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October 2, 2025

How Cape Fear Academy equips students and families with healthy tech habits that impact learning, all without adding to educators’ plates

School: Cape Fear Academy
Location: Wilmington, NC
Grades Served: 4th – 9th
Key Outcomes: Increased parent engagement, increased student engagement, an increase in responsible tech use, and students excited to learn

About Cape Fear Academy (CFA): CFA is an independent PreK-12 learning community committed to discovering and developing individual potential, preparing each student for success in college and life. Guided by its core values, integrity, respect, resilience, and accountability, CFA strives to support students in developing the character and leadership skills needed to thrive in a fast-changing world.

The Challenge: Finding an easy-to-implement & consistent approach to teaching healthy tech use

Elizabeth Gibbs, Upper School Counselor, and Jason Cook, Middle School Counselor, play a key role at Cape Fear Academy in equipping students with the healthy tech habits they need to succeed in both school and beyond. 

Before implementing #WinAtSocial in 2021, Gibbs saw students tripping up while navigating technology without fully understanding its impact. As a result, counselors at CFA found themselves addressing challenges with technology as they would come up. Yet they knew this reactive approach was not sustainable nor an effective way to help their community build healthy tech habits.

“We wanted to be able to teach our students to do better and use technology in healthy ways. When looking for a curriculum, we wanted something that anyone could deliver, so that it wouldn’t just be something that’s the school counselor’s responsibility.” 

CFA searched for a way to make conversations about technology more engaging, consistent, and easy for educators to implement across all grade levels. Their search led them to #WinAtSocial: A sustainable, easy-to-implement program that equips students, families, and educators with modern life skills to impact learning, well-being, and students’ futures.

The Solution: Ready-to-run modern life skills lessons with integrated resources for families, teachers, and administrators

After first implementing #WinAtSocial, Gibbs’ first impression was how simple it was to engage students in lessons that taught healthy tech use:

“What really stood out to me was how easy it was to use, the classroom engagement, and the plug-and-play option. It’s helpful, and something that our directors at CFA enjoyed. Plus, the content and how it’s set up is interesting to students and engages them.”

Once Jason Cook joined CFA a year later as the middle school counselor and taught his first #WinAtSocial Lesson, he quickly saw how positive the program is compared to what he’d seen at previous schools:

“It’s not fear-based. It’s not all about ‘don’t do this, don’t do that,’ It’s more about ‘here are good choices you can make’ because we all know that technology can be used for good also – and I like that about the program.”

One lesson that resonated strongly with both faculty and students was the 9th Grade #WinAtSocial Lesson: Tech features and screen time. Gibbs explained that it had one of the biggest impacts on her students, as many realized for the first time just how much time they spend on devices each day.

Support that goes beyond the classroom

Cape Fear Academy extends this learning to families through the Family Toolkit, a one-stop resource where families can access huddles on #WinAtSocial Lesson topics that are covered in class and Platform Playbooks about new and trending apps that students use. 

“Our parents are really pleased to have the Playbooks, and to have a resource that can help them make sense of this ever-changing world,” Gibbs shared. The Toolkit has become so valuable to the CFA community that the school added a direct link to it on their website for easy access.

“Social media in general is moving way faster than most of us can keep up with. So, having the ‘cheat sheets’ and the toolkits for different apps is super helpful to parents, and they really appreciate it. They ask for the resource at almost every one of our parent coffee meetings.”

The Long-Term Impact: Responsible, resilient students and engaged families

Three years into their partnership with The Social Institute, CFA sees more and more students navigating tech positively and demonstrating healthy tech habits in real time. The skills are sticking, proven by proactive discussions with teachers and peers on strategies for protecting their privacy online or striking a balance with tech.

Educators and counselors are grateful for how simple it is to find and run lessons on trending topics impacting their students, integrating the #WinAtSocial approach easily into their school day. “The lessons are just so wonderfully wrapped up that anybody can use them,” Cook shared. “It’s point and click, so it’s very useful and user-friendly.”

Families regularly ask CFA for different resources on supporting responsible tech use at home, and the school is able to provide them through the Family Toolkit, ultimately keeping parents informed and ahead of the tech curve. Gibbs and Cook revealed that the response to the toolkit from their community has been “nothing but positive.”

With #WinAtSocial, CFA is not only strengthening healthy tech habits today but also preparing their community for the future, including responsible A.I. use as new technologies emerge.

Try Out #WinAtSocial at Your School

Ready to teach healthy tech habits and engage students and families at your school? Preview some of our most popular #WinAtSocial Lessons and request a demo to explore how The Social Institute can support your entire community.

The Social Institute (TSI) is the leader in equipping students, families, and educators with modern life skills to impact learning, well-being, and students’ futures. Through #WinAtSocial, our interactive, peer-to-peer learning platform, we integrate teacher PD, family resources, student voice insights, and more to empower entire school communities to make positive choices online and offline. #WinAtSocial Lessons teach essential skills while capturing student voice and actionable insights for educators. These insights help educators maintain a healthy school culture, foster high-impact teaching, and build meaningful relationships with families. Our unique, student-respected approach empowers and equips students authentically, enabling our solution to increase classroom participation and improve student-teacher relationships. Through our one-of-a-kind lesson development process, we create lessons for a variety of core and elective