Abstract Hopeful thinking helps people reach their goals. Behavioral and academic objectives can be more easily achieved when students and teachers establish realistic goals, identify pathways to these goals, and maintain energy that facilitates goal pursuit. Hence, it is to the benefit of all stakeholders in the educational system that hope be enhanced via brief interventions. Psychological research indicates that hope can be increased in children, youth, and adults as the result of brief, psychoeducational groups. Now, for the purpose of disseminating a strength enhancing intervention more broadly, a web project is being designed. Making Hope Happen: A Strength Enhancing Web Project will involve the collaborative efforts of psychologists and educators and will result in an interactive website that helps stakeholders learn how to use "Hope TALK" and how to increase hope in themselves and others. Purpose and Need for the Cohort Hope TALK is a set of techniques designed to help adults learn how to model hopeful language to children and youth in their everyday interactions. Through Teaching the hope model, Applying the language, Luring kids into the use of terms, and Kindling a hopeful spirit, Hope TALKERS can enhance the hopeful thinking of children and youth. Making Hope Happen is a 5-week, school-based program designed to increase hopeful thinking in children. Through didactics, narrative techniques, and games, leaders help children and youth refine goal thoughts and enhance agentic and pathways thinking. The website would assist in creating a source of information that is available at anytime. Members Members include: Shane Lopez Assistant Professor Psychology and Research in Education (PRE) sjlopez@ku.edu SOE Students TBA Field-Based Teachers TBA Scope of Work An initial planning meeting will be held to discuss the objectives of the web project and to review relevant hope research. Collaborators will then contact 3-5 researchers who have developed similar projects so that we can benefit from their successes and failures. In-house focus groups of 10-12 children and youth and 10-12 teachers will review early versions of the website to offer suggestions for improvements. Monthly meetings will be held to move the project toward completion. A field-based study will be conducted at a local school to determine the effectiveness of the training. Finally, the website will be launched for public consumption and reactions to the project will be monitored. Deliverables White paper Several versions of the website APA poster presentation Publication in an APA journal Tutorial on how to maintain the website using Dreamweaver Timeline August 1, 2002 to June 30, 2003 December 2002 Piloting of website April 2003 Launching of website Resources LearnGen will provide salaries for all three members (a local teacher in school counseling training, a doctoral student in counseling psychology, and a graduate student in the administrative program - names TBA) of the cohort. Resources needed to maintain the project will be requested from the Kansas Health Foundation and other agencies. Institutionalization/Extension The cohort's work and products will result in a sustainable website which will be used as a teaching tool for students in the Teacher Education, Administration, and School Counseling programs. K-12 students, local and otherwise, could benefit from the programs disseminated on-line. This project could not be completed without enhancing the cohort's technological skills and resources. Evaluation Focus-group evaluation, Effectiveness study on program, Peer review

Learning Generation, University of Kansas, 2005.