Skills Guide
Teaching: Belonging to a Positive Community
Belonging to a Positive Community
WhyTry Units:
Why This Skill Matters
Belonging is a powerful protective factor in resilience. Students who feel connected to a positive community are more likely to engage, persist through challenges, and take healthy risks in learning. When belonging is missing, students may withdraw, seek acceptance through negative peer influence, or act out to feel seen. Teaching students how to identify, build, and contribute to positive communities meets a fundamental human need and reinforces that resilience is strengthened through connection.
Student Challenges This Skill Helps Address
- Social isolation
- Negative peer influence
- Disengagement from school
- Acting out to gain attention
How WhyTry Builds This Skill
WhyTry builds belonging through the Support Systems & Relationship Building unit, where students identify trusted people and sources of support. This is reinforced in Peer Influence & Positive Relationships, as students examine how group dynamics affect choices and well-being. Facilitators help students distinguish between relationships that strengthen them and those that limit them, reinforcing resilience through healthy connection, contribution, and shared responsibility.
Support Systems & Relationship Building
(“Plugging In”)
In Support Systems & Relationship Building, facilitators help students identify where they feel connected, supported, and safe—and what makes those relationships healthy. Processing focuses on helping students recognize that belonging is a protective factor: it increases motivation, improves coping, and reduces isolation. Students practice building supportive connections and learn that resilience grows faster when they are connected to the right people.
Peer Influence & Positive Relationships
(“Climbing Out”)
Peer Influence & Positive Relationships teaches students to evaluate the communities they’re part of and how those groups shape choices, identity, and behavior. Facilitators process real-life group dynamics—pressure, loyalty, conflict, and boundaries—so students can distinguish between communities that build them up versus those that pull them down. This unit helps students strengthen belonging through wiser social decisions and healthier peer connections.
Positive Self-Image
(“Labels”)
Positive Self-Image supports belonging by strengthening identity from the inside out. When students feel more secure in who they are, they are less likely to chase acceptance in unhealthy groups or act out to gain approval. Processing helps students connect belonging to self-respect—teaching them they don’t have to abandon their values to be connected.