Every Child Everyday

Daily mindfulness practice was the transformational tool that ELEVATED my life. From insecure, self-destructive and suicidal- to innovator, researcher, leader, and fierce advocate for ‘kids as the catalyst’ for change. My mindfulness practice settled my inner critic, unleashed my inner super hero and changed my life’s trajectory.

At GE Healthcare, I practiced mindfulness every day. As an executive, I brought the practice to my team and they delivered record-breaking business results, literally from ‘worst to first’ within a year. The profound shift wasn’t just in the business performance but the interconnectedness within the team. I witnessed transformation and knew this effect could be scaled.

It is clear to me, and is now research proven, that daily mindfulness practice is a critical tool for healthy human development. I co-founded Inner Explorer knowing that every child practicing mindfulness every day would change the world in one generation. We are on our way!

Inner Explorer believes that generational poverty, school failure, injustice and unrealized potential are symptoms stemming from the same root, chronic stress.

Children, given the right tools, can mitigate their own stress. With mindfulness they practice exploring their inner world of thoughts, emotions and habits of mind and connect to a deeper, more profound sense of self.  They quickly realize the power to choose appropriate responses to experiences, tapping their own super power! They also recognize the interconnectedness of the world around them - to the world within them. This is an inner journey that isn’t taught as much as it’s experienced and developed with daily mindfulness practice.

Inner Explorer provides the conditions for this inner journey to unfold using an accessible, cost effective and intergenerational platform, proven to be sustainable. When peak performance, collaboration and compassion are the norms, the seemingly intractable issues of our time will be solved.

Pre-COVID-19, 2 out of 3 children experienced chronic stress from poverty, hunger, violence, bullying, and technology overload. Now it’s closer to 3 of 3, impacting nearly 60M children in the US and 1.5B children worldwide. Prolonged stress inhibits healthy brain development and limits learning readiness, putting children at risk for negative life outcomes including school failure, mental health disorders, even incarceration.

The root of this problem isn’t behavior it’s biology! Stress shifts the brain’s processing, from higher order thinking to lower order reactivity. What a child knows intellectually is inaccessible. For instance, an 8-year old whose family can’t find adequate food or shelter (affecting 28% of school-aged children) is in survival mode so he has difficulty paying attention and learning. This often leads to misbehavior and discipline issues, further exacerbating the negative cycle.

Students need help to counteract this biological ambush. Practicing mindfulness each day develops calming, coping and resiliency skills. Forty years of research proves that a 10-minute-a-day mindfulness practice reduces stress, engages learning and creativity and bolsters collaboration and compassion. This is an accessible solution to global injustices. These are the skills that are foundational for education equity and will finally break the cycles of poverty and despair.

In the early 1900’s, the US population began daily teeth-brushing to alleviate the dental health crisis of that century.

Daily mindfulness practice is analogous in that it can alleviate the mental health crisis of this century. When fully adopted in every school (10 mins of mindfulness-every child/every day) it will be the most impactful education equity and social justice initiative of our time, since strong mental health is foundational for learning and life success.

Teachers access Inner Explorer from any device and press ‘play’ to listen with students to the audio-guided age-appropriate sequence of practices (PreK-12th grade, English/Spanish). Intergenerational families can even opt-in. The platform prompts Day 1, Day 2 etc. The simplicity of design, extensive evidence-base, brief time commitment, training-free implementation, and connection from school-to-home, together create a self-sustaining cycle of practice.

For instance, daily mindfulness practice is proven to reduce stress and enhance performance. As children understand their thoughts and emotions, they adopt healthier habits of mind and a sense of peacefulness and possibility. Focused, considerate kids catalyze teachers, parents and communities. Students experience greater social emotional competence and academic success; teachers experience more calm and become more effective; families increase their interconnectedness and entire communities thrive.

The project has the potential to serve all school-aged children in schools and homes. We have focused primarily on urban and at-risk communities because there, chronic stress and trauma are pervasive, hindering academic success and thus career options.

For example, Sullivan Partnership is a public, Title I (high poverty) elementary school in Tampa, FL, serving mostly minority students from the local homeless shelter.  Florida designated Sullivan an F-school, with most kids below grade-level in every subject. Terrifyingly, research shows that students reading below grade-level in 3rd grade are unlikely to graduate from high school. Dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, addicted to substance, incarcerated and have children out of wedlock. Continuing a negative cycle of unrealized potential and poverty.

Sullivan embedded Inner Explorer’s 10-minute-a-day program in every classroom. Within one year the school improved from an F to a C and in the second year, from a C to a B.  The majority of children were at or above grade-level in reading, math and science, closing the achievement gap compared to white/affluent schools across town. The majority of Sullivan students will most likely graduate from high school, changing their trajectory from one of despair to one of possibility.

The "Sullivan" example above demonstrates that our project intersects two dimensions. We’re elevating opportunities for at-risk children, by mitigating chronic stress. And by preparing them for school success, they can break the cycle of generational poverty.  

Inner Explorer offers an evidence-based, low-cost, accessible, high-impact approach that can serve every student in every school (wherever school is being held). When children practice mindfulness every day their developing brains will be optimized, increasing their performance and their options in life. When daily mindfulness practice is as common as daily teeth brushing, we will have a network effect that will elevate human potential.

Mindfulness was transformational for years in my own life before I shared it with my team at GE in 2001. Beyond the positive impact on behavior, performance and wellbeing, mindfulness research showed that it improved brain development and functioning. I left my corporate job in 2004 to pursue this work. I trained in mindfulness and began teaching in schools, quickly realizing I couldn’t reach enough kids. I enrolled in grad school to better understand the science and application and began developing a program that could be easily delivered in classrooms to all students.

The design principals were simple: follow a world-renowned protocol to align with the evidence-base, make it audio-guided since mindfulness is an inner journey; make it easy to operate and accessible on any device so teachers don’t need training, make it brief so it can fit into the school day without changing the curriculum. Then co-founder Janice Houlihan and I created and launched rev.1 in three Illinois schools in 2012 under a research study. We achieved a trifecta of outcomes. The program reduced stress, reduced behavior issues (bullying and suspensions), and improved academics (reading, math, science). The researcher reported these significant findings and our Inner Explorer journey began.

The practice of mindfulness changed my life. I often hear, “I wish I had been practicing mindfulness as a child”. Athletes, performers, soldiers and executives credit mindfulness with improving their ability to operate at peak levels despite challenges. The teeth-brushing example illustrates how a simple inexpensive practice significantly improves health. In fact, mindfulness is supported by more evidence than teeth brushing. The mental health crisis of this century is more devastating than the dental health crisis in the past. It is not a question of “if” but “when”.

We have thousands of examples of transformation in children. Students in Chico, CA (after the Paradise fires) can now engage in school and not panic or hyperventilate. Students in WV can now thrive despite their parents’ opioid addictions. These kids are breaking the generational cycle of poverty by developing the habits of mind to succeed in school and make healthy choices. They will inspire adults. 

If we can amplify development throughout a child’s school years with daily mindfulness practice, it’s reasonable to project that we can elevate the human condition. Breaking the cycles of inequity can be the start. When thinking, learning, and collaborating are optimized, peace and justice can be realized.

Over the last 9 years I have led an incredible team of volunteers and underpaid staff (myself included). We have proven the concept, developed and scaled the platform, iterated on the approach, demonstrated scale and sustainability while offering a compelling ROI to secure increasing earned revenue. As a result, Inner Explorer has led the field with a number of innovations, with our program used in 40,000 classrooms, serving about 1 million children. We were the first mindfulness organization to:

·      Identify that daily practice was missing in ‘mindfulness in education’ approaches.

·      Embed MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) protocol, aligned with 40 years of research and 6200 published studies.

·      Publish scientific research showing that our audio-guided program improved academic, behavioral and wellbeing outcomes.

·      Create daily audio-guided programs designed for preschool to high school students, offering consistency throughout developmental years.

·      Link home and school for a self-sustaining cycle. Teachers are more likely to engage when families have opted-in.

·      Offer programming in English and Spanish.

·      Be approved by CASEL (Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning), selected as a Top-10 program by BrainFutures, and highlighted in the ‘Mindful Nation UK’ policy report.

·      Recognize that daily mindfulness practice must be embedded in the school curriculum (like math) to create lasting societal change. (If provided to parents/children to do at home - the strategy with many "apps"- most won’t sustain the practice or achieve the life changing results.)

These innovations are moving the needle. We need to reach kids faster.

We are creating millions of problem-solvers through this work. Inner Explorer was recently attacked by religious groups arguing that mindfulness is anti-Christian. The complaint was highly personal, questioning my ethics, my education and my values. In all my years in business, I had never witnessed or been the object of such an aggressive, inflammatory assault.

Advisors suggested ignoring the issue. However this would have required schools using our program to respond individually. Peers suggested going on the offensive and attacking. Mindfulness offered another pathway. I made our programming available to them for a full review since they had content inaccuracies. I invited them to provide constructive feedback so that we could learn about their concerns and potentially revise our programming. We believe that mindfulness is the human capacity to attend, and wanted to see where our program language triggered their discomfort.

I listened, revised some language to satisfy the concerns and did so with compassion for their different perspective. These efforts led to strengthening the relationship with our school customers, understanding and finding common ground with the religious groups, and confirming the programs’ alignment with any belief systems.  Mindfulness creates the openness, empathy and mindset for collaboration.

The entire Inner Explorer strategy was contrary to professional advice; yet a profound sense of service, sparked through mindfulness, became my north star. I was told that audio-guided mindfulness wouldn’t work, yet the market has grown 52% to $295M in 2019. I was told kids couldn’t sit still for 10 minutes, yet we have almost 1M users. I was told that teachers needed to be trained, yet our program reduces stress while improving grades and behaviors, without teacher training. I was told to target private schools and parents because they have money, yet we continue to target poor, urban districts because that’s where the need is greatest. I was told to gamify the program so kids would use it, yet knew that path would involve tweaking the very brain networks we're trying to settle.

I sought expertise in technology and child development, while staying true to the vision of "Every Child Everyday". We’ve shifted from I-pods to a platform, revised language to be accessible to all belief systems, and increased diversity in our narrators so kids recognize themselves. Yet we’ve never wavered from our core, providing a pathway for kids to be the catalyst for the change in the world. 

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We are providing daily mindfulness programming directly to kids in the classroom (where they are 5 days a week), to help them build the habit of practice. The model is one of the few in education that actually benefits teachers and families at the same time. It creates a cycle of practice that is more likely to be sustainable, and thus more likely to shift performance and potential upwards.

Education is the best pathway out of poverty. Mindfulness is the best tool to prepare kids to engage in learning. Our design is district –based, not individual-based, meaning we are attempting to have daily mindfulness practice embedded into the school day (so it’s sustainable). We provide district analytics by classroom, school and family, to help educators foster program usage within their school community. We are the only audio-guided mindfulness program that is taking this approach (the others are apps offered to individual users) which has already been shown to engage more users and sustain engagement year over year.

The Inner Explorer Theory of Change is outlined in the chart below. Forty years of published scientific research shows that daily mindfulness practice leads to the proximal changes outlined in the model. In fact, many more improvements have been documented, yet these are the most salient to education. What's often overlooked when discussing mindfulness is the need for daily practice, which is why we use daily teeth brushing as an analogy so people understand practice needs to be done regularly to be effective. 

We know that just because something is proven to work doesn't mean it will be done consistently (ex: gym memberships and healthy eating plans). Therefore, our efforts are focused on helping children develop the habit of practice throughout their school years, which is the most pivotal time of brain development. Our belief is if every child practices mindfulness everyday throughout these years, they will have peak cognitive, interpersonal and behavioral aptitude.  With this transformation in development, children will become the catalyst for equity, collaboration and peace. Initial evidence suggests this is not only possible but probable. History has shown that small increments of change are not enough to counteract the increasing levels of stress, fear and divisiveness in our society. We believe the key is simultaneously engaging a generation (all PK-12 kids) so they ELEVATE together. 

Currently Inner Explorer serves about 1 million students in 40,000 classrooms, along with teachers and some families. Our efforts this year are to expand to serve 2 million students and teachers while engaging many more families in the daily practices. In five years we intend to serve 8-10 million students and teachers with at least half the families joining in the practices.

Beyond expanding our reach to serve more students, teachers and families, we are also working to increase usage of our program. The industry average for online program usage is about 10%, which in our opinion will not be enough for sweeping and impactful change to break the cycles of poverty and despair. Inner Explorer already achieves 4x the industry average and we are aiming for 8-9x.

To support these efforts, we are improving the user interface and user experience, linking the cycle of practice more closely by creating easier access for families to join (for instance, teachers used to have to “invite” families, now they can self-select into the “classroom” that their student is in). We are embedding methods to inspire continued practice and offering additional tools to support those who want to deepen their practice beyond the 10 minutes per day.

We are also engaging those districts that are already operating at 8-9x with our programming to measure community results including those related to poverty, violence, substance abuse and mental health to demonstrate the links with daily mindfulness practice as early prevention and distal outcomes that result from this approach.

Change can be difficult. In fact Bill Gates famously noted that his foundation’s $1.5B of investment in education over the past decade, has netted virtually no gain in key outcomes including test scores, attendance, graduation rates, achievement gap or college/career readiness.  We believe this is because we haven’t gotten to the root of the issue- unmitigated or unmanaged stress, which changes brain development and creates disruptive and unhealthy habits of mind.

The barriers that currently exist include:

·       Lack of awareness of how the brain develops and is hindered by chronic stress which perpetuates school and life failure

·       Lack of understanding how mindfulness practice can counteract the negative effects of stress and can bolster cognitive function

·       Lack of funding for true prevention efforts (which are significantly less costly and more effective). For instance, when a person is suicidal or addicted to substances, “prevention” funding becomes urgent and oriented to try to stop those things from continuing.  These are costly interventions, tens of thousands of dollars per person,which often need to be repeated since they have limited long term success. However, true prevention is the effort to stop the development of suicide and addiction from ever becoming part of the habits of mind. Training kids to process challenges and traumas in healthier ways (as they occur) will negate the need to “escape” emotional pain through substances or self-harm.  Inner Explorer’s mindfulness program is about $2/year through the PK-12 years (14 years), for a total of $28 per student!

We plan to overcome the obstacles noted above by:

·       Working directly with ELEVATE mentors to create messaging and campaigns to build awareness and excitement about this initiative

·       Collaborating with educators and mental health experts, with additional funding, to create simple to understand tools/infographics/video vignettes to tell the story of transformation

·       Aligning with researchers/policy makers, with additional funding, to develop a community impact ROI to make an even more compelling case to school districts (for direct purchase) and foundations (for multi-year grant commitments)

We partner with several organizations, some nationally, some regionally. For example, we have partnered with national education organizations including Discovery Education, Brain Futures and CASEL to promote the importance of mindfulness-based social emotional learning (MBSEL), a term we coined and is now widely used in our field.  This helps to increase awareness about the field. 

We partner with regional mindfulness training organizations including Calmer Choice, AHAM Education and the Mindfulness Kids Peace Summit to provide additional depth of content for educators, which helps to increase awareness within school districts. We also partner with after school and out of school organizations including the United Way, YMCA, Boys & Girls Clubs and Head Start Centers to reach as many children as possible, where ever learning is happening.  In all of these applications, mindfulness is the first step towards emotional regulation and learning readiness.  

Our business model is to provide daily mindfulness programming in preschool to high school classrooms (and after school locations), benefiting students, teachers and families through a school license. The school license is $1400 per year and includes analytics, tools and family access.  The proven return on investment is 167% when calculating only the reduction in suspension days and increase in attendance.  When considering reduced teacher turnover, the ROI is over 1000% (since teacher turnover cost approximately $20,000/teacher and the current rate of turnover is approximately 10% per year)

Plus calculating actual costs doesn’t show the most important impact, which is that it bolsters human potential.  When every child identifies his purpose and passion and has the capacity to achieve; when she is creative and compassionate in the face of challenges, when he is collaborative and open to diversity of thought, of background and experience, when she is excited and ready for the possibility of peace, our collective future will be secure, equitable and just.

When we founded Inner Explorer in 2011, we funded the operation and research ourselves and worked for free. Since then we have increased donations and foundation funding, as well as earned revenue. Our goal is to be fully self-sustaining within 5 years, using donation and foundation funding for place-based efforts/expansion into new markets.

For instance in our first year of operation, our revenue was 100% donations, with no earned revenue. In fiscal 2020, just completed, our total revenue of $1.5M was 25% earned, 10% donation and 65% foundation grants. This year (fiscal 2021) we project 32% earned, 10% donation and 58% foundation grants. By fiscal 2026 we project 80% earned (which will cover base operations), 5% donations and 15% foundation grants.

Some detail provided above.

While we have had success so far raising funds and impacting 1 million children per year, we know that to create lasting change, it will require a committed multi year investment. Our goal is to engage a handful of well-aligned foundations to commit to 3-5 years of sustained funding so that we can make the strategic long term moves required to fully embed daily mindfulness practice into the education system.

We are on a fiscal calendar (matched to public schools), so for the current fiscal 2021 (July 1 2020 – June 30 2021) our expense budget is $1.3M.  We have raised $900k already.  With additional funding, we can accelerate the development and outreach efforts to reach more children faster.

The key challenge we face is building awareness, in the education field, with parents, with funders, with policy makers. Awareness is part funding to pay for outreach, social media and marketing, and part relationships.  Both will be significantly supported if we win the Elevate Prize.

Since awareness building is a key need (similar to how daily teeth brushing became something everyone did once awareness campaign was in place), we need to increase our reach with influencers, policy makers and state/national decision makers. As such we would benefit from relationships with influencers who embrace mindfulness like Anderson Cooper, Oprah, Ellen, NBA, Olympic Athletes, top corporate leaders.  

We would benefit from funding to create high quality marketing and video tools to share the importance of stress resilience and learning readiness to national and international audiences.

We would also benefit by being on a national stage for events like TEDxEdu, SXSW that are well attended/well watched. As well, connecting with WHO-SDG's leaders in education and wellbeing and Dept of Ed leaders in the US and other target countries would allow us the opportunity to have a broader conversation beyond program and towards shifting/transforming our collective view of education.