June 17, noon - 1:30 pm PST

In this session, we’ll explore how every young person is held—or sometimes left hanging—by a unique, invisible network of people, messages, relationships, and experiences. When that web is strong, they thrive. When it’s frayed or missing, they drift, dim, or disappear.

You’ll learn how to spot the threads, strengthen the connections, and become an Anchor—someone who makes a lifelong difference not by doing everything, but by showing up with presence, trust, and care.

What You’ll Experience:

In this opening WebUP-inar, we’ll walk through the basic architecture of the IYD model, which reveals how youth move from invisible to invincible when they are surrounded by 5+ Anchors and the right balance of support.

Together, we’ll explore:

• The philosophy and measurable design of the Full Color Web of Support
• The difference between a supportive adult and an Anchoring one
• The seven colors of the Web, and how each plays a role in a youth’s development
• The Youth Support Card™, a practical tool to help map and strengthen a young person’s web
• The roles of safety nets, filters, and launch pads in sustaining youth resilience
• What it means to shift from isolated efforts to relational ecosystems that actually work
• This session is filled with stories, science, real-life examples, and reflective questions that will change the way you look at your role in the lives of young people—whether you’re a parent, teacher, counselor, mentor, or neighbor.

Who This Is For:

This WebUP-inar is ideal for:

• Educators, administrators, and school counselors
• Youth-serving professionals and nonprofit teams
• Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and caregivers
• Coaches, community builders, and faith leaders
• Anyone who wants to move beyond slogans and buzzwords into into lasting impact

Why It Matters:

In this moment—when so many young people feel unseen, unheard, and unsure of their place—we can no longer leave belonging to chance.

Belonging must be built.

The Web of Support offers a replicable, compassionate method to do just that: to map what already exists, to mend what’s broken, and to weave what’s still needed.

You’ll leave this session not just with inspiration, but with concrete ways to begin the work—at your kitchen table, in your classroom, in your organization, or in your neighborhood.

What People Are Saying:

"I thought I understood what it meant to support youth. But this session helped me see what I’ve been missing—and what’s still possible.” – Past Participant

“I realized I didn’t have 5+ Anchors growing up. Now I’m determined to be one for others.” – Educator, Santa Cruz County

July 1 | noon - 1:45 pm

The seeds carry that knowing deep in its DNA.

This is the Green strand of the Web of Support—Nature—the internal wiring of each youth:

• Their innate talents.
• Their unchosen temperaments.
• Their biological rhythms.
• Their deep, undeniable urge to grow toward the light.

In this powerful WebUP-inar, we’ll explore the Green strand and the hidden weights that pull youth down—the Sinkers. These are the traumas, stressors, and adverse experiences that can distort, deny, or disconnect young people from their internal nature.

But nature is never truly lost.

Only buried.

And this session is about learning how to help youth recover their roots, reclaim their brilliance, and rise.

The Egg Before the Chicken

Last time we asked: what happens to the chicken once it’s born into the world?

This time we ask:

• What’s already inside the egg?
• Child development experts from Gesell to Erikson, Chess & Thomas to Brazelton remind us:
• Children are not blank slates.
• They arrive already wired—for reaction, perception, expression, and growth.
• Their neurobiology carries temperament, emotional range, processing style, and resilience capacity.
  
  

Modern neuroscience—from Siegel to Perry—builds on this, showing that resilience is not an add-on, but a potential coded into the nervous system. The work of healing is not about replacing what’s missing—it’s about restoring what’s buried.

The Brain Builds From the Inside Out

In this session, we’ll unpack how:

• The prefrontal cortex (thinking brain) develops only with safety
• The limbic system (feeling brain) holds memory, trauma, and instinct
• Mirror neurons wire youth for empathy only if they’re surrounded by empathy
  Executive function grows best when identity is affirmed and stress is manageable
• And how even in the presence of sinkers, many young people develop a kind of balloon—a reservoir of resilience.
• But without care, that balloon deflates. Or pops. Or never gets the chance to rise.

What the Movies Teach Us

Think of Billy Elliot—a boy born to boxers, but wired to dance. His talent lives in his bones. He doesn’t learn it—he manifests it.

Think of Akeelah and the Bee—a child born into adversity, whose spelling gift was waiting for someone to notice.

Think of Moana—called by something beyond her island’s norm. Her gifts aren’t learned—they’re remembered.

Each character was born with a Green seed.

Each one faced trauma.

Each one rose—because someone helped clear the sinkers, mend the cuts, and make room for their nature to emerge.

In This Session, You’ll Learn:

• How to identify Green-coded strengths in youth (even when they’re hidden under behaviors)
• How trauma shows up as sinkers in the Web—and what they feel like to the youth
• How to support youth whose balloons have deflated, or whose nature has been dismissed
• What “manifesting the seed” really looks like in classrooms, families, and programs
• Tools for anchoring youth in their original design—even when they’ve forgotten who they are
  
  

You’ll Also Discover:

• The distinction between talent and temperament—and why honoring both is essential
• How temptation is often misdiagnosed Green energy looking for expression
• What happens to giftedness under stress, and how trauma disorients natural brilliance
• How to help youth catch and hold their inner gifts—only made possible through relationship
• Strategies for mapping and healing Sinker-heavy webs

July 8 | noon - 1:45 pm

How does a Web of Support grow stronger or start to tangle? What causes some youth to rise and others to feel pulled down by life’s pressures? In this insightful session, we dive into the BIV (Blue, Indigo, Violet) layers of the Web – where PHactors such as Choices, Reciprocity, and Social Norms either strengthen or weaken youth support networks.

Learn how educators, caregivers, and community leaders can care for themselves (Indigo) while modeling healing and integrity. Understand the powerful effect of social winds (Violet) – both uplifting and destructive – on youth and the adults who serve them.

This session is a call to action for building resilient systems around youth, creating environments where both young people and their supporters can thrive.

Let’s explore the Blue, Indigo, and Violet (BIV) elements of the Full Color Web of Support — the powerful, often invisible PHactors that influence whether a youth’s web lifts them, drags them, tangles them, or responds in other complex ways. These PHactors don’t always stem from the youth directly — they come from systems, relationships, beliefs, and behaviors that interact with the web in dynamic and sometimes unpredictable ways.

BLUE: Scissor Cuts — The Web-Eroders

Scissor cuts are the deficit behaviors, attitudes, and experiences that weaken or cut the strings in a youth’s web. These might be choices the youth makes (e.g., lying, isolating, lashing out) or painful things they experience (e.g., betrayal, substance use, bullying, or unsafe environments).

Unlike Sinkers, which weigh the balloon down, scissor cuts unravel the web itself. If left unattended, they can tear the very net meant to catch the youth.

But here’s the good news: we can teach youth to identify and reduce scissor cuts. We can help them see that even the strongest web can fray — but also, with intention, can be rewoven.

INDIGO: Caring for the Carers, Reciprocity and Gratitude 

This is the ethic of mutuality. In a healthy web, youth are not just receivers of support — they are also givers. Gratitude is more than a polite response; it’s a powerful reinforcement loop.

When a youth thanks a teacher for checking in, or a grandparent for showing up — they strengthen the bond, making it more likely that adult will throw strings again. It’s how connection becomes culture.

Even small actions — a note, a smile, a verbal acknowledgment — nourish the anchor. Burnout happens when adults give endlessly without receiving signs their investment matters.

Reciprocity isn’t about repayment; it’s about reinforcement. It tells the web: “This connection matters. Keep holding me.”

VIOLET: Social Norms — The Invisible Winds

Social norms are the unspoken rules — “how we do things around here.” They’re not the same as culture. Culture is deep and ancestral; social norms are quick, local, and often temporary.

For example:

• Wearing seatbelts became a norm in a few years.
• A school can shift from bullying being “normal” to “unacceptable” in one semester.
• A classroom can change from disengagement to peer accountability within weeks.
• When positive norms are strong, the wind lifts the web. When negative norms dominate (like shame, cruelty, silence), the wind can collapse or tangle it.
• Social norms are changeable. And that’s empowering. Leaders, educators, and youth can intentionally shift norms by modeling, reinforcing, and aligning shared values.