“Human behavior flows from three main sources:
desire, emotion and knowledge.”

~Plato

VerbalEyze’s Finding Your Solutions: Writing, Reflecting and Acting on Behavior Change program is an innovative program that utilizes theory- and research-based best practices and tools. These best practices and tools include several developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for overseas behavior change intervention programs. Subsequently the CDC and The Carter Center successfully applied similar methodologies throughout Asia, South America, and Africa as a means of encouraging people to reflect on unsafe or harmful behaviors and then take action to bring about change at both the individual and community levels. Finding Your Solutions integrates these tools into an academically rigorous, student-centric program approach to promote concrete changes in behaviors among youth in the United States. By focusing on the creative process and self-expression, The program incorporates the flexibility required to address a wide array of behavioral objectives, including student-generated objectives.

The Finding Your Solutions program emphasizes the learners’ everyday activities, experiences and perceptions as a primary source for informing behavior change activities. Casting students in the role of experts in their own lives encourages participation and grounds discussions about behavior change in authenticity. An emphasis on authenticity is critical if learners are to construct an internalized understanding of behavior change. Meaningful learning arises from “the learner-perceived relations between the practices they are carrying out and the use value of these practices” (Barab et. al. 2000). Effective behavior change learning must be embedded in a learner’s everyday experience of the world rather than in the world of formal information dissemination.

Central to Finding Your Solutions is the concept of narrative. Narrative is accessed through the modes of game-play, writing and reading. Narratives guide the students in processing of new information, linking emotions to actions and anticipating and describing possible outcomes of behavior change.

For more information on Finding Your Solutions, email info@verbaleyze.org.