16 Strong In The Media


16 Strong Project was selected as a seed grant recipient from The Pollination Project. They featured our Co-Founder, Samantha, and her story on their website. Thank you to The Pollination Project for your support of our work! Click on the image above to read more!



Our Co-Founder, Samantha, joined Dr. B and Seth Creekmore on the Delusional Optimism podcast. Samantha talks about how 16 Strong works with young people about building resilience, conquering trauma and understanding adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) so they can heal in the process. She discusses how the program helps students recognize their own situation and potential impacts that will help them navigate the challenges that come along with ACEs and childhood trauma.

“I think that in order for us to best educate students and educate kids is by having a full understanding and a full picture of everything each individual student has gone through.” -Samantha Wettje [26:42]

Listen by clicking the image above or on your favorite podcast platform!



Our Co-Founder, Samantha, and 16 Strong advisor, Susan Solar, joined Annalies Corbin on the Learning Unboxed podcast on 10/19/2020. Episode description from Learning Unboxed:

“In an ideal world, we’re asleep for eight hours every night, leaving 16 waking hours in the day. What does it take to get through those 16 hours in a successful, strong way? The answer isn't the same for everyone, and many kids don’t know this is a question they should even be asking themselves.

Our collective unwillingness to have conversations around things like mental health, familial mental illness, and addiction is holding a lot of us back from unfettered enjoyment of those 16 waking hours — especially in the year we’ve had — but our guests are trying to change that.

Samantha Wettje is co-founder of the 16 Strong Project and an adolescent mental wellbeing advocate. She created the 16 Strong in response to her experience as a young person growing up around familial mental illness and addiction, and her work focuses on empowering resilience to adverse childhood experiences through educational workshops, online resources, and community outreach. Joining Samantha is Susan Solar, a licensed clinical social worker who has worked in many settings for over 35 years and is currently working as a counselor for high school students. She shares her own experiences with facilitating these conversations, as well as what it was like to bring Samantha and 16 Strong into her school.”

Listen by clicking the image above or on your favorite podcast platform!


Our Co-Founder, Samantha, joined Teri Wellbrock on The Healing Place Podcast on 10/9/2020 to talk about 16 Strong, our mission, her personal story of resilience and triumph, our Every Voice Heard initiative, and youth empowerment/resilience building programs! Listen by clicking the image above or on your favorite podcast platform!


Our co-founder, Samantha, was featured on Andrea Samadi’s Neuroscience Meets SEL podcast on 8/13/2020. On this podcast, Samantha talks about why she founded the 16 Strong Project to mitigate the negative effects of ACES on middle and high school students; the sense of urgency involved with reaching high level change-makers to help with the awareness of 16 Strong; how our programs are different by helping students recognize the problem, and then prevent it from happening in their future; why the Every Voice Heard Initiative is helping students to feel more connected at school, and how schools and youth can get involved with our programming. Listen by clicking on the image above or on your favorite podcast platform!