Projects · where the thinking gets tested
The questions we cannot answer alone.
MyWhatIf began with a question: could restoring someone’s ability to imagine a better future support recovery from trauma? We are pursuing it two ways at once. Studying the model with researchers and clinicians, and putting hope into practice with communities that need it now.
Different populations.
Different settings.
Different questions.
One purpose.
Restoring the capacity to imagine what comes next.
Every project below takes one part of that somewhere real: a hospital, a youth service, a room of people trying to change something in their community. Each is listed under its own question, and the question stays a question until the work answers it. Why we think this might work →
Implement
Who can we support now?
Every implementation teaches us something. Every study helps us build the next one more responsibly. We do not wait for one to finish before starting the other.
01 · Studying the model
Research and clinical studies
Status is stated as it stands. Nothing is described as recruiting or approved before it is.
In development Edmonton, Canada · ages 14 to 25
Can restoring hope, agency and purpose help young people recover from trauma?
Scientific question · change in trauma symptoms, hope, agency and purpose, alongside acceptability and emotional safety, in adolescents and young adults with trauma or depression across inpatient and outpatient settings
Adolescence is where a difficult account of your own life can set. Working with the University of Alberta, this project asks whether the capacities MyWhatIf is designed around can be strengthened at that age, and whether the experience is safe and welcome while it happens.
Partner
University of Alberta
Guardians Mental Health Research Institute
Investigators
Dr. Margot Jackson
Dr. Yanbo Zhang
Dr. Richard Rabeeh
Dr. Rakesh Jetly
Who it is for
Adolescents and young people with trauma or depression, ages 14 to 17 and 18 to 25, inpatients and outpatients
Measuring
PCL-5, Adult Hope Scale (AHS), Children’s Hope Scale (CHS), agency, purpose, acceptability, emotional safety
In development Canada · hospital setting
Can restoring hope support recovery after acute physical trauma?
Scientific question · feasibility of delivering the intervention to patients after acute physical trauma, and change in trauma symptoms and hope
Serious injury changes more than a body. With Sunnybrook and the University of Toronto, this project asks whether hope can be worked on during physical recovery, and whether doing so shows up in trauma-related symptoms.
Partner
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
University of Toronto
Investigators
Dr. Janet Ellis
Dr. Sean Nestor
Dr. Mark Sinyor
Who it is for
Patients after acute physical trauma
02 · Putting hope into practice
Real-world implementations
These programs may be evaluated. Evaluation is not a clinical trial, and we do not present it as one.
The Hope Lab Two pilot cohorts planned Israel · social change leaders
Can strengthening hope help social change leaders build better collective futures?
Implementation purpose · strengthening hope, agency and leadership for social change, through a structured process combining civic hope learning, group reflection and MyWhatIf
Hope is usually discussed as something a person recovers. The Hope Lab treats it as a capability that leaders need in order to work: imagining shared futures, getting past the barriers in front of them, and turning hope into action other people can join. This is where the architecture reaches past individual trauma recovery.
Who it serves
Social change leaders
Format
Civic hope learning, group reflection, MyWhatIf, individual and group support
Scale
Two pilot cohorts, 15 to 20 participants each, with refinement between them
Evaluation
Pre and post assessment
Family caregivers Making room for the person who cares for everyone else.
With STAR Network Foundation, MyWhatIf combines structured reflection with human peer support and community in a free program for family caregivers.
In development Israel · university students
What happens when students have a private place to imagine what comes next?
Implementation purpose · making the hope intervention available to students at Tel Aviv University, outside any clinical pathway
A separate program from the Hope Lab, and a different population. Students carry a great deal without it becoming a clinical matter, and few of them will take it to a service. This implementation puts the experience within reach of anyone who wants it.
Partner
Tel Aviv University
Who it serves
TAU Students
Duration
Not yet published
Evaluation
Not yet defined
Who
Ages 14 to 25, adults, students, leaders
Context
Acute injury, longer-term trauma, civic and social change work
Setting
Hospital, youth service, university, community
03 · The human layer
Ecosystem collaborators
Partner-facing wording is provisional. See §6.
MyWhatIf works alongside the people, communities and services that make recovery possible.
Structured individual reflection is one part of recovery. Around it sits peer support, clinical care, and formal crisis response. These are not interchangeable, and MyWhatIf is not trying to replace any of them.
Ecosystem collaborator Peer support · suicide-prevention · lived-experience communities
STAR Network Foundation
Together with STAR Network Foundation, MyWhatIf launched the Family Caregiver Program, combining structured, hope-centered reflection with STAR's peer-support and community experience. The program is now open — see the record above.
Peer & community pathway · in development Formal crisis-response pathway · offered, being developed
Peer/community infrastructure referenced: TAR Anon and Caregiver Connections. Program descriptions held for STAR approval before publication.
Contributes
Lived-experience communities, structured peer support, suicide-prevention experience
Boundary
Peer support is not clinical care. Neither replaces emergency care.
All STAR-related wording, program descriptions and status claims in this section are provisional and must be reviewed by STAR before publication. See §6 of the handoff for the full verification list.
Studies ask what changes. Implementations ask who it reaches. The human layer asks who has to be there when the platform is not enough.
Our studies ask
Does it help?
For whom?
What changes?
Does that change last?
Our implementations ask
Can people use it?
Where does it fit?
What support do they need beside it?
How can it reach more people responsibly?
Neither set is answered yet. Answering them is the work.
Work with us
Have a question we should test together, or a community we should serve?
Two ways in. If you are a researcher or clinician with a question worth answering, or an institution that wants to bring the hope intervention to people you already serve, we would like to hear from you. The portfolio grows by conversation, not by campaign.
