - it is about connection to people, land/whenua, resources, spirituality, the digital world and the environment.
- Mātauranga - knowledge, wisdom, understanding and skill in effective communication
- Ethics
The Fourth Moon - Community - Heart level
We unpack what support we have to make the creative journey. This is where we pick our team. Who do we need to reach out to? Our challenge here is to be brave enough to ask for help and not get so tangled up in helping others that we don't leave ourselves energy for our own dreams.
Embedded Mana Taiohi Constructs:
- Hononga Taiohi - connection to people, land/whenua, resources, spirituality, the digital world and the environment
- Whanaungatanga - sense of family connection - a relationship through shared experiences and working together which provides people with a sense of belonging
- Manaakitanga - the process of showing respect, generosity and care for others
- Whakapapa Taiohi - Shared histories and the impact of colonization
- Mātauranga - knowledge, wisdom, understanding and skill in navigating relationships
- Mana tāngata - the strength of a collective, united group
- Ethics
The Fifth Moon - Grit level - Guts level
The greatest challenge in any creative process is to hold space for the hard parts. This is where we run the risk of falling into patterns of bullying or victimhood. How do we hold power with instead of power over or power under? This is where we build our grit and our mana. This is where people learn we are people of our word. We stand in integrity, and we can hold the churn.
Embedded Mana Taiohi Constructs:
- Mana - the authority we inherit at birth and accrue over our lifetime.
- Manaakitanga - creating a safe and empowering space and supporting rangatahi to feel accepted, included and valued.
- Mātauranga - knowledge, wisdom, understanding and skill in navigating power structures, building resilience, and ethics.
- Tino rangatiratanga – the right to determine one’s own life and life choices, alongside the support of one’s family and whānau.
The Sixth Moon - Emotional Level - Top of the Pelvic Level
Our emotions are the intuitive translators of our needs. When we become fluent in our emotions, we have a guidebook to our needs, and when we get our needs met, we are better able to bring our dreams into reality. When this gets out of kilter, we numb, run, or fight our emotions - or others. The goal here is to become fluent in the language of our emotions.
Embedded Mana Taiohi Constructs:
- Mana
- Manaakitanga
- Mātauranga - knowledge, wisdom, understanding and skill in supporting youth to develop emotional fluency.
- Ethics
The Seventh Mood - Grounding Level - Tailbone to legs -
This is where we manifest the idea into reality. When we gift it out to the rest of humanity as our contribution to the planet. Here we have to battle the tendency to hoard our creations or to not get them across the line in the first place. This is about finishing what we start and then moving to the next creation with our energy clear and new skills in our kete.
Embedded Mana Taiohi Constructs:
- Whakapapa Taiohi
- Mātauranga - knowledge, wisdom, understanding and skill to get projects across the finish line.
The Eighth Moon - Integration Moon - Creative Youth Work Project Completion
For the seven moons of the training, we will have been learning how to co-design a youth project with rangatahi in our communities. We would have found a need, and now we have a plan ready to go to test and report back on. This will cause us to flex all of our newly formed Creative Grit Muscles and support each other in our pilots.
Create Grit Framework
When things are going well we get an idea and it flows through us.
When there are trauma blocks there are 14 signs that will point you to a solution.
This course is to teach you how to identify trauma blocks and will give you a variety of tools to offer youth to bring back balance so that their gifts can be shared with the world.
When we are creatively unblocked
When trauma distrupts our creative flow we have many different ways that it can manifest. These act as sign posts to help us figure out what we can do to get back into alignment.
We will explore the 21 phases of the framework and how it holds space for spirit, holistic well-being, and research-based science as well.
Who are your Creative Grit Instructors?
Mandi Lynn
(AmeriKiwi of Celtic/ Viking Descent)
From the moment Harper asked the question that kicked off the forming of Every Body is a Treasure trust Mandi knew she had a steep learning curve in front of her. She has spent the last 7 years finding her Pou people. The people who were the wisdom keepers that could help her to help others better.
She already came with a solid stash of her own skills -
She is a Master photographer, filmmaker, TEDx speaker, youth worker and holistic nurse who used to be an officer in the US Navy. She had spent 30 years studying holistic wellbeing and women's health and winning awards for her work in those areas.
But she discovered that the keys are hidden in community and connection and overcoming historical traumas. Her work with women and youth for the last several years helped to uncover the Creative Grit framework that the course is developed around.
In the last 7 years she as done a deep dive into Positive Psychology, Non Violent Communication, Somatic Trauma Informed care, and Needs-based Coaching.
She is a co-creator of the Click Happy program which was the program that birthed Create Happy Magazine. She is also the mentor for Create Happy.
Faithe Hanrahan
(Tuhoe, Tuwharetoa, Hineuru, Whakatohea and Ngati Manawa)
Currently based at Manaakitia-o-Opotiki (Opotiki Primary School with a roll of over 300 students with 97% Maori) Faithe is the Arts Specialist Teacher with responsibility for working with neuro-diverse students. With a background in special education (M.Ed.Psychology), She has experienced first-hand how the Creative Grit programme can make a positive change in the life of the neuro-diverse and uplift the mana of students who deem themselves ‘nobodies’ and rangatahi who often feel as though they do not have a voice. She uses the framework by teaching Click Happy, a photography-based means of using the tools.
Her students used these skills to support each other after the gang violence erupted in 2023 which resulted in the temporary school closure. They also used the skills to create imagery that they sold and used the funds to support families with Christmas hampers that were subsisting below the poverty line. They have supported the local RDA and their local Maraes all through their creative gifts developed using the Click Happy methodologies.
Her new mantra is “It only takes one click to make a difference”.
Rangatahi Co-Designers and Compassionate Journalism Mentors
Eco Therapy Trainers
Toni McErlane, B.Sc.
Counsellor, Ecotherapist, Mediator, Nonviolent Communication facilitator & Nature Connection Guide
Toni is the director and primary counsellor for Restorative Relationships. She has developed a wide array of approaches to working in the field of restorative relationships. She obtained a Bachelors Degree in Counselling, The American certificate in horticulture therapy and has completed a 94hr Professional Ecotherapy Program with Dave Talamo from Wilderness Reflections in California.
She completed the North American yearlong Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Leadership Programme, and has trained extensively in conflict resolution, restorative circles, wilderness therapy, Hakomi for couples, mindfulness & somatic approaches to working with trauma. Toni is an AMINZ associate Family Dispute Resolution Provider (FDR) and in 2017 completed the year long Te reo Maori level Two through Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
Brendon Whitmore
Brendon is a heart-centered man, grounded in the loving wisdom of Nature, who provides a deep holding and therapeutic space for people to find their soul’s longing and purpose in this world. He has gratitude for all the shoulders he stands on and the lessons he has been taught from teachers of both human and more-than-human beings.
Brendon’s passion for his work can be traced back to his own journey after spending significant time in the armed forces, which catalysed his inquiry into pathways of healing, recovery, and soul initiation.
Inspired by his own soul awakening, he is called to support experiences of Earth-based practices and ceremonies to facilitate transformation and healing for individuals, communities, and Mother Earth.
Brendon believes in the transformative power of our sensuous body to foster right relationship to ourselves, others and the more-than-human world. He is an experienced Eco-therapist, Craniosacral therapist, Deep Nature Connection Mentor and Wilderness Rite of Passage Facilitator.
What will it cost me to be part of this training?
This workshop series is a pilot. Our goal is to get funding from several regional organizations to support the pilot to be a co-design project for 15 Indigenous Youth workers, youth librarians, or teacher aids who work with predominantly Indigenous youth. This means if you are one of the 15 selected, it will not cost you money, but it will cost you time and investment in yourself and rangatahi in your community.
The original idea for this program sprang up as a need for regional face-to-face support to help develop young indigenous content creators for Create Happy Media. Our online program works for many but we found it could be a barrier for indigenous youth so we dreamed of a collection of face-to-face indigenous youth workers that understand the kaupapa of compassionate journalism and amplifying youth voice. Youth workers who would be willing to work with our platform to support more indigenous content creators.
To be considered for the Creative Grit Fellowship you will need to agree to do your best to work towards achieving these Impact outcomes:
Impact Vision- Your 4 Projects needed to graduate.
- Project 1 - Amplify youth voice
- Work alongside at least one rangatahi content creator in your region to get to the point of being able to pitch, and write or create visual content for Create Happy Media. Ideally, supporting a person who comes from a group that is not as well represented in the mainstream media.
- Project 2 - Compassionate Journalism Practice - Decreasing mental health discrimination-
- Using Non-Violent Communication techniques, collaborate with locals who have experienced discrimination due to mental health. Assist them in creating content for Create Happy Media that will help to deepen understanding of challenges faced and needs of the group. This will go into the Every Body/Mind is a Treasure Series that will be starting in the Innovation Edition published during Matariki 2024. Bonus points if you get a rangatahi to be involved in the content creation.
- Project 3 - Co-design Practice
- Research and co-design and implement with local Rangatahi a creative project that supports a need that the youth have identified as impacting their local community.
- Project 4 - Eco Therapy Practice -
- Take local Rangatahi on an Ecotherapy experience (this can be a daytrip to the beach or bush where you practice your Ecotherapy skills).
- Collaborate with other participants over the 8 moons of training to build working relationships that weave together youth organizations across Aotearoa.
For Funders
The cost of the pilot is $118,645 for the year. This also includes a formal external evaluation of the program.
This will cover 15 Indigenous youth workers to be trained to deliver the Creative Grit Framework in their regions. They will be trained to become Ecotherapists over a 10-day in-person in-the-bush training. This means that when they complete the training, they will be able to use Creative Practice, and Somatic Therapy and be certified as Ecotherapists. They will also contribute to co-designing the next iteration of the program as well as co-designing with local youth the local version of Creative Grit (Or whatever they choose to name it).
These skills will not perish but will deepen over time, having an untold positive impact for the communities where the Youth Workers / Teachers Aides practice. (This is why we are engaging with Impact Lab to research the ultimate impact of the program.)
"it’s possible for tiny teams to have significant impacts on the entrenched power structures. As a result, the incentives shift. Now, a tiny team has little benefit in being just a cheap cog in a big system, and a huge upside for challenging conventional wisdom with new insights." Seth Godin.
Our tiny team has a fresh vision of how project-based youth work can be used to change lives across NZ.
If you are interested in discussing how you can become part of the Creative Grit Pilot, please reach out to mandi@createhappy.org.