Project YES:
A Guide for Parents and Professionals

Project YES is a platform of online, free, anonymous, self-guided, mental health mini- courses designed by researchers from Northwestern University and teens in Montana.

Each course takes between 5 and 10 minutes to complete and helps teens learn new skills to handle the challenges and cope with stress.

Project YES was developed as a partnership between the Montana Department of Health, Frontier Psychiatry, Montana Pediatrics and researchers from Northwestern University. Our collaboration centered around making sure that teens living in Montana were represented in Project YES.

Since Project YES can be completed at anytime from anywhere with internet, it does not face the same challenges more traditional services might face. We designed this guide with the parents, school counselors, healthcare providers, and therapists that support Montana teens.

When completing Project YES, teens will answer a few questions without providing any identifiable information (totally anonymously, and we’ll never sell their data), then they’ll be guided through scientifically-backed strategies and skills for managing a range of stressors, including how they can improve their mood, manage stress, improve their body image, and stay safe during dark thoughts.

While they learn about these skills, they will create a plan for how to use these skills in their own life, so they can try these skills out right away. You can try any of these mini courses for yourself here.

We hope this guide will help you answer any questions you may have about Project YES and how to connect the teens in your life with the Project YES platform, but if you have any outstanding questions please use the Contact Form to get in touch with our research team.

“I liked that it helped you have a more positive outlook on life and that it would make you feel more confident in yourself and your actions.”

"I love the way it was able to understand my needs and give relating responses and feedbacks, I also love the arrangements of the action plan.”

“I liked that there were multiple different aspects to look at relating to physical and mental health because both are important and there were different, in depth exercises regarding both. I also liked that it was visible how much research and work was put in to the website to get the best possible exercises ready.”