Young Voices
For the kid who has more going on inside than anyone around them knows.
Your child has a voice. They might not know how to use it yet. They might have stopped trying. They might be waiting for someone to tell them it is worth hearing.
Story World Young Voices is where they find out that it is.
A creative writing, character development and expressive storytelling program for young people. Built on one belief: that imagination is the most powerful vehicle for personal development there is.
Join the waitlist and be the first to bring Story World to your child.
Why this matters
The numbers that sit behind everything Story World does.
1 in 7 children aged 4 to 17 experience a mental health condition.
1 in 3 young people report high levels of psychological distress by adolescence.
Anxiety disorders affect approximately 7% of Australian children and adolescents.
ADHD affects 5 to 7% of school-aged children globally.
Story World Young Voices exists because young people need somewhere to put all of that. Not a clinical intervention. Not another thing to perform at. A creative space that meets them where they are and gives their inner world somewhere to go.
Sources: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; Youth Mental Health Research; Global ADHD prevalence studies.
What happens when they start to express
Something releases.
That is the thing parents notice first and find hardest to explain. Their child comes home from a session and there is less weight on them. The tightness around their shoulders is gone. They are lighter. More like themselves.
What is actually happening is this: for the first time, possibly in a long time, they had somewhere to put it all.
The feelings they did not have words for. The version of themselves they were not sure how to be yet. The things that felt too big or too strange or too much to say out loud. Writing gave them somewhere to put all of it, without judgement, without it having to be perfect, without anyone grading it or correcting it or telling them they got it wrong.
And when young people are given that outlet consistently, week after week, something begins to shift underneath everything else.
Anxiety loosens its grip. When feelings have somewhere to go, they stop building up. The pressure drops. Young people who came in tightly wound start to breathe differently by week three.
They get happier. Not performed happiness. Real happiness. The kind that comes from feeling known, from making something, from being in a room where the way their brain works is not a problem to solve but a superpower to build from.
They grow. Each character they create is a mirror. Each story they write is a question they are asking about themselves and then answering. Who am I? What do I want? What am I afraid of? What am I actually capable of? They are doing the deep work of personal development through the safe distance of fiction, and it changes them.
They learn things about themselves they did not know before. What they value. What makes them angry and why. What kind of person they want to be. What kind of world they want to live in. These are not small discoveries. These are the discoveries that shape the rest of their life.
They find relief. In a world that asks young people to perform, to achieve, to be measurable and legible and correct, Story World asks only one thing: to express. And that permission, given consistently and without conditions, is one of the most quietly radical things you can offer a young person.
They come in carrying something. They leave a little lighter. And over time, they do not just feel better. They become more themselves.
That is what writing does. That is what Story World makes possible.
This is not just about writing
Most programs teach young people what to do.
What to write. What to think. How to answer. Where to sit. What is correct. What is expected. What will be marked.
Story World does something different. It asks young people what they actually think. What they actually feel. What they actually want. And then it gives them the tools to express it, explore it, and own it.
That is character development. That is personal development. That is a young person learning who they are by being given the freedom to find out.
They discover what they love. Not what they are supposed to love. Not what gets them a gold star. What actually lights them up. What they could spend hours on without noticing the time. Story World makes room for that discovery by following the young person’s imagination wherever it wants to go.
They learn to speak up. First through their characters. Saying the hard thing through a fictional voice is safer than saying it as yourself, and that safety is exactly the point. Over time the line between the character’s voice and their own begins to blur. They realise they have been speaking their own truth all along. And that it is okay to keep doing it.
They share. Tentatively at first. Then with more courage. Sharing creative work is one of the most vulnerable things a person can do, and Story World treats that vulnerability with enormous care. When a young person shares something they wrote and the room receives it warmly, something opens in them. They start to understand that their voice has value. That people want to hear it. That they do not have to hold it all in.
They stop holding it all in. So many young people are carrying so much and have nowhere to put it. Feelings they cannot name. Experiences they cannot explain. A version of themselves they are not yet sure how to be. Story World gives them a place to put all of it, safely, creatively, without judgement. The relief of that is real and it is lasting.
They grow into themselves. Not into the version of themselves that fits a mould or passes a test. Into the version that is entirely, unapologetically their own. They come in not quite sure who they are. They leave knowing a little more. And that knowing compounds. Session by session, week by week, character by character, they build a clearer picture of who they are and what they are here to do.
This is what Story World Young Voices is really offering.
Not just a way to write better. A way to be more themselves. A place to figure out who that is. A community that celebrates it when they do.
Because a young person who knows their own voice is unstoppable.
What’s inside Story World Young Voices
In-Schools Program
Story World comes into the classroom as a structured, curriculum-aligned program that fits inside the school day. Your child leaves with a real piece of creative work they made themselves and are proud of. Teachers notice something shift. The kid who said they hated writing ends up not wanting it to end.
Private Classes
Not at a Story World school yet? Private cohorts bring the full program to small groups outside the school system. Intimate, personal, and just as transformational.
The Story World Membership
The online community where young creatives write, share, connect, and belong. Weekly creative challenges, learning modules, global pen pal matching, live events, and a personal creative portfolio that grows over time. The school program ends. The community does not.
What they walk away with
This is not a class where young people sit and listen. They make something.
By the end of a Story World program, your child will have:
- An original character they built from scratch, with a name, a world, a want, and a secret
- A story they wrote themselves that has a beginning, a middle, and an end
- A creative portfolio that captures their journey from the first session to the last
- A relationship with their own voice that did not exist before they walked in
They will also have something harder to measure and more important than any of it: the experience of having expressed something true about themselves and been met with warmth. That does not leave them.
“Thank you for providing such a great experience for Ava this morning. She really enjoyed it and says it helped in writing down her feelings and that she will do that regularly now. She is looking forward to getting the journal. I think that is an amazing result and great to hear from someone other than just mum. It has been fantastic for her to feel there is someone else that gets what she is going through with life at this age and showing her some ways to deal with the difficult stuff that comes up. Ava would definitely be interested in doing another workshop with you.”
Mother of Ava, age 11
“Jenna is a nurturing, supportive and encouraging mentor. We have had the pleasure of having her run multiple programs for the teens in our Online Academy. She inspires creativity and self-reflection in fun and enthusiastic ways. The way Jenna is able to draw upon her skills as a writer to help young people think about their own character and journey through life always leaves the students excited and more connected to self, and each other.”
Amanda Rootsey, Founder, Shine From Within
“My Daring Playbook has been awesome to use for journaling, expressing myself, writing out what I feel and well just having some fun with it. I love just being able to write and I don’t even have to really know what to write about because there is always something already there for me and I can just have fun doing the activities that are in it. It’s so much fun just doing all of it. It has so many great things in it just waiting for me to do. It is awesome, and I really love how there are all the aspirational quotes every couple of pages and all of them are different and meanings are all different too. I have loved the first part of My Daring Playbook and from what I’ve already done I can imagine that I will love the next part.”
Maddison, age 10
About Jenna
Jenna is an experienced author and certified youth mentor with formal training in wellbeing-informed facilitation. She combines storytelling craft with emotional literacy to create safe spaces where young people can build confidence in their voice without pressure or judgement.
Jenna holds a Working With Children Check, is Child Safe Standards compliant, and brings a deep commitment to trauma-aware practice to every session she runs.
She is the author of Daring Journey: A Teenager’s Guide to Being Unapologetically You, My Daring Journal, My Daring Playbook, and has delivered programs for young people across schools, online academies, and community settings.
All Story World programs are delivered in alignment with Child Safe Standards and professional safeguarding expectations.
Jenna’s work has been featured in Teen Breathe magazine, creating worksheets and content for young people on creativity, self-expression and emotional wellbeing.
They already have everything they need. They just need somewhere to be it.
Jenna Little
Founder, Youth Mentor, Author, Publisher The Daring Press
Author of
Daring Journey: A Teenager’s Guide to Being Unapologetically You
My Daring Playbook
My Daring Journal