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The following was written by and from the perspective of Henry Berman on the Exponent Philanthropy Blog.

I’ve come to think of myself as a storyteller. Not in the sense of a professional who can weave a tale, but rather someone who listens, observes, reflects, and then shares.

My first life—the one before nonprofits and philanthropy—was in film, video, multimedia, and communications. I also studied education, and my success was found at their intersection—fusing the disciplines of communications and learning to change audiences’ behaviors.

As I moved into the world of nonprofits as a board member, fundraiser, and, in one instance, a museum founder, I’ve brought a film director’s perspective of considering the entire script first, before pushing in for the details and intimacy of the close-up.

When I was given the gift allowing me to add foundation trustee to my resume, the same skills I honed as a storyteller became infused in my work, as I hope they are in yours. Perhaps more than anything, a good story has the power to make us think and act.

As you work with funders, volunteers, board members, and colleagues, you want your story to shine. Which means that you need to tell it the way you want, lest someone else tells it for you.

How then do you do this?

If you read up on storytelling, you’ll find many techniques and lots of “how to” advice for crafting a good story. I encourage you to find and study those resources, keeping in mind that not all of them will work for you every time. Find those that resonate and build on them.

In my case, I keep returning to two basic mantras that for decades have served as my guide and kept me grounded: (1) take the audience from the familiar to the unfamiliar, and (2) always make sure they can see themselves in the story.

Let’s unpack those from a nonprofit’s perspective.

Take the audience from the familiar to the unfamiliar

Imagine for a moment your nonprofit provides programming using art to support the social and emotional growth of children with autism. Now also imagine you want to explain your work to someone with no understanding of this kind of treatment—or perhaps even autism.

Too often we tend to jump directly to speaking about the results, without any context. We arrive at the destination, but our listeners miss the richness of the journey.

Now think if you craft a story that begins by asking if anyone in the audience has been involved in creating art. Painting or photography, perhaps. Or spent time admiring art—maybe while visiting a local museum. Then you might ask how they felt. Did it calm them? Did it allow them to express feelings in reaction to the experience?

In doing this, you’re directing them to the path you want them to follow. You’ve focused them on what they know and possibly experienced: the opportunity art offers for expression. And, from there, it’s a few short steps to showing the parallels to your work.

Make sure the audience see themselves in the story

Making sure your audience can see themselves in the story involves a similar way of thinking. Let’s use the same example and assume you’re asking funders to support your organization.

As you tell your story, keep your audience front of mind. Think about how your story can become their story. Think about it as the gateway into their imagination where they can see potential. Where they can dream, think, and go beyond boundaries to consider new possibilities for support, cooperation, involvement, and more.

I suggest you include the thoughts of someone whose child or grandchild has benefited from your program—ideally someone similar to those in your audience. You want your audience to hear their own voices.

Film director and storyteller Sidney Lumet (think 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Fail-Safe, and Serpico among many others) said, “While the goal of all movies is to entertain, the kind of film in which I believe, goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.”

Isn’t that exactly what you want with your stories? To prime others to engage with your worthy cause?

One final note to my fellow funders reading this post: A compelling story told in a way that engages requires an audience willing to listen. Open your eyes, ears, and mind to the stories of your community and consider how hand-in-hand you can craft the story’s next chapter.

Read more on ExponentPhilanthropy.org.

When we first see Elizabeth Bennett, in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice, she is walking through a field, surrounded by birdsong and trees. Nature, for Jane Austen’s heroines, is always a source of solace and inspiration. And as Florence Williams shows in her new book, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, modern technology is now revealing what goes on in our brains when we step outdoors—and why nature is so good for us.

When National Geographic caught up with Williams by phone in Washington, D.C., she explained why even a house plant can make us feel good, why the practice of “forest bathing” is now supported by the Japanese government, and how trees can lower the murder rate in our cities.

National Geographic: You open your book with a simple question: “What makes people happy? Does place matter, or not so much?” Tell us about the Mappiness project—and what you call “our epidemic dislocation from the outdoors.”

Williams: The Mappiness project was developed in the U.K. by a happiness researcher called George MacKerron. It’s a brilliant idea, which tries to capture in real time what people are doing and how it makes them feel. I downloaded this app onto my phone and used it for about a year. The way it works is, it pings you at random times a couple of times a day and gives you a list of options. Are you driving, doing childcare, cooking, hanging out with friends? Are you outside or inside and how are you feeling? Like, “I feel happy, not so happy.”

At the end of the year I got my data, which showed how I was spending my time and which activities made me feel a certain way. I try to spend a lot of time outside, make an effort to exercise. But I was shocked at how few times the app caught me doing those things; and how often it caught me doing things that didn’t give me a lot of satisfaction. Things like commuting or doing chores.

One of the things I found out was that most people are not that happy when they are at work. They’re happiest when they are on vacations, with friends, making or listening to music. One of the surprising finds was that they’re also very, very happy when they are outside.

The epidemic dislocation from the outdoors, as I call it, has been occurring for the last several decades but has gone very little remarked upon. Children, adults, we are all spending vastly less amounts of time outside than we used to. For example, 70 percent of today’s mothers in the U.S. recalled playing outdoors every day as children but only 26 percent of them say their kids play outside daily. That’s a huge change. After school, kids used to come home, meet up with their friends, and go run around the neighborhood. I used to do that. Now kids are totally scheduled. If they are outside, it’s with adults in some organized sporting activity. There’s not that free, exploratory play that a lot of experts think children need in order to gain a strong sense of themselves and learn social skills and problem solving.

National Geographic: You write, “Science is now bearing out what the Romantic poets knew to be true.” Tell us what the latest neuroscience is telling us about the therapeutic effects of nature.

Williams: The Romantic poets emerged during the dawn of industrialization. They saw tremendous benefits to being in places that weren’t crowded or dirty, that were more pastoral, like the Alps. The alpine tour took off in the late 18th century to early 19th century. What was unique about it was that it wasn’t about finding peace in God or finding religion. It was about this more immediate connection to nature and how that spurred our spiritual imaginations, how being in more rural, natural environments made us whole as people. You see it in writers like Wordsworth, Coleridge, or Rousseau but also in novelists, like Jane Austen, whose heroines always go marching out when they’re upset or need to work something out.

Today, technology is allowing neuroscientists to take some of their measurement devices into the field, like these portable EEG units that are capable of measuring brain waves, away from the lab. Neuroscientists, especially in the U.K. and U.S., are starting to look at how people’s brains respond to different environments. What they’re seeing is that if their volunteers are walking through a city or noisy area, their brains are doing different things than if they are walking in a park. The frontal lobe, the part of our brain that’s hyper-engaged in modern life, deactivates a little when you are outside. Alpha waves, which indicate a calm but alert state, grow stronger. When psychologists talk about flow there seems to be a lot of alpha engagement there. Buddhist monks, meditators, are also great at engaging alpha waves.

National Geographic: A study in Illinois even showed that proximity to nature can lower the murder rate. Do we just need to plant trees and we can dispense with cops?

Williams: [Laughs] In Illinois, Frances Kuo looked at housing projects with a lot of trees versus those without trees, and she found a lower crime rate and lower rates of aggression. She thought that exposure to nature was an indirect but still significant effect. It wasn’t necessarily because the trees were causing people to be less violent. It was that living in a place with trees created an environment where neighbors spent more time outside, hanging out in their courtyards, talking to each other. These social connections were facilitated by green space. It’s a very interesting and under-recognized aspect of green space.

National Geographic: One of the pioneers of urban parks was Frederick Law Olmsted. He’s one of your heroes, isn’t it?

Williams: He is! He was kind of like Zelig; he kept showing up in significant parts of American history. He was a journalist for a while and spent time in the pre-Civil War South documenting slavery. He made some very cogent arguments against it, and was one of the first people to do that for a major newspaper. As a restless child, he didn’t like school but he loved trees and tramping through the countryside. Later, while spending time in California working as a mining engineer, he saw Yosemite and made some of the first, most cogent arguments about why Yosemite should be protected.

Then, of course, he designed Central Park, one of the most famous parks in the world, and went on to design city parks all over the U.S.. What he did that was different and significant was that he recognized that people needed nature in order to get along with one another, in order to be their best selves, that it was a place where people could let off steam, especially the working classes, who normally didn’t have access to green spaces. Beautiful parks were the preserve of the gentry and Olmstead recognized that there was a class injustice with regard to access to beautiful spaces. He had a social mission to create parks that could be used by all people, which is a fundamentally democratic idea. He distributed flyers to doctors’ offices in poor neighborhoods all over New York City telling doctors: Please tell your patients to go to Central Park because it will help them feel better! [Laughs] He was way ahead of his time!

National Geographic: In Japan, people do something called shinrin yoku, or “forest bathing.” Tell us about Yoshifumi Miyazaki and the health benefits of this practice.

Williams: [Laughs] It’s not exactly a bath. Forest bathing refers to being in an environment where all your senses are engaged. Something researchers in Japan recognized about urban life is that when we are indoors we rely mostly on our eyes and ears, but our other senses are underutilized. They think this is partly related to why outdoor environments make our stress levels go down. We can hear the sound of a creek gurgling, feel the wind blowing on our cheeks or smell the aroma of the woods, especially in Japan where there are lots of wondrous cypress trees.

Our sensory system evolved in the natural world and when we’re in those spaces, our brains become relaxed because these are things that we were designed to look at, hear and to smell. Miyazaki is one of the researchers who are trying to quantify this kind of mystical experience by measuring people’s heart rates, blood pressure, and cortisol levels. They have made some amazing discoveries. For instance, our immune cells, or “natural killer cells,” which fight cancer, increase in forests. As a result, Japan now has 48 therapy trails. The forest service is taking this seriously, as a public health benefit. They’re medicalizing the forest!

National Geographic: Soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan sometimes suffer from severe PTSD. Tell us about the river-rafting trip you did with a program called Higher Ground.

Williams: It’s one of the neatest things I’ve ever done. I was invited on an all-women’s rafting trip for six days down the Salmon River, in the middle of the largest wilderness area in the lower 48, continental U.S. The participants were all veterans from various U.S. wars; some were older, some younger women, some had been in combat inadvertently because they had been driving convoys on roads that were filled with bombs. Some had experienced what we call “military sexual trauma,” or MST, which unfortunately is very common.

They suffered from a range of physical and also severe psychological wounds. Some hadn’t left their homes in months or suffered from tremendous anxiety and depression, yet they were brave, tough women who had been in the armed services. Here was an opportunity for them to be together and experience nature. At the beginning, they were very withdrawn and angry. So I could watch them come out of their shells as the days went by. They told me they were sleeping better than they had slept in months, laughing with each other and gaining renewed confidence in their physical abilities because they were paddling these inflatable kayaks, doing things independently, which they hadn’t done in a long time. They were also in an environment that was calm and visually interesting. So they were able to bond with each other, socially, which is something the wilderness provides. It was potentially life-altering experience for them. And it was great for me, too.

National Geographic: Tell us about “the nature pyramid” and other practical strategies you can pass on to readers to use to get a bit more nature into our lives?

Williams: The nature pyramid is the idea that nature is something we have every day. One of the things we’re recognizing is that, like other medicines, nature follows a dose curve. A little bit of nature is helpful; a little more nature is even more helpful. If we think about how to access a little bit of nature in our daily lives, that’s a great start: house plants, going for walks on streets with trees and, as you move further up the pyramid, making an effort maybe once a month to go to a nature preserve or park outside the city. We are so fortunate in America. We have these incredible wilderness spaces and national parks, and science is showing that when we spend time in those spaces, it can be tremendously helpful for our sense of self, for problem solving, social bonding, and rites of passage.

In Finland, public health officials now recommend that citizens get 5 hours a month, minimum, in the woods, in order to stave off depression. This is evidence-based. They found that people need this time in order to preserve their mental health. A lot of Asian countries have also figured out that nature should be a fundamental part of democracy; that it’s a human right and a necessity. They try to incorporate nature into the fabric of everyday urban life. Nature isn’t something apart from city life. Nature is a part of it. In Singapore, they have the City In A Garden concept. You can’t build a skyscraper now without incorporating greenery on to the building itself! People have gardens on the roofs or on walls. Public housing projects have beautiful courtyards. I found that very impressive!

Learn more on NationalGeographic.com.

The idea of arts on prescription and social prescribing may seem like a new one, but it is actually more than 10 years since UK government policy first referenced linking patients with non-medical support in the community.

In the past couple of years, however, calls for the arts to be a core component of social prescribing in the UK have been growing. A recent report by Arts Council Wales, for example, has backed the idea. And, last summer, recommendations were put forward by an all-party parliamentary group for clinical commissioning groups, NHS trusts and local authorities to incorporate arts on prescription into their commissioning plans and redesign care pathways where appropriate.

At present there are a number of arts on prescription programmes operating around the UK – encompassing all kinds of human creativity including seated dance, creative writing, forum theatre and object handling in museums. There is a growing body of evidence which shows that different arts being prescribed have a positive impact on a variety of health conditions. One recent review, for instance, reported ten key benefits for those involved in these kinds of schemes. They included self esteem and confidence boosts, physical health improvements, better social connections and the acquisition of new skills.

But why the arts? Social prescribing aims to address the social causes of ill health and give people the support they need – such as advice about benefits, employment and housing. It can also include access to exercise, volunteering, and arts and creative activities. So it may seem like an advice system might be just as useful – but actually prescribing specific arts activities can have some unique benefits.

Mental health and wellbeing

There is growing evidence that several different types of arts schemes are not only cost effective, but can improve wellbeing and have a positive impact on levels of anxiety and depression.

Take singing, for example. Research has demonstrated that it can have a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing. In fact, several studies undertaken with older people have found that community singing appears to have a significant effect on their quality of life – helping ameliorate the effects of anxiety and depression. In addition, findings from a recently published study have demonstrated that new mothers taking part in singing and music groups experience a faster reduction in post-natal depression symptoms than those in control groups.

As we age, we are at risk of experiencing loneliness and social isolation through loss of social networks, as well as facing new limitations as a result of decreasing physical health. The arts can create social connections – and research has shown that participation in arts programmes enables older people to get in touch with others and extend existing networks of support in their communities, helping to alleviate loneliness and isolation.

The ongoing project, “Creative Journeys”, is looking at ways that the arts can help build social relationships in residential care homes. The study is due to finish in October 2018, but early indications are that the arts activities increase social interactions between residents, and between residents and staff with improved mood and wellbeing as a result.

Not only does evidence suggest participation in the arts may delay the onset of dementia, but also that it can impact on cognitive functioning, through stimulating memories, and attention. In addition, art-making can improve the mood, confidence and social engagement, of people living with dementia, and has been shown to enhance the relationship between the carer and the cared for.

Long-term conditions

Arts activities are also effective alongside treatment of a number of long-term conditions. Music, singing and visual arts can all improve confidence and the quality of life of people with stroke, for example. People living with Parkinson’s disease who take part in group singing and dance experience improvements in their voice and movements too.

In addition, the British Lung Foundation supports singing groups for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – and research has indicated that there are improvements in lung function and quality of life for people who join “singing for breathing” groups.

Whether it is traditional art lessons, joining a community singing group, or any other creative activity, the evidence is clear: participating in these activities has a positive impact on health and wellbeing.

Read more on TheConversation.com

The following was written by and from the perspective of Tom Vellner, a staff member at BuzzFeed.

In my final therapy session before I would move from Boston to New York, and after eight months of hard work sorting through my anxiety, my therapist said to me, “You have all the tools you need to nail this.”

“Do I???” I said, second guessing everything before I made the leap to a new city. But it’s been almost two years since that last session — and she was right. Whenever I find myself feeling anxious, I recall a tip or mantra from our sessions that calms me down. They’ve become second nature at this point.

Here are the tools I find most helpful on a daily basis:

Talk to yourself like you would a friend.

It only took one session for my therapist to say, “Let’s work together to figure out why you’re so hard on yourself.” She didn’t need much time to realize that I put a lot of pressure on myself and try to please other people too much. So, she advised me to talk to myself like a friend. I would never say, “Everyone will hate you if you don’t go to that party this weekend,” to a friend if they really needed some time to chill, so why would I say that to myself? To quote RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

Say irrational thoughts out loud.

If I’m ever having a completely irrational thought when I’m by myself, like, “I shouldn’t have texted [person] — they probably think I’m so clingy and they’re going to tell all of their friends how weird I am,” I say it out loud so I can hear how it really sounds and challenge it with logic. It was just a text! It’s easy to go ’round and ’round in your mind, convincing yourself you are, in fact, the clingiest person to have ever walked the planet, but actually hearing the words come out of your mouth lets you realize how absurd that idea actually is. Moral of the story: Don’t believe everything you think.

Focus on your breathing.

Whenever I feel my mind getting crowded with stressful thoughts, my therapist told me to stop for just 10 seconds — whether I’m on the subway, in bed, or wherever — and focus on nothing but my breathing. I stare at something in front of me (not concentrating on it, just using it to anchor my vision) and focus on each inhale and exhale. It brings me back to the moment, and helps me get to the bottom of whatever is stressing me out — instead of overanalyzing, I’m just letting the emotion arise naturally and present itself to me.

Learn to say no.

Like I mentioned earlier, I used to care way too much about pleasing everyone around me. I was afraid to say no — whether someone was asking me for help or inviting me to an event. I thought they would be sad or angry or disappointed with me if I didn’t say yes to everything, until my therapist said something so simple that I remember on the daily: “They’re adults. They can handle it.” If your mental health would benefit from saying no, say no. If the person is upset with your decision, they just have to deal! It’s not on you to manage their emotions.

Move your body when you’re anxious.

One of the first things my therapist told me to do to ease anxiety is to get up and move — whether that means walking, running, going for a ride, or just dancing around your living room. Sitting in the same place stewing in your anxiety isn’t doing you any good. Moving your body will help clear your head, boost your endorphins, and channel all of that nervous energy into something active. Anxiety usually makes me feel trapped, so by walking around the block, I give my mind and body the sensation of forward motion: I’m not stuck, I’m progressing.

Recognize what can set you off.

If you know that being around a certain person or going to a specific place will trigger your anxiety, take steps to prepare emotionally (if you can’t avoid the situation altogether). Come up with ways to refocus your energy and attention. For example, try as I might, I know that I’m going to feel a little anxious when I’m in a crowded movie theater or Broadway show, so I try to make sure I can get the aisle seat so that I feel less trapped, or I bring a little something with me that I can fidget with in my hand, like a stress ball.

Practice “child’s pose.”

I’m not a regular yogi, but my therapist taught me that whenever I’m feeling anxious, an easy yoga position I can practice at home to soothe my anxiety is child’s pose. All you have to do is kneel, sit on your heels, and stretch your arms out in front of you, letting your head relax onto your yoga mat or a pillow. Nothing feels better than a good stretch in the morning, so I actually look forward to doing this pose when I wake up. If only all exercise could be done in bed.

Replace “but” with “and.”

When I first started seeing my therapist, I had just moved in with my boyfriend, which (spoiler!) is a big life change. I said something to her along the lines of: “I’m so glad I moved in with him, but I really miss having my own space, so, like, what gives? I thought this is what I wanted.” She asked me, “Why does it have to be a ‘but’?” My desire for more alone time, she explained, didn’t negate my decision to move in with my boyfriend. Replacing “but” with “and” (“I’m so glad I moved in with him, and I miss having my own space”) allowed me to make room for both emotions, instead of driving myself nuts like, “WHAT IS THE TRUTH?” I was able to shift my focus from conflict to resolution: finding ways we could still be independent in our shared apartment.

Remember that progress isn’t linear.

I may not be nearly as anxious as I was when I first started therapy a couple of years ago, but I’m only human, so I still have days when I feel nervous or blue. And that’s fine! We’ve all been there. As my therapist reassured me, having a bad day doesn’t mean that all of the progress I’ve made is suddenly null and void. There are going to be ups and downs. Always know that what you’re feeling isn’t permanent, so while it’s here, remember that it’s OK not to be OK.

Read more and find more posts about therapy at BuzzFeed.com.

Starting in prekindergarten, black boys and girls were disciplined at school far more than their white peers in 2013-2014, according to a government analysis of data that said implicit racial bias was the likely cause of these continuing disparities.

The analysis, issued Wednesday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, said students with disabilities and all boys also experienced disproportionate levels of discipline. But black students were particularly overrepresented: While they constituted 15.5 percent of public school students, they accounted for 39 percent of students suspended from school.

The disparity was worse for children of color in prekindergarten: Black students accounted for 19 percent of preschool students in public schools, but represented 47  percent of students suspended from preschool. Boys of all groups accounted for 54 percent of the public school pre-K population, but 78 percent of those suspended.

Addressing why disparities in discipline exist, the GAO said research points to bias:  “Implicit bias — stereotypes or unconscious association about people — on the part of teachers and staff may cause them to judge students’ behaviors differently based on the students’ race and sex.”

The report was issued on the same day that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos held two forums to hear from people on both sides of the discipline issue, which has been controversial for years. The forums were closed to the press.

It has long been agreed that discipline disparities exist based on race and disability, but there is no consensus on what to do about it. The GAO report noted that research has shown that children suspended from school lose important instructional time, are less likely to graduate on time, and are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school and become involved in the juvenile justice system.

A study of California youth estimated that students who dropped out of high school because of suspensions would result in about $2.7 billion in costs for the state, stemming from lost wages and tax revenue, increased crime, and higher welfare and health costs.

In 2014, President Barack Obama issued guidance to schools in an attempt to end the disparities and to adopt milder disciplinary measures. DeVos has been considering whether to roll back that guidance, and heard from supporters and critics of the measure at the forums. At the first session, DeVos heard from supporters of the Obama-era guidance; the second session was devoted to those who oppose it.

Supporters say the Obama guidance is aimed at stemming the school-to-prison pipeline and allowing teachers and students to find ways to handle disciplinary problems that do not ostracize children or cause them to miss considerable classroom time. Critics say it has led to classrooms that are less safe because troubled students act out in the absence of robust discipline.

The data analyzed by the GAO found stark disparities for 2013-2014, the latest available information. It found:

• Boys as a group were overrepresented. They account for just over half of public school students. But they represented at least two-thirds of the students disciplined across each of six actions: out-of-school suspensions, in-school suspensions, referrals to law enforcement,  expulsions, corporal punishment and school-related arrests.
• A similar pattern was seen for students with disabilities compared to their peers without disabilities. Students with disabilities represented about 12 percent of public school students, but accounted for nearly 25 percent or more of students referred to law enforcement, arrested for a school-related incident or suspended from school.
• Black students with disabilities and boys with disabilities were disproportionately disciplined across all six actions.

The GAO wrote the report after analyzing discipline data from nearly all public schools for the 2013-2014 school year from the Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection. The study authors also interviewed federal and state officials, and officials from five school districts and 19 schools in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Texas. Those locations were selected based on disparities in suspensions for black students, boys, or students with disabilities, and diversity in size and location.

Some school districts reported to the GAO that they had realized the importance of finding alternatives to discipline that “unnecessarily removes children from the learning environment.” The report said:

Officials in all selected school districts reported they are implementing efforts to better address student behavior or reduce the use of exclusionary discipline. For example, officials in all school districts said that they are implementing alternative discipline models that emphasize preventing challenging student behavior and focus on supporting individuals and the school community, such as positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), restorative justice practices, and social emotional learning (SEL). For example, officials at a selected school district in Texas said they have implemented a classroom management model that uses positive behavior techniques.

To address racial bias, the report said, one school district in California said it had created a leadership team for equity, culture and support services, and developed a district-wide equity plan that includes mandatory training on implicit bias for principals.

Officials from that district also said they had recently changed a policy to increase the consistency of discipline actions across the district’s schools. Similarly, officials at a school district in Massachusetts reported they were working to build awareness among school leadership to address racial bias and the achievement gap through multiyear trainings. Officials we spoke with at a school within that district said they conduct trainings for staff on implicit bias and other related issues to reduce school discipline disparities. As some of the schools and districts we visited have begun implementing alternative discipline models and efforts to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline in recent years, we heard from officials in two districts that there has been difficulty with implementation due to limited resources, staffing turnover, and resistance on the part of some parents.

Read more on the WashingtonPost.com.

Vote from the finalists for this year’s 2018 Scattergood Innovation Award winner who will also recieve a $25,000 prize!

The Scattergood Foundation defines innovation as the process of translating an idea or discovery into a good or service that creates a new or different value improving the consumer/end user experience. The innovations the foundation seeks challenge how behavioral health care is currently viewed, organized, and practiced through the creation of catalytic concepts, products, processes, services, and/or technologies.

The public voting period ends Tuesday, April 24th at 12 p.m. EST.

Finalists: 

• Storiez: Narrative Healing with Inner City Youth

• Psychosis: Changing Perceptions through Art & Science

• MindRight

• Real Resilience

• Communities of HEALing, a groundbreaking and unprecedented approach to eating disorder recovery

Learn more and vote for your favorite innovation that’s advancing behavioral health equity at InnovationAward.com.