Programs & Initiatives

Four programs. One method: careful curation, clear limits, published results.

Each program can run on its own or alongside the others. Most partners start with the library and a single reading cohort, then add training and evaluation.

What we won't do

We don't diagnose, treat or counsel. We don't build reading profiles or predict anyone's state of mind. Facilitators are trained to refer, not to treat.

Clothbound books in teal, sage and terracotta around an open notebook and a tablet showing a reading list.

Find Your Story

A library you can search by what you're going through, built by people.

Find Your Story links physical books, essays and digital excerpts to the questions young people actually bring to a library desk. Curators read every work, tag it, and write a plain note on why it fits. Nothing is ranked by clicks.

Human-curated metadata. Theme, format, length and reading level, entered by librarians.

Content advisories. Clear notes on difficult material, so readers choose with full information.

Thematic tagging. Belonging, transitions, peer influence, renewal and more, agreed with youth advisors.

Explainable recommendations. Every suggestion shows why it appeared. No predictive tracking.

For

Readers 16–24, families

Access

Free, no account

Library

400+ annotated works

A group of young adults in a circle of chairs, one reading aloud from an open book.

Stories for Recovery

A six-module reading program for libraries, schools and youth groups.

Groups of eight to twelve meet once a week with a trained facilitator. Each session centers on one short work. Participants keep a reflection journal and nobody is asked to share more than they want to.

Length

6 weekly sessions

Session

75 minutes

Group size

8 to 12 readers

Arriving

Short poems about first days and new rooms.

The Company We Keep

Fiction about friendship and peer pressure.

Home and Away

Memoir excerpts on family and distance.

Being Alone

Essays on solitude versus loneliness.

Asking for Help

Characters who speak up, and what it costs.

Starting Again

Stories of renewal and second chances.

Participant reflection journal

A printed journal with one prompt per day between sessions. It stays with the reader. Facilitators never collect it.

Group discussion guides

Opening questions, quiet-reading time, and a closing round for each module, with notes on handling difficult moments.

Caregiver companion

An optional take-home sheet so parents can read the same work and talk about it without prying.

Five adults around a library table covered in books, notebooks and printed reports, in discussion.

Facilitator Training & Certification

Training for the adults who run the room.

Cohort-based courses for librarians, school counselors and youth advocates. You practice running a session, handling a disclosure, and knowing exactly where your role stops.

Delivery toolkits with session plans, slides and printables for all six modules

Ethical boundary navigation, including scripts for referral and consent

Participant safety guidelines written with clinicians and youth advisors

Certificate of completion after an observed practice session

Format

Online, live cohort

Duration

5 weeks, 3 hrs a week

Next cohort

January 2027

A researcher and three colleagues in a library review printed bar charts, highlighted papers and a data dashboard.

Research & Evaluation Partnerships

Studying what reading does, and saying so when it doesn't.

We work with universities and academic institutions on youth information behavior and literary well-being. Pilots run in partner libraries and schools under ethics review.

Program impact assessments for each pilot site, shared with the site first

Open data summaries with participant identities removed

White papers published open access, including null results

Planning for next year's budget?

The services overview covers costs, staffing needs, timelines and evaluation options for all four programs in twelve pages.

Download Our Institutional Services Overview (PDF) Talk to our team