Awesome Us Program

Initiative Description: The Awesome Us strengths program incorporated student discussion of current events from a strengths perspective (the strengths they noticed in themselves) and identifying strengths from video clips, taught students that each person can bring a different perspective to strength use and that using strengths is a part of daily life. The program resulted in higher scores on class cohesion, relatedness, need satisfaction and lower on class friction, as well as higher levels of positive affect, classroom engagement, autonomy need satisfaction and strengths use.

Study Results: Improved student/classroom engagement.

Reference: Quinlan, D. M., Swain, N., Cameron, C., & Vella-Brodrick, D. A. (2015). How ‘other people matter’ in a classroom-based strengths intervention: Exploring interpersonal strategies and classroom outcomes. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(1), 77-89. doi:10.1080/17439760.2014.920407

Level of Evidence: Very Good