GROW IN CONFIDENCE. KNOW YOUR IDENTITY.
FOR GIRLS
FACILITATOR GUIDE
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JOURNEY
Journey 04: Facilitator Guide
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Welcome to the Brave & Beautiful journey! Thank you so much for taking the time to invest in your teen girls and in your relationship with them! Whether you go through this journey with just one teen or a group of teens, you will find this to be a transformational experience for all involved. The articles will also be relevant to your personal growth. Each chapter provides discussion questions and optional activities for you to use as a springboard. You can pick and choose which optional questions you would like to use and create your own. As the discussion flows, you may be inspired by wonderful, spontaneous questions. The activities provided for each chapter are also optional. As a teacher or parent, we encourage you to be creative and do other activities as you are inspired, as time permits! The lessons are typically geared for small groups, so please adjust the activity if you are doing a 1:1 mentorship. Brave & Beautiful Copyright © 2024 - 2026 Releasing Generations Published by Releasing Generations Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Enjoy your journey! Authors/Educators: Cathy Lynne Fong, Erin Chinen, Loraine Hotoke, and Michele Okimura
All articles, art, and photographs have been published and printed with the permission of their creators. Art Direction and Graphic Design by: Ahava Design, LLC. Photos by Unsplash and iStockphoto.
TheBraveSeries.com Through The Brave Series, we are on a mission to help youth and adults of all ages overcome insecurities about their value and purpose. The Brave Series empowers teens and adults to: • Grow in confidence and emotional health. • Gain wisdom and vision for their future, enabling them to step into their purpose and pursue their dreams. • Become aware and equipped to safeguard themselves and others from exploitation and sex trafficking victimization.
Learn more at TheBraveSeries.com or visit us at ReleasingGenerations.org
Brave & Beautiful Volume 04 (Classic) Facilitator Guide – 2/2026
BRAVE & BEAUTIFUL FACILITATOR GUIDE
Table of Contents Journey 04 WELCOME .............................................. 05 IMPORTANT REMINDERS . . ........................ 08 FAQs .. .................................................... 08 EMPATHETIC RESPONSES ..........................11 THE BRAVE & BEAUTIFUL CULMINATING..... 12 CELEBRATION EVENT RIGHT OF PASSAGE EVENT FOR DAUGHTERS ..................................... 13 OVERVIEW .............................................. 14 4-Volume Journey CHAPTER 1: PORNOGRAPHY ...................... 16 The Negative Effects of Pornography *FYI, the wording for Sex Abuse has not changed over to Sexual Violence for B&Beautiful books. Keep as is?
CHAPTER 2: SEX ABUSE AND TRAUMA ........ 18 Addressing Sex Abuse and Healing Trauma CHAPTER 3: SEX TRAFFICKING ................. 20 Protect Yourself from Victimization CHAPTER 4: VOICES OF FREEDOM ............. 22 Letters to You from Survivors
*Ch 5 on the B&Beautiful book says Hope Rising, not Hope Arises
CHAPTER 5: HOPE ARISES ....................... 24 You Can Make a Difference!
BEFORE YOU BEGIN: • Be positive, affirming, and encouraging to your teens whenever possible! • Be mindful NOT to dominate the conversation. Make it a point to listen more than you talk. • Express gratitude when teens share good points. • Make the discussion times as enjoyable and meaningful as possible so you look forward to your time together. • Thank teens when they take a risk and share vulnerably with you. • Remember, the discussions can be serious at times, and there may be unexpected expressions of raw emotion, but laughing together also strengthens the bond between you and your teens.
IMPORTANT REMINDERS IMPORTANT: THIS IS NOT A TIME TO GIVE ‘LECTURES’ OR GIVE ADVICE (UNLESS THE TEEN GIRL ASKS FOR ADVICE). We hope that going through Brave & Beautiful together with your teen or group of teens will be a positive, enjoyable experience for everyone! As a teacher, parent, or mentor, you want to create a safe place where each teen girl can freely open up and share her thoughts and feelings. • This is not a time when your teens passively listen to your advice or teachings. • This is not a time to quickly ‘correct’ the teens’ lines of thinking. • Do not try to force your teens to agree with your perspectives. • Seek to understand your teens first before seeking to be understood. However, in the discussions, there will be opportunities to pass along your wisdom naturally as you share your thoughts and life experiences. If students feel that you really care about what they have to say, they will appreciate being heard. If you listen to them without negatively judging them, they will typically want to share things with you—which is the goal!
FAQ WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE? This is a powerful tool to mentor teen girls in life and leadership! The meaningful discussion and activity times after each chapter can strengthen your emotional connection with them, heart-to-heart. Verbally processing the content with someone as mature as you will help teen girls to digest the material and have a deeper learning experience. Going through the material with someone also ensures they will complete the Brave & Beautiful Journey through Volume 4. Volume 4 has vital information that could help protect their lives from dangerous situations!
WHO SHOULD GO THROUGH THIS WITH A TEEN GIRL? Because Brave & Beautiful is for teen girls and the articles are coming from mostly female perspectives covering common female issues, it is more natural and comfortable for a mom or female mentor to go through this with teen girls. However, we do understand that in some cases, a father may want to go through this with their teen, which is also fine. *Going through this with a small group of teen girls can also add beneficial and enriching perspectives to the discussions.
WHAT DO YOU DO IF A TEEN GIRL SHARES SOMETHING SHOCKING, DISTURBING, OR UPSETTING TO YOU? Because the topics and discussion questions encourage vulnerability, your teens may muster the courage within themselves to share something that may shock, disturb, or upset you. Prepare yourself now, so if this happens, you are ready to respond with compassion, understanding, and grace using self-control and NOT react in anger or shock. If you react in anger or shock, this will probably cause teen girls not to want to open up going forward. You want to do your best to create a safe place for teens to share. As a teacher or parent, it can be so easy to react in anger or shock when your teen shares something upsetting. The tendency can be to want to control the situation. You can be real and raw in your thoughts and feelings with a trusted friend privately at a later time, but NOT in that moment
with your teen. If you can stay calm and seek to understand, this will help build emotional connections. Refer to the article following this introduction, Empathetic Responses That Promote Connection. Respond with kindness, gentleness, love, and empathy—not judgment. Try to keep a straight face and listen. Know that it took courage for your teen to share what she did. Affirm your teens and thank them for sharing vulnerably.
BECAUSE YOU WILL BE SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS AND LIFE EXPERIENCES IN THE DISCUSSIONS, HOW VULNERABLE SHOULD YOU BE WITH YOUR TEEN? Creating a heart connection with your teens involves sharing some of your life experiences with them. You will create an atmosphere of vulnerability when you share stories from your life—your struggles, failures, and what you learned from them as they relate to the subject being discussed. It is so valuable for your teen to learn more about your story! Decide beforehand what you want to share as you prepare for the discussion. Letting your teens know that you are not perfect, made wrong choices, and experienced pain in your life will build that heart connection. The teen girls may particularly appreciate you sharing stories from your teen years.
WHAT IS A RECOMMENDED READING PLAN? There can be creative versatility in your reading plan depending on what works best for you in your context. Please check out thebraveseries.com website for more ideas and reach out to Michele and her team to create a tailored plan for your needs and schedule a meeting. We want to support you in whatever way we can. The chapters are fairly short and can easily be read in a short amount of time. You may choose to go through a chapter per week or cover one or two chapters every two weeks. If you are in a retreat type of setting, you can cover a number of chapters within your retreat time that is reasonable for your students. The discussion times could be anywhere from 30 to 60+ minutes, depending on your available time. If the conversation goes
longer than usual and you need to end it due to your schedule, you can always continue the conversation at your next meeting. *NOTE: If a teen is going through a particular struggle in the present, you can opt to skip ahead to a later chapter that addresses what she is currently going through. For example, if a close relative of a teen passed away, you could decide to skip ahead and go through the chapter on grieving in Volume 2. You can skip ahead to what is most relevant, then return back to the order we have laid out for the journey. Although the chapters are ordered to build upon each other, feel free to skip around to the most relevant chapters that will best serve your teen girl(s).
THIS PUBLICATION IS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS. CAN A YOUNGER GIRL GO THROUGH THIS? Because the first three volumes focus on growing a girl’s confidence and character and knowing her identity, you could easily go over Volumes 1-3 with younger girls using your judgment. The older a girl is, the more mature she is, and the more she will have a deeper grasp of the lessons. Volume 4 covers the heavier subjects of sexual violence, sex trafficking, and pornography, which may not be as age-appropriate for younger girls (you may decide to pick and choose articles from Volume 4). However, Continued
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BRAVE & BEAUTIFUL
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