Page 30 - 2024 April report

GRANT PROGRAM COMMITTEE MINUTES (8)
Bea serves on Eye to Eye’s Governing Board. She commented that there are 3 alumni who serve on the Board, and they were part of the discussion about NDA. The challenge with the existing model is that schools are more restrictive today about who can be on their campuses. Bea then recused herself and left the meeting for the remainder of the discussion. A comment was made that Eye to Eye is not necessarily becoming something else. Rather, it’s the evolution of an organization to meet the changing needs of young people. It seems Eye to Eye is transitioning to be the leader of a movement to people with learning differences, in addition to providing services. The organization has good data collection, and it is transitioning from being the one creating the clubs to becoming a resource for student leaders. The organization is also becoming a resource for companies who are looking for neurodiverse candidates. In some ways there remains a sense of risk with this organization, almost as a venture capital investment.
The Committee voted unanimously, with Bea abstaining, to approve as presented an application from Eye to Eye for a 1:1 matching grant of $250,000 over 2 years in support of Eye to Eye’s Neurodiversity Alliance (NDA).
d. Weingarten Children’s Center
Bobby introduced Bill Doyle, Executive Director of Weingarten Children’s Center, who appeared before the Committee by Zoom. A proposal requesting a 1:1 matching grant of $450,000 over 3 years for the BabyTalk and Talk2Me programs had been circulated along with a report from a Zoom meeting on November 29, 2023 and a JSF summary of applicant financial information.
Bill said birth to age 3 is a vital neurological window in which learning can’t be regained once missed. Weingarten’s approach is about getting children to understand listening and spoken language and to provide a foundation for kindergarten. Weingarten’s parents want to speak to their children and for the children to succeed academically and socially. The goal is for students to have access to language and literacy.
BabyTalk is a teleintervention program that provides remote one-on-one listening and spoken language therapy. With JSF’s support over the last 3 years, BabyTalk has grown to 75 families, and there have been strides in getting insurance reimbursements to partially defray expenses. Another accomplishment with BabyTalk is that it helped Weingarten better understand families and county service providers.
Talk2Me is a coach-assisted parent learning system that parents can access anytime and anywhere. With the last JSF grant, Weingarten was able to develop and test prototypes; improve user experience and add videos; introduce a 65-lesson minimum viable product line; and start on the next 55 lessons toward a first-year product line.
This proposal aims to continue expanding these efforts, as well as to add teleservices that would be paid for by school districts. Talk2Me is being designed so that the lessons piggyback on the coaching of the county service providers who are already coming to the home. The hope is to build a go- to-market strategy to expand distribution. Weingarten is in discussions with Teacher’s College at Columbia University to track language assessments. Meanwhile, Talk2Me will be marketed to counties as a curriculum that the counties would pay for. Lastly, by partnering with OPTION schools and programs, which are available nationwide, Talk2Me will be able to help families outside of California.
Page 28 April Report