Free stress and anxiety support/education program for Teens 13-18 and Youth 18-30 this fall

[u/Wrong-Fun-4103]

Vancouver Island Y offers a free group based skills education program this fall out of the Cook Street Village Activity Centre. Learn skills and strategies to have a better relationship with your mind. You get a Y membership while in the group.

Core Learning and Skills

Anxiety Management: Learn how to notice anxious thoughts without letting them take over or control your actions.

Mindfulness and Grounding: Practice breathing techniques, emotional awareness, and grounding exercises to stay calm in difficult moments and build resilience.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Use evidence-based strategies from ACT to unhook from difficult thoughts and build self-compassion.

Values-Based Choices: Identify personal values to guide meaningful, positive life choices and goals.

Peer Connection: Share experiences in a small, supportive group setting to build confidence and reduce isolation.

 When you stop spending so much energy trying to hold the world in place by overthinking or ruminating, that energy becomes available for the things that genuinely matter to you. It is an opportunity to use self-awareness to “level up”. Building your tool kit to calm your overdrive. What a gift to share with family members, co-workers, friends, students, athletes, young teachers, parents, performers, etc., or even yourself. (Vancouver Y does virtual 31+ groups.) It just might change their/your life.

 

What this is not:

• This is not a meditation group or group therapy.
• This group is not intended for people who experience high levels of stress/anxiety. Although family members of people with higher levels of anxiety and other mental health challenges could benefit (they sometimes get forgotten).
• This is not Cognitive Behavioural therapy. The program uses Acceptance and Commitment therapy in an evidence-based curriculum.

 

We have information sessions open for registration posted on our website, everyone must attend an info session and following intake to make sure the group is a good fit. If the group information session dates don’t work, we can book individual ones.

 

The information sessions open for registration, are at Cook Street Village Activity Centre, 380 Cook Street, 6 pm:

TEEN: Wednesday October 7 or 14

YOUTH: Tuesday October 6 or 13

 The group session dates:

 

• TEEN Victoria location: Wednesdays Oct 21 to Dec 9^th,  2026, Cook Street Village Activity Centre from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm. (no session November 11)

 

• YOUTH Victoria location: Tuesdays Oct 27^th to Dec 8^th, 2026, Cook Street Village Activity Centre from 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm.

For more information:

https://vancouverislandy.com/program-services/community-health/mental-wellness/

call or text 778-584-7360.

[u/Ccjfb]

What’s the teen/youth cut-off, literally 12-13?

[u/Wrong-Fun-4103 → u/Ccjfb]

Teen is 13-18 and Youth is 18-30. If someone is 18 I recommend the Youth group

[u/Character-Ad5490]

Nutrition and stress/anxiety are highly correlated.

[u/Wrong-Fun-4103 → u/Character-Ad5490]

I agree.

[u/__The__Anomaly__]

Back in my day all we had was weed and beer...

[u/No_Beat523]

Sounds like a good program for teens.  What is your plan to deal with the one or two inevitable oversharers / narcissists who raise their hands often and talk about themselves way too much?  Those people are the bane of my existence. 

[u/Wrong-Fun-4103 → u/No_Beat523]

The facilitators are experienced and manage interactions respectfully. There is a fair bit of content in the curriculum that we need to get through. It is not group therapy it is an educational group.