Enhancing Girls’ Mental Health Resilience through Sports
Summary
In 2025, Her Story Mentorship committed to equipping 400 girls in Los Angeles, California with training and tools to enhance their mental health and resilience. Through a landmark summit in 2025 focused on teens in sports, mental wellness, and social media, Her Story Mentorship will provide adolescent girls with inspiration and a combination of specific tools to enhance their mental health, build positive social media habits, and develop skills that can help prevent them from dropping out of sports – a key experience for girls’ leadership development. In addition, 500 parents, adult caregivers, and community leaders will receive training that will equip them with the knowledge and resources to best support the health and well-being of the adolescent girls in their lives. Finally, after the summit, girls can access #ForMe facilitation training, enabling them to lead workshops in their own schools or communities training peers with the tools and training they receive through Her Story Mentorship.
Approach
Through this commitment, “Girls In Motion: Teens in Sports, Mental Wellness, and Social Media,” will bring together 400 teen girls and 500 caregivers, coaches, and community leaders at a summit in Los Angeles, California.
The summit will feature Her Story’s #ForMe Workshop, where trained near-peer mentors guide teens in building positive self-identity and a self-compassionate inner voice, centering intentional social media use. A dedicated activation will offer girls a hands-on experience with new “SOS” social media safety ratings, which are designed to evaluate platforms on criteria such as mental health impact, algorithmic transparency, and user protection. The activation will offer girls knowledge and training, as well as a chance to amplify them in their own digital communities. Teens will not only learn how to navigate the digital world more safely but become advocates for a healthier, more accountable online future. By sharing the SOS system with friends and followers, each teen becomes a catalyst for change – creating meaningful impact beyond the summit.For adults, expert-led workshops on mental health, body image, and social media will offer practical tools to help them advocate for and support the teens in their lives. Renowned women athletes will headline the event, sharing personal stories of resilience on and off the field.
After the summit, girls can become trained #ForMe facilitators to lead workshops in their own schools or communities – equipping peers to use social media more safely, strengthen mental wellness, and build positive body image. They’ll also be invited to join Her Story’s free virtual community, a safe, teen-driven space moderated by licensed professionals.
This commitment ensures girls don’t just stay in the game – but thrive.
Action Plan
Q3 2025 – Meet with partners, secure headliner(s) and title sponsor, engage event producer.
Q4 2025 – Secure venue, confirm logistics and vendors for the entire event, secure remaining sponsors and workshops, save the date, begin to market the summit and open registration, recruit mentors, design event logos, order signs, recruit organizations who want to exhibit.
Q1 2026 – PR/Marketing for the summit, registration continues, food and beverages confirmed, logistics, travel booked, program designed and printed, workbooks, training modules printed, confirm mentors and mentor training dates, give aways and raffle items confirmed.
Q2 2026 – Finalize registration and guest list, run of show date with talent, vendors, organizations for expo and logistics confirmed.
Background
Adolescence is a critical time for identity, confidence, and mental wellness – but girls face unique and growing challenges. Research shows that girls’ confidence drops sharply between ages 12 and 14. By age 13, they’re twice as likely as boys to experience clinical depression, often linked to perfectionism and body image. Over half say online images negatively impact how they see themselves (CDC, 2023) .
These pressures are pushing girls out of sports – a proven protective factor for mental health and leadership, with 71% of women executives credit sports as key to their success (Women’s Sports Foundation, 2024) . Alarmingly, a Dove and Nike campaign revealed that 45% of girls stop playing sports by age 14 due to low body confidence. While social media isn’t the sole cause of the mental health, confidence, and body image challenges teen girls face, it is a significant contributing factor.
With social media use on the rise there is an urgent need for safe, supportive spaces where girls can reframe their relationship with their screens, and stay engaged in the activities that build resilience.
Her Story Mentorship tackles this crisis with free programs and events designed to build and strengthen teen girls’ confidence and mental wellness. Their programming equips girls with the tools to navigate social media with intention, creating safer, healthier online experiences and helping peers build the skills they need to thrive.Through their proven near-peer model and leadership trainings, girls gain access to Her Story’s curriculum and have the opportunity to become certified facilitators – empowering them to lead in their schools and communities.
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
Her Story is seeking implementing partners and media support to complete and scale their commitment.,Her Story is offering other organizations –
Topic expertise and best practices for teen girls related to:
Mental health and wellness; Mindset, Confidence building and leadership skills in sports; Positive body image and mitigating eating disorder risk for girls in sports; Intentional social media use.
Community of Partners:
Organizations aligned with Girls In Motion will be able to showcase their work at the summit. Her Story will be providing free community resources to teens and their caregivers and coaches at the summit by partnering with local community partners.