Ask an Expert: Dr. Brandon Currie on innovative approaches to cultivating youth resilience

The Economic Mobility Catalog’s Strategy Guide on School-based supports for child health and well-being shares best practices for helping students be physically and emotionally ready to learn, including through programming to support students’ mental and behavioral health. Research shows that students with strong self-management and social awareness skills experience better long-term academic and workforce outcomes.

One standout in this space is STRYV365, a non-profit, human development organization that equips youth with the resilience, self-awareness, and social-emotional skills they need to navigate adversity and thrive in school, relationships, and life.  Through scalable, trauma-informed programming that integrates activity, sports, video games, the arts, and mentorship, STRYV365 creates positive experiences that lead to lasting change. 

Brandon Currie, Ph.D is the founder and CEO of STRYV365, where he leads the vision for and strategic direction of the organization – designing customized, non-clinical trauma-informed programming and cultivating partnerships that allow STRYV365 to expand its reach and deepen its impact in the communities it serves. 

In this edited Q&A, Dr. Currie shares his insights on how sports and video games can help youth build critical resilience skills, how to develop effective mentors and coaches, and how STRYV365 has proven its approach through rigorous research.

What led you to create STRYV365?

I created STRYV365 because I witnessed firsthand the toll that toxic stress and unaddressed trauma take on young people — and I saw very few systems built to actually help them carry that weight. At the same time, I knew what athletics had done for me personally; I knew what it meant to have a space to compete, grow, and be challenged in a healthy way. I wanted to build that same opportunity for kids who needed it most, and I wanted to use the natural connection points of sports, education, and engaging activities to open a door that traditional interventions often can’t.

STRYV365 was founded in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, because my team and I recognized that young people needed a safe and positive outlet more urgently than ever. We believe that it takes a collective effort to support young people, so our approach includes partnerships with K-12 schools, researchers, youth-serving agencies, and our coach mentors who we rely on to deliver our programming. We’re all a part of creating these transformative experiences for young people. 

How does STRYV365’s approach help students improve emotional regulation and build social connections?

Our peak team programming and Brain Agents video game work together to target emotional regulation, relationship building, responsible decision-making, and social awareness. The physical activities and mentorship sessions in peak team build self-awareness and social skills in real time, through real human connection, while Brain Agents reinforces emotional regulation and problem-solving in a format that kids actually want to engage with. Our approach prioritizes creating experiences where kids can both learn and practice managing their feelings in the moment, with a coach right beside them who has walked a similar path.

What are the benefits of combining physical education with behavioral health strategies?

Physical activity is one of the most natural ways to build a relationship with a young person and gain their trust. In several of our school partnerships, our programming is delivered directly as part of the physical education curriculum, which engages kids to build behavioral health skills without ever feeling like they’re in a clinical or stigmatized setting.

Our coach mentors apply trauma-informed and educational principles in real time during these activities, so a basketball drill becomes an opportunity to teach self-regulation, and a team challenge becomes a lesson in collaboration and trust. The behavioral health strategy isn’t separate from the physical activity — it’s woven directly into it.

Why did STRYV365 create a video game, and how does it complement the physical activity and mentorship side of your programming? 

Brain Agents was designed because we recognized that kids today are engaging with the world through screens, and we wanted to meet them there intentionally rather than ignore it. It’s a sci-fi game where the player needs to rescue their spaceship’s crew and players complete missions using well-being exercises such as cognitive reframing, focused breathing, and coping statements.

The game fosters emotional regulation and problem-solving skills in a way that enhances self-management and responsible decision-making, giving kids a low-stakes space to practice coping strategies before they need them in real life. Brain Agents reinforces the same skills our coaches teach in-person in a format that feels engaging rather than clinical.

How do you cultivate and train mentors for youth?

We are very intentional about connecting kids with mentors and coaches who can be a trusted, positive influence. Our coaches are trained in SAMHSA’s six principles of a trauma-informed approach — safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment and choice, and cultural and historical awareness.

Importantly, many of our coach mentors have overcome adversity themselves and developed their own resilience, which equips them to lead authentically rather than just academically. Instead of following a rigid script, our coaches are trained to apply these principles naturally in how they interact with students, sing evidence-based frameworks like CRAFT (Catch Yourself, Relax, Assess, Focus, Think, Decide, and Act) and COPE (Communication, Offering, Positivity, and Empowerment) to guide students toward self-motivated, lasting behavioral change. 

We’ve also developed a community-based train-the-trainer model, supported by the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin endowment, which allows us to train individuals working with youth outside of a traditional classroom setting — extending our reach far beyond what our direct staff alone could accomplish.

Who are some of your key partners and how have you built relationships with them?

Our Legacy Partners — St. Francis School District, Brown Deer School District, Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy, and Milwaukee Academy of Science — hold a uniquely important place in our story. These schools stood with us from the very beginning and were instrumental in our research study, helping us generate evidence that our programming truly works. We continue to work with all of our Legacy Partners as much as possible, and we make it a priority to show our appreciation for these schools that believed in us before we had the data to prove what we believed all along.

Beyond our Legacy Partners, we have cultivated incredible partnerships along the way. The Boys & Girls Club is one of our favorites, made possible through the generous support of the Medical College of Wisconsin and their Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin grant initiative. We are also proud to be partnering with many Milwaukee Public Schools, providing programming during the school day, after school, and throughout the summer.

In addition to those partners, we work broadly with K-12 schools, post-secondary institutions, youth-serving agencies, businesses, and employers across multiple states. Every one of these relationships was built on the same foundation: consistency, transparency, and an unwavering commitment.

How have you measured the impact of STRYV365’s programs?

Our partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin has allowed us to conduct formal research studies evaluating our services and programs directly with the students we serve. That research has been validated externally as well — published findings have shown that our peak team curriculum and Brain Agents offer a scalable model for enhancing social-emotional learning through mentorship and game-based learning, with measurable impact on emotional regulation, relationship-building, and decision-making skills.

Anecdotally, teachers and school administrators have consistently expressed appreciation for our coaching model, specifically highlighting the respect students have for our coaches and the competence with which our coaches interact with students. We don’t just want to feel like we’re making a difference — we want the data to confirm it, which is why ongoing research and evaluation will always be part of how we operate.