The Resilience Game Plan

Colleen Carter Ster earned her Master of Liberal Arts from Harvard University's Division of Continuing Education in Psychology in 2023 out of concern for the self-harm cases among youth worldwide. Ster created The Resilience Game Plan: The Playbook for Developing Cognitive, Communication, and Mindfulness Skills to provide a curriculum for middle schools, high schools, and colleges to help adolescents and emerging adults build resilience by giving them tools to understand how the brain works and help them deal with difficult life situations. In the mid to late 1990s, Ster served as Executive Vice President for The Electronic Bookshelf (EBS). During her time at EBS, she created curriculum questions for K-12th grade students and developed continuing education credit materials for EBS Reading Power Seminars. Ster conducted training seminars to administrators, library media specialists, and teachers around the United States for several years. In 1998, EBS was acquired by Scholastic, Inc., and Ster became the Director of Marketing Services for Scholastic Reading Counts! in the Learning Ventures Division of Scholastic in New York, New York. During Ster's years traveling around the United States conducting "Reading Power" training seminars for EBS, she listened to what types of books educators were looking to purchase for their students. Time and again, the answer was to find literature to help students when they were struggling with difficult life scenarios. In 2008, Ster addressed this need by founding a children's publishing business, Reflections Publishing LLC. ALA Booklist called the first Reflections Publishing LLC book series "a unique series by children, for children." This special collection by Reflections Publishing LLC is a book series called "Kids Helping Kids Through Books." As a Girl Scout leader, Ster consulted with her troop members and developed the Reflections Publishing Communication Assessment. Since 2008, this assessment has been a useful tool for K-12 students and their caregivers (parents/guardians), emerging young adults, and adults. The purpose of the assessment is to help individuals understand how their communication skills play a role and affect the way they communicate with others. Ster wants children, tweens, teens, and emerging adults to understand that communication skills are valuable interpersonal tools for them to learn at a young age so they can use these skills during their academic years, when entering into personal relationships, and navigating professional work environments. The Reflections Publishing Communication Assessment and its concepts are incorporated throughout The Resilience Game Plan playbook. Ster is vested in continuing her education to keep The Resilience Game Plan an up-to-date and valuable tool for elementary, middle, and high schools and colleges. As a postgraduate student in the University of Oxford's Department for Continuing Education, Ster developed in-person and HyFlex training materials that best support users of The Resilience Game Plan intervention program. With a focus on taking neuroscience, neurobiology, self-harm, and cognitive behavior therapy courses, Ster is determined to try to reduce self-harm cases among youth around the world. Ster wants to get The Resilience Game Plan into the hands of every student-providing students their best chance to obtain strong, short- and long-term developmental and well-being outcomes. Proudly born and raised in Indiana, Ster has called San Diego home for more than 20 years, and is married with three daughters and a son-in-law.