YourMomCares Organization Awards $100,000 to Project Aiding Neurodivergent Children in Schools

Kids’ mental health organization YourMomCares has chosen the winner of its annual “Shrink Tank” competition — and it's going to help teachers learn how to work with neurodivergent children in their classrooms.

The competition, which is presented much like Shark Tank, consists of three finalists pitching a panel of judges, aka “sharks,” including the organization's founders, Sharon Feldstein, Patsy Noah, Terria Joseph and Robin Paul.

Finalists presented why their projects should win the Research Brilliance Award, which is a $100,000 grant. Each project is focused on innovative kids’ mental health solutions that have the potential to transform kids’ lives, which is the core mission of YourMomCares.

This year's winner was Dr. Kelly Beck, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. Her project, called Schools Unified in Neurodiversity (SUN), aims to produce a systemic change in how we support neurodivergent children in schools through educator training.

"The idea of our SUN Project came directly from a group of autistic advocates who told us that we need to start with changing schools if we want to reduce the alarming suicide rates in neurodivergent people," Beck tells PEOPLE.

She added, "Suicide rates in neurodivergent communities are unacceptable — 4x higher with some children first attempting suicide at the age of 7."

Improving the lives of neurodivergent children is personal to Dr. Beck.

"In my 20s, I sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car crash, resulting in a lifelong disability that I manage every day," she says.

"That drastically shifted my path to where I am now. I now have a PhD in disability studies and advocacy, and am a licensed professional counselor and researcher who works to improve the mental health of people with disabilities."

The $100,000 grant Beck won from the YourMomCares Shrink Tank competition will be used to rigorously test "that the SUN program improves mental health and educational outcomes for all children in school," says Beck.

SUN will do this by providing knowledge and training to all members of the school community, from the building staff to paraprofessionals, teachers, and administrators, to make the school more inclusive and accepting of all students.

"We all want children to enjoy learning and have good experiences at school. Having positive relationships with adults and peers at school and feeling like you belong are among the most robust protective factors for mental health and reducing suicide risk."

YourMomCares was founded in 2018 by Feldstein, Noah and Joseph, along with other mothers of musicians, actors, and athletes banding together with all moms for kids' mental health.

"We chose to focus on mental health pre-pandemic because we realized that for every cause that we wanted to help with, they all went back to one thing: mental health,” says Feldstein. “Since the pandemic and with the rise of big tech and social media, kids’ mental health, anxiety levels, depression and suicidal ideation have only gotten worse.”

Feldstein adds, "YourMomCares can specifically target things that either nobody wants to fund, nobody is paying attention to, or nobody knows about. What we saw with Dr. Beck and Shrink Tank today could revolutionize the school experience for neurodiverse kids, which will also benefit all kids".

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Beck shares why it's so important to get neurodivergent school children the help they need, and it's not just to curb exclusionary punishments like out-of-school suspension and de-stigmatizing neurodiversity in general.

“Currently, we see neurodivergent children having high rates of bullying, school refusal, suspensions and expulsions, and a lot of social rejection because things are harder for them at school. This can set them on a lifelong trajectory for worse educational outcomes, isolation, and poor mental health. Starting early with fostering positive experiences in school is essential."

Read the original article on People