What We Do
"Empowering Communities, Preventing Tragedies"
Let's Empower, Advocate, and Do, Inc. (LEAD) is the industry leader in mental health and DEIJB education.
LEAD’s mission is to provide training and curriculum to strengthen mental health literacy, promote lifelong well-being, and build community resilience.
Our Theory of Change? LEAD empowers individuals with no-fluff mental health & diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice (DEIJB) education to proactively improve their wellbeing and build resilient workplace communities.
With practical skills, tools, and strategies, LEAD’s evidence-based and hands-on curricula move participants beyond awareness and into action and prevent mental health crises.
Key Features & Benefits:
Peace of Mind
LEAD provides your staff with proactive mental health education, empowering them to avoid burnout, improve their mental health, and seek treatment for a mental illness before experiencing a crisis.
LEAD also provides you with evaluation data, quiz results, and blinded feedback, indicating changes in your teams’ attitude, knowledge, and behavior as a result of programming. This feedback also helps you proactively identify staff in need of support or who are already in crisis.
Customization
LEAD tailors all curricula to your organization’s needs and goals, ensuring programming is meaningful to your staff and empowers them to address their most pressing challenges in a dynamic world.
LEAD’s courses result in 2-3 year individual or organization-wide certification, in addition to all staff receiving free, continuing education and resources.
Accessibility
LEAD tailors all programming costs and solutions to your budget, ensuring proactive mental health education is accessible to organizations of all sizes and means.
LEAD’s in-person, virtual, and self-paced e-courses offer your staff a variety of learning modes, in addition to instruction fit for all learning styles.
Since LEAD believes price should never be a barrier to critical mental health and DEI education, we encourage summer camps who require financial assistance to complete LEAD’s Scholarship Application Form.
LEAD’s Proven Process
LEAD’s execution strategy incorporates proven training methods, qualified and credentialed instructors, and a highly responsive approach to managing deliverables.
Based on LEAD’s Proven Process and industry best practices, the LEAD team will:
Send Community Partner a copy of the slide deck(s) that will be used during programming (if applicable). The Partner’s champion is encouraged - but not required - to provide candid feedback and ideas for further customization by the LEAD curriculum development team.
Send a pre-programming email to all participants, featuring a content warning, a link to the program’s agenda or description of its learning objectives, free continuing education materials, program-specific resources, prep work (if applicable), and the programming Zoom/ Teams links (if applicable).
Send a post-programming email to all participants, featuring a direct link to fill out post-course evaluation forms and join LEAD’s exclusive Facebook Group for Community LEADers, homework assignments (if applicable), downloadable e-certificates (if applicable), a 40-page resource guide with population-specific lifelines and inclusive, culturally-competent, and trauma-informed resources, and an array of program-specific learning materials (i.e. virtual training recordings).
Schedule a post-programming call with Community Partner to discuss how LEAD programming was received by your staff and community, identify additional training, consulting, or coaching opportunities, and address any new challenges that have emerged since partnering with LEAD. LEAD’s quizzes enable LEAD to collect critical information about changes in participants’ knowledge, attitude, and behaviors that result from LEAD’s programming and will be shared with the Community Partner prior to this call.
Qualifications
LEAD, Inc. has an experienced Board with clinical and camp wellness and diversity, equity, and inclusion experts, ensuring all training curricula are evidence-based, effective, safe, and tailored to the individuals being educated. For more information about LEAD, watch our animated founding story and explore our team of staff and instructors.
Please note that LEAD’s curricula have been reviewed by mental health clinicians for a non-clinical audience. While LEAD’s curricula may be beneficial to mental health professionals, it is designed for non-clinicians who seek to make practical and tangible changes in their own lives and in the lives of others. LEAD’s curricula are not clinical or diagnostic tools.
Unlike organizations simply raising mental health awareness, LEAD provides participants with practical and tangible strategies to transform their lives and connect to appropriate professional help before experiencing a crisis. In the last three years, LEAD has been featured on national television and in the New York Times for its innovative work in the mental health and DEI space!
How We Do It
LEAD’s Core Values:
COLLABORATION
COMPASSION
LIFELONG LEARNING
SOCIAL JUSTICE
How We Do The Work Matters
At LEAD, Inc. we take the adage, "practice what you preach," very seriously. Our team spends intentional time developing a company culture that reflects our beliefs and promotes healthy, happy minds in everyone who works for the organization. We aim to build community resilience within our organization and as members of our communities. Why? We know that LEAD, Inc. can't make lasting change if we don't take care of ourselves emotionally, physically, socially and mentally.
Therefore, LEAD, Inc. has adopted some practices based on proven strategies to promote wellness and research regarding self-care, mindfulness, and positive psychology:
5-minute mindfulness meditations to start our days of focused and ready to work (we like Headspace!)
At least two 10-minute walks throughout the day to take a break and come back ready to tackle things at a new angle
Weekly gratitude messages sent to someone within the organization (because sharing appreciation makes everyone in the equation happier!)
Learn more about joining the team, here.
Statement of Inclusion
LEAD’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice & Belonging (DEI-JB):
The following statements demonstrate LEAD’s Commitment to DEI-JB.
LEAD, Inc. believes in the dignity and the intrinsic worth of every human being. We welcome, affirm, and support people of all ages, abilities, and disabilities, experiences, races, color, ethnicities, marital or military status, socio-economic backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, religion and non-religion, and any other category people use to define themselves or others.
LEAD, Inc. does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of these terms and qualities in any of its activities or operations. These activities include but are not limited to, hiring and firing of staff, selection of volunteers and vendors, and provision of services. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our staff, clients, volunteers, subcontractors, vendors, and clients.
LEAD, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. We will take affirmative actions and measures to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of any of the qualities, groups, or attributes listed in section 1.
LEAD is actively making efforts to diversify its Board of Directors, staff, and interns based on the above criteria. Taking affirmative action measures to ensure our team reflects our community and historically marginalized groups in the United States, is incredibly important to our co-founders. We will continue to share LEAD’s efforts and diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging goals with the public via social media and our newsletters.
Any employee found to discriminate against others for these reasons will be investigated and serious disciplinary action will be considered. Racist or discriminatory behavior will not be tolerated.
In political discussions, we ask all employees to be conscious and aware of sensitive or divisive topics of discussion, unless they support LEAD’s programming directly (i.e. content) or actively contribute to solving a problem at hand. This policy has been made to ensure the mental wellness and psychological safety within everyone at LEAD, Inc.
When sharing personal experiences, we ask all employees to be conscious of providing trigger and content warnings, compassion, and understanding. When speaking about past experiences with others, remember to “take the lesson and not the story” to protect one another’s privacy.
LEAD does not tolerate intolerance. Get on board, or get off the ship (please).