Overview
Our talks are marked by an ability to communicate emotionally and bring a room full of people together. We have reached over 100,000 girls in a movement for mental health, resiliency, and empathy.
Girls and Girl Expansive Youth Talk – Love the Skin You're In
talk description
Our signature talk, Love the Skin You're In, bonds young women and girl-expansive youth together in a hard-hitting conversation about body positivity, looks-based competition, race, social media, artificial intelligence, and the enduring power of sisterhood. We inspire girls and women beyond the competition and bullying that results from compromising AI and popular and social media messages. We teach girls to consciously choose the conversations they entertain inside their minds, to become leaders that build community and sisterhood both within their school walls and online, and most of all, to value themselves for their substance, complexity, and unique humanity so that when they write the stories of their own lives, they are the ones holding the pen. Young women brand this talk as life changing.
DETAILS
Teaches Media Literacy, Body Positivity, and Connection. Inspires Leadership.
Girls and gender non-conforming students
Grade 4+ through Collegiate
Multiple versions to suit age group
Up to 500 Students
60 Minutes
Equipment Check List
A half hour interview with Arlington, VA media talking about the girls mental health crisis as well as the birth and impact of the Love the Skin You're In resiliency project.
Boys and Boy Expansive Youth Talk – A Breath of Fresh Air
Talk description
After years of successful events for girls, we have invited our intern, McGill psychology student Nick Cholmsky to address their brothers. Using humor and tenderness, Nick pops open “the man box” that emerges from dominance-based masculinity and explores the pressures to appear in control, compete to win, and exert toughness over softer, stereotypically feminine traits like vulnerability and empathy. He explores how regressive masculinity creates mental health challenges for young men by cutting them off from their full humanity. Focusing on young men’s mental health, Nick brings critical thinking to the slot in the social hierarchy being sold by social media influencers like Andrew Tate and helps young men celebrate a common humanity that is free to champion self respect, accountability, and kindness. Watch his full TEDx talk here.
DETAILS
Teaches Media Literacy and Body Positivity. Inspires Leadership in the face of Toxic Masculinity.
Boys and gender non-conforming students
Grade 4+ through Collegiate
Multiple versions to suit age group
Up to 500 Students
60 Minutes
Equipment Check List
I join Vice Principal Daphne Wallbridge at L'Ecole Thériault Catholique Secondaire in Timmins, Ontario, Canada for a conversation about taking off the masks young men are taught to wear and reconnecting them with their empathic humanity.
Parent Talk – Love the Skin They're In
talk description
The social media and AI era present breathless challenges to parents desiring to create online safety and allow for the connection and belonging students seek in their online lives. This talk critically examines the intersection between the rise of influencers, teen mental health, and kids’ deep need for social acceptance. Participants learn tips for engaging challenging conversations about phone use, body image, sexting, the manosphere, and the benefits of protective factors such as the dad/daughter connection, mindfulness practice, and communicating with compassion. Fostering interpersonal and intra-personal connection, the parent workshop is grounded in research, popular and social media literacy, self-compassion, and resiliency.
RECOMMENDED READING LIST FOR PARENTS:
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Creating an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High Tech World by Jean Twenge
Talk to Your Boys: 16 Conversations to Help Tweens and Teens Grow into Confident, Caring Men by Joanna Schroeder and Christopher Pepper
Enough as She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success and Live Healthy Happy and Fulfilling Lives by Rachel Simmons
So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids by Jean Kilbourne
I'm Just Like So Fat: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices About Eating and Exercise in a Weight-Obsessed World by Diane Neumark-Sztainer, PhD
American Girls – Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to do About it by Richard Reeves
Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway
Women’s Love the Skin You’re In Power Hour
DETAILS
Teaches protective factors and mental health and resliency building strategies to parents.
Parents
Multiple versions to suit demographic
75 Minutes
Equipment Check List
BOOKS TO READ with your kids
Girls and Sex by Peggy Orenstein
Boys and Sex by Peggy Orenstein
The Body Image Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help Girls Develop a Healthy Body Image in an Image-Obsessed World by Julia Taylor and Melissa Wardy
DOCUMENTARIES AND MOVIES YOU CAN WATCH TOGETHER:
The AI Dilemma (Available on YouTube)
The Social Dilemma
Social Studies (Available on YouTube)
Fake Famous
Brandy Helville and the Cult of Fast Fashion
Subjects of Desire
Changing the Game
I Am Greta
Us Kids
Embrace
Miss Representation
The Mask You Live In
The True Cost
Moana
He Named Me Malala
Boys to Men: Why America’s Sons are Struggling (CBS)
TALK DESCRIPTION
Brie engages adult audiences in dynamic transformation from the capricious tyranny of image to the enduring beauty of the heart. She shares practical strategies for raising girls in a hypersexualized, hyper-disconnected world. Her corporate talk challenges how we and our daughters see ourselves and inspires us beyond the smoke and mirrors of social media messaging landing participants in a place of levity and self-acceptance. Championing the merits of bodily movement and making sustaining food choices, from a place of self-honouring, Brie challenges audiences to embrace self compassion and upload a new operating system marked by positive inner dialogue and a sense of humour.
DETAILS
Teaches Social Media Literacy, Body Positivity, and Connection. Includes tips for parenting in the age of social media.
Women and All Genders Talks
Multiple versions to suit age group
Unlimited Audience
75 Minutes
Equipment Check List
PRESENTATION NEEDS
To ensure a continuing smooth experience, we would greatly appreciate your mindful attention to the following steps, as experience has taught us that they are key to building a successful event. We recommend a 75 minute block for this talk, but can be flexible with the length. School talks are suitable for 500 students. Corporate events are suitable for 1000+.