The School System Failed Her Son So She Built Her Own Solution

Chanda Spates needed a babysitter for her 17-year-old son.

Not because he was immature because severe bullying had led to a suicide attempt and she was terrified to leave him alone.

Her desperate Facebook post asking for help went viral and revealed a shocking truth: she wasn't alone.

Today, Chanda's Flourish Foundation Project is revolutionizing suicide prevention by meeting kids where they actually are—spending 7-8 hours a day on social media and music platforms.

This is how one mom's crisis became a movement that's saving lives.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Shonda and Flourished Foundation
• 1:06 From Crisis Mom to Mission
• 3:26 Bullying, Zero Tolerance, and Harm
• 7:35 System Failure and Safety Gaps
• 10:15 Peer-Led, After-School Ecosystem
• 12:20 Where Kids Are: Feeds, Games, Music
• 14:18 Algorithms, Amplifiers, and Micro-Lessons
• 16:40 Empower Kids, Train Communities
• 18:10 Not Alone: Building a Network
• 29:44 Host Closing and Share the Message

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Rise from the Ashes podcast. I am so excited to have this next guest. Her name is Shonda. Don't ask me to pronounce second names because most people who know me forget it. I don't do the second names, always get them wrong, so I just apologize in advance. Shonda, you do a huge amount in the nonprofit area. Please tell the world who you are and a bit about what you do and your passions.

SPEAKER_01: 0:31

Absolutely. Thank you. First of all, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. But yes, I am Shonda Spates, and I am the founder of Flourished Foundation Project. We're a nonprofit organization and we are we do double duty. So we do suicide prevention and engaging ways for kids. We're also a community behavior mental health services provider. So that is our new thing that we're doing. It was just workshops and after-school programs. We're moving into the counseling area as well based on high demand. But we are looking at doing things that reach kids where they are, that remove stigma from mental health, and always with the sole and main purpose of saving kids' lives from suicide.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

Bessie, that's a huge amount of responsibility work. But I also I presume, and I'm assuming it's a huge amount of gratification as well.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

Absolutely. I am a self-described mom on a mission. So that's where I came from. Because I was, this is not what I studied or my career path that I thought it would be. I fell into this because my oldest son was being bullied pretty severely at school and he attempted to take his life. And after that, we dealt with suicide ideation and needing a babysitter for a 17-year-old. So it was a hard road. And then I got on social media one day and just said, hey, I'm looking for a babysitter for a 17-year-old because I'm scared to leave him home while I go to work. So that was a reality of it. And I went from about 300 and some odd people on my page to 5,000 in two days because it started going and people were sharing it. And I found out that I wasn't alone. And a lot of times you feel like you are. And there's some unique challenges to that I had to figure out in the midst of doing everything else in life. And that is what it's been a couple of years removed now. So now he's fine, he survived, and he actually helps with my business. But at the time, going through it, there weren't a lot of resources. Resources were disjointed, and you just don't know what to do and where to go. And that's what I want to address with our nonprofit. And then also on the other side of it is kids are the most non-compliant patients. They're just not gonna do it. I don't want to talk to that guy. I don't know that guy. It's not what they want to do, it's not how they communicate, it's not how what resonates with them. So it was a hard road. But for me and my son, we found music therapy. And out of that, in certain states, it's available, some other states it's not as common. Sometimes insurance covers it, sometimes it doesn't. So we looked at just doing a gap analysis. I do gap analysis or did gap analysis for businesses as part of my corporate career before this. And I did a gap analysis on suicide. What works, what doesn't work, what is driving it, what is more effective. And then created that into a program first to help my son. But then when we started doing it, more people asked for it. And that's how we got into making it a nonprofit and doing a thing. And now it's moving a little bit faster than I can keep up with because we're one of the few organizations that truly incorporate youth into our solution. So I'm not doing something and hoping kids get it. We're our kids are on our board. We make sure that we are reaching kids where they are and how it resonates with them and getting that feedback so we can make sure that we're doing the right things that reach them. Because we have the greatest program in the world, but if they don't want to do it and it doesn't ignite their interest, then it's for nothing. And that's where we are.

SPEAKER_00: 4:43

I love what you stand for, what you do. I was bullied as a kid at school, sure. That person they're listening can, if they if you've been bullied, relate to this and they know the struggles firsthand. But to go through it as a mother and watch your someone you love and brought into this world, and go through that journey as a parent, I can I can't imagine I don't have kids that age, and I was I'm not that father my stepfather to uh adult kids and age parents who have touched me probably on this. They never go up, they're still going through something, and they're always learning. But when you found out that your child was going, this was happening at school, what was that feeling like if you don't mind sharing? Was it anger? Was it fear? Was it frustration?

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

Was it all of that at the same time? And then it got into uh so where we are here, we have at the school district, and it's still in place now. Whenever I can get to a place where I can, I would like to challenge it in court. But there is a zero tolerance policy, and the zero tolerance policy here where I live in Charlotte says that if you are involved in a fight, you get a mandatory 10-day suspension. My son has thermal palsy, had metal pins in his hips, does not have the physical ability to run. He can walk, but walked with a very significant limb. And he was getting beat up every couple of days by a gang present in this school. And I hesitate to call them gang because they were emulating a gang. But if you act like a gang, then I'm gonna call you what you look like. That's just being honest. If you're big and bold enough to act like a gang, then I'm gonna call it a gang because that's what you're saying. That you are, even if you're not in a normal area. So anyway, I digress, but it was concerned and then it was very quickly into an angry place, not being angry and rude or anything like that in the school, but at the lack of empathy that our school administrators had for my child, because he doesn't have the physical ability to run away. And literally, the assistant superintendent at my son's school at an IEP meeting when I was fighting a suspension, I think it was like the fourth suspension of the year, for something that he was jumped by nine people at that point, he suspended because he did a blow back. But what are you gonna do when nine people are puddling you and you're on the ground? What are you gonna do with that? And then kids were filming it so they can actually look at it. And I said, exactly what is he supposed to do? And this particular incident was on a school bus and the school bus is moving. And I said to the administrators, this child has cerebral palsy, metal pains in his hips. He's surrounded by kids that are beating him up. If he does not try to protect himself, what can he do? What should he do? And at that, and I have it recorded, like I literally have that meeting recorded. And the assistant superintendent at the time told my son to jump out the back of a moving bus.

unknown: 8:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 8:13

And that was it. That was it for me. I was fed up, done, and I looked for what else could I do to help him? And when I get to the place, I will go back and challenge that zero tolerance policy because zero tolerance policies don't work if you ignore sometimes that it makes it worse for certain groups of kids. If you have cerebral palsy, if you are disabled, then how can you flee that situation? And he has been rushed by ambulance from school on two separate occasions, two concussions. He literally is fearing for his life when nine people are beating you up. And one time it was 22. On several occasions, the school has called me and said, Hey, we can't protect him. Can you come and pick him up? And their answer was to put him in an alternative school for, and I said, Absolutely not. You've got these kids that act like a gang, but you refuse to treat them like a gang. And they did not want to suspend them because there was too many of them. They didn't want to suspend 20 some odd kids at one time. So to me, our children's safety matters the most. And if you're bold enough to act like a criminal, then you need to be treated like a criminal. So that's just the harsh reality of it. It is our and there's lots of reasons. Social media glorifies some things that are not necessarily nice and things of that nature. So we have to figure out how do we get messages out there that counter these things in a way that children will receive it. So if it looks like and sounds like an adult trying to be hip and current, you know, just the fact that I said hip tells you that that's not what I think is gonna work. We have to know those things. So the best thing that we can actually do from a standpoint of going through the research, and I have white papers and different things, there's academic publishing coming out about it. But we have this has to be a peer-led movement, and that's what this is. So we have an after-school program here in Charlotte. That program hosts a podcast that is and a radio station that is run by children. So the messages that need to be said are being said in the language that they understand and that they resonate with. That is the best thing that we can do. And then our therapists and our mentors are that second level to make sure that the right things are being said. But of course, it's supplemented with therapy in group sessions so many times a week, depending on what that is needed for that child or if that child needs it. But I think this is the approach that needs to happen so that we're taking a common sense approach to mental health and suicide ideation and just applying those things together. The so it's a youth-led mission. It is reinforced with celebrities and influencers and things that people that kids look up to, sharing those messages. And thank you. You actually did our first our video for that for our Every 11 Minutes campaign, is share those messages because they need to see it. And then we need to put it where they are. We're doing a whole lot of things in school, and a lot of kids are not wanting to hear that. There's stigma behind it. But what we do know, and what the studies and tell us is that after school hours, so I'm not talking about durance, but I'm saying after school, kids are spending an average of seven and a half to eight hours a day consuming music, video games, and social media. Eight hours a day. So when they get out of school, they're scrolling in this sleep. This is where these messages need to be. This is where we need to say, hey, if you are being bullied today, this is what you can do. Here's what you can actually do. Here's how that algorithm is making you spiral into these sad, mad, depressive states. And keep that in kid-fridling language so that they know what they're doing and what they can actually do about it. How do we counter out that? So we are putting these messages in the music. We have an entire album that is produced by some pretty major producers and kids. So we have Jay Stiles, formerly of Blackstreet, Cody Pollard, who's out of Nashville, and Dallas Austin from the Dallas Austin Foundation for Music Education. So we put mental health strategies in song. So now it sounds like what they hear on the radio, but it teaches you a life-saving skill in the music. That's what I'm talking about. So this is not, this is different. This is truly different, and it pull truly meets kids where they are.

SPEAKER_00: 13:06

I love this from personal experience that you went through as a mother. Identifying where the gaps were and understanding that the system, the education system, the schooling system, essentially was corrupt and broken, which is what it is, and it has been for many reasons for a very long time. And I think the most of the population in the US know this for one reason or another. I don't know the stats and percentages, but as I know, it's very high with bullying, people having experience whether they're related to somebody in their family or they've been through it themselves. It's got to be in the I would say 80s at least. I again I don't know the stats, so if I'm wrong, please forgive me. But all of it is not about now. You're looking to take a system, a narrative that is less than adequate, we'll say that politely, and actually turn on its head and create support, momentum going forward to stop what happened to your son happened to other people.

SPEAKER_01: 14:20

Absolutely. Is what can we do to do it differently so that it resonates with children and also because we then empower and ignite children so that they can be their own health. I love how frank your podcast is. I'm gonna just say it like it is. Hopefully, what is this for?

SPEAKER_00: 14:37

Please.

SPEAKER_01: 14:38

We have the system where sometimes we sugarcoat things and we have to stop doing that. We have to just be frank and see where this is it is what it is, right? So we have a system that is broken and callous.

unknown: 14:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 14:51

So that's one thing. And then we have this thing where we are seeing more and more school shootings. And I dare to say that those are related to citization. When those kids go in, young adults go back to these schools, they it's in my opinion, and again, I am not a therapist, but we do employ several, they're not intending to come out of those situations alive. It let me end mine, or I don't want to end my own, but let me do something so drastic that somebody else will end this for me. So we have to look at that from that standpoint. So when we develop this program, it's truly an ecosystem. It's three level pieces or three big pieces. So it is an after-school enrichment program where we talk to kids, let the kids be the first line of defense. Now that's important because how many times have you seen on the news when there's a school shooting and they interview someone, a child or teacher, and they say, Oh, this child was doing this, they were withdrawn, they were this, they were acting out, they made these kind of pictures. They were, they mentioned doing something hurt someone else, or this happened to them. We see that time and time again. And I got tired of seeing that on the news because I didn't see what happens when that happens, who's getting told, who's being alerted. And I see the interviews and I saw the interviews so many times of after the fact. And of course, hindsight is 2020, but our kids see those things first. When you look at the school system, and again, I'm not the school system cannot do everything. We they are not the parents. We have to come together and do this, and that's what this is about. But kids see it first that we are least likely to train the kids. How many kids are trained in QPR suicide prevention strategies? How many kids are getting CPR training? There are some it's a movement now where you have to do it before your senior year, but if you're not getting it until your senior year, what's happening before that? And even with QPR, which is the question refer, sorry, question, persuade, refer, you can't do that with children under the age of 16. So we literally have a nation that has no answer under 16.

SPEAKER_00: 17:22

That's just unacceptable, it's unacceptable.

SPEAKER_01: 17:25

Unacceptable, and then I want you to guess the youngest case of suicide in a child in the United States was what age? Just didn't guess.

SPEAKER_00: 17:42

I would guess seven or eight.

SPEAKER_01: 17:46

Exactly. Five, then eight, then eleven. So if that's happening.

SPEAKER_00: 17:51

That just blows me away.

SPEAKER_01: 17:53

If that is happening and we don't have any type of answer that we can give to kids until they're 16, what's gonna happen? And then when you look at which schools are targeted, it's elementary. But why can't we do that in an age-appropriate way? That this isn't safe. This is when you should tell a teacher. There's ways to do it. So my I am just taking quite honestly a common freaking sense approach to saving kids' lives. And that's what we're doing. And if we don't empower them to save their own lives, look at this one right here. I had this one, I did an interview with women not saving, but he was an advisor for the office of president, not in this administration, but a prior administration until very recently. But he's the advisor for active shooter preparedness for schools. And we had a conversation, and that conversation lasted way longer than our interview did because we just kept going. But he's there's only so many things that we can actually do. We because of funding, we train the teachers. But if a shooter walks into a school and shoots up a classroom of kids, let's say five kids are hit, if the only person in that room that can do a tourniquet that knows to put on pressure to save a life is the teacher. And sometimes there's a co-teacher in there, then you're gonna automatically lose four out of five kids. And that, while we can't always prevent the shooting, we can proactively prepare them better. And it doesn't have to be a scary thing. It's just if we can do it for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, why can't we do it any other way? And understand it goes into a funding thing, but that's where we have to come in together as a community, where we're looking at what can we do to make these solutions, which is what Flourish Foundation is doing. But then we have this collaborative network so far of 138 organizations and a couple of national brands too, but we're coming together and saying, that's not okay. I need to save my kids' life, I want to save yours too. So now what can we do to put out stigma-free, proactive, and preventive measures? Because if we can talk to kids and say, this is what you do when you feel down, now we can prevent some of those things that are happening with CSI ideation because we're telling them how to deal with it here, the coping strategies before it happens. And then if it does happen, here's how you ask for help. And if you see your peer going through it, this is how you refer that, and this is who you tell. Those are the things that are missing. We're training teachers and asking so much of teachers. And I'm a former teacher, special education, grade six through eight in a self-contained classroom. So I I know from what I speak. We cannot do it all. We are not the parents. There are some things they have to get at home, but if they're not getting at home, we need programs and enrichment things to get it. And I want to make sure people understand it's not a race thing. It's not one particular get demographic because it universally fits or affects every single demographic. This is the one thing our nation can get behind. This is the one thing. I don't care what politics you have. We should all be able to unite in saving kids' lives. And that's where we need to be. So that is what my organization does. We figure out what will resonate with children and we ask them. We have a junior board of kids and young adults that help guide what we do and what we make. So that's what we actually do. And then we go in and say, hey, community, I need you to help with this. And this is what we're actually doing. So we have the album project, we have every 11 minutes, which is a campaign, meeting children where they are, meeting teens where they are, teens and young adults. So if they're gonna be spending seven and a half hours a day, and that's not an exaggeration, on social media and music platforms and ganging platforms, then that's where those messages need to be. We're plastering schools with posters, but kids eight hours a day are on social media, and you're trying to tell people to put it down, and they're not gonna do it. They're just not. So let's deal in the reality of can we take an 11-second message and put that where they already are? So while you're going through whatever you're going through and you're looking at it on social media, maybe you're going into kids will play a fight video from someone fighting in school. Now the algorithm tells them that they like fight videos. So guess what they get? They get their feed blasted with fight videos, and now you're wondering why your kid is fighting their sibling. Yeah. We didn't teach you that. What are you doing? So that's what happens, but we have to teach kids and empower them how to master those algorithms. So we have that, depending on what your grade level is, you can go in and do a game and it teaches you how to outsmart the algorithms. So if you see that you're getting emotional, if you see that you're getting angry and this is what you're doing, you have to go in and reset the algorithm and go purposely look for something different. And that one little strategy could be the difference between fights in school, between bullying and so many other things. So if we can teach those strategies within a couple of seconds, in the midst of while they're scrolling, that's what we need. And if we can reinforce that with the celebrities and the influencers that are saying, hey, this is the same thing. This is how I handle that. Now they heard the message from a peer. It was reinforced by someone that they look up to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:19

I love what you're speaking into now. The main one of the reasons this podcast exists is because of messages like this. And it's never about the podcast, it was never about me or the podcast. It's always always about people like you and the guest and their message, their mission, their drive, their passion. Because I know because of my own experience, the underdog is never served. The underdog is the person that just goes in the background and maybe they'll win, maybe they won't. But I love people like you who are hellbent and changing people's lives. You've done something and you hacked a system that is that most people only dream of. And I'm explain that and what I mean. So most people think marketing is trying to find the people and try and find your niche and then to communicate with them. But you did something to bypass all of that, and it's complete genius. You went for where the kids were hanging out already. You had the data, you just had to figure out how they would resonate with something that actually they would receive and then diet you know, digest and then take action on. Because people have this fellow entrepreneurs, I've seen enough now, and I was one of them, think marketing is sales, marketing is branding, marketing is your message. Marketing isn't any of them things. Market is a blanket word, but it doesn't distill down what that singular person wants. In your case, you have a message, you have a person, and you've brought the bridge to bridge them together and met them where they already hang out. That is 90% of the struggle. The other 10% is trying to find which is working, which is not working, what they're gonna resonate with, and there's some a load of other psychology with it. Now that's where the bit I come in because I dic dissect all the belief systems that are indoctrinated in children. I don't work with kids for a thousand reasons, and I'm not a therapist, but I can strip I'm very good at stripping down belief systems, value systems, and then rebuilding the identity over a longer period of time, and then the business stuff and all the rest of it. But what your message is very unique, and this is where I find it very interesting. I want to go into part two, was what you've got focus on now, other than the 11 minutes and that agenda, uh, that saga going off. But there's a few other things you've got going on that I want you to speak about in a few minutes. Before we end for part one, yeah, part one, because I've lost parts of where I'm going now. What's the main message for that child listening to this or that parent listening to this? Coming from a perspective of I know how it feels.

SPEAKER_01: 27:37

Yes. So you the main message is you're not alone. And that's for the parents and for the kid. You are not alone. It feels like you're alone, but you're not. Someone is going through it right along with you, and we just have to the challenge, it's getting the courage to let someone know what you're dealing with because sometimes you can help each other. Like again, I went from 300 people to 5,000, and this whole foundation started as a babysitting network of parents that had kids dealing with this. That's where we started. And then it became Saturday lunches and brainstorming, what are we going to do next? And then we started inviting different people to say, hey, what about this? And who are the experts on this? And then it got too big to be in my den. And it became a business. And then I hate saying business, it's a nonprofit, but we have to run it that way as a business because it's so hard finding funding to do different things. So we had to find a way to make ourselves independently sustainable. So again, it is a business, but the business funds the mission. So everything just rolls right back into if we get this done, then we can do another program at another school. So that's how we run loss.

SPEAKER_00: 29:02

Yeah, I love that. Shana, thank you very much for your love, dedication, and openness here. I love interviewing people like yourself. I love doing this. This is never a job for me. And so it's never a chore. I love doing it. For myself, thank you for listening. Please share the message. One person, all it takes is to change a life. Stop someone doing something that cannot be undone. Shauna is a prime example of what is possible regarding a dream, a vision, and a bit of drive. Share the message, change someone's life. Remember, you are the miracle. I'll see you on part two.