Trudy Beicht and Kimberly Lockman

Anchor Point is an ecosystem built from decades of experience working with young people and the adults who support them. Our web application is one doorway into that ecosystem. Caregivers, educators, social workers, and other adults can begin with the situation in front of them: “This is what is happening. Help me understand it.” They do not need to know a diagnosis, a clinical term, or the “right” question to ask. AI helps retrieve and apply our knowledge, frameworks, boundaries, and research-informed approaches so the adult can consider what may be contributing and identify a practical next step. The AI is not the system itself. The app currently tracks information over time and can present it in graphs, giving users visual data to help them notice patterns, possible triggers, changes, and progress. Our current Brain Team books and workbooks are for adults supporting youth. They explain brain systems and behavior in plain language, helping adults understand how young people process and respond to what is happening. Adaptations for teens and for adults learning about their own brains are future work; those versions are not available yet. Our adult curriculum is complete. We also have trainings for teachers, youth-facing school staff, social-service professionals, and caseworkers across organizations. Separately, our K–12 student curriculum is designed. We are developing the elementary grades, and half are complete. We can begin implementing the completed material in elementary schools now, including the first couple of grades. Social workers and educational psychologists can also use that material to run groups, while development continues on the remaining grades. We do not deliver a cookie-cutter program. Before working with a school or organization, we learn about its demographics, community, staff, students, and the challenges they are facing. We then adapt the materials and delivery to fit. Monkey Mind offers a creative, flexible experience designed with neurodivergent users in mind, through doodling, prompts, coloring, and other activities that can provide an outlet for attention, movement, or stimulation. We are also beginning to bring this work into the UK.

Caring about a young person doesn’t always mean you know what to do next. A student tears up an assignment. A child shuts down when homework starts. A teenager won’t get out of the car. The adult sees what happened, but may not understand what contributed to it. Behavior can be communication, including when a young person doesn’t have the words to explain what they need or what they’re experiencing. There are valuable resources available, but finding and using them often requires adults to already know what they’re looking for. In the middle of a difficult moment, they may not know which explanation fits, which strategy to try, or how to adapt it to this particular person and situation. Support can also be fragmented. A helpful therapist, teacher, clinician, or caseworker may not be available at seven o’clock at night when a family is struggling. And what happens in one setting may not be understood by the adults supporting that same young person elsewhere. Anchor Point helps bridge the gap between caring and knowing how to respond. We help adults slow down their interpretation, consider what may be contributing, choose a practical next step, and learn from what happens over time. As adults build understanding and model it, young people can gain more language and useful ways to communicate what they need.

Trudy is proud of what we built and redesigned when she was Hudson’s youth director. What had been a basic drop-in center without much structure became a structured after-school program as well as a structured summer camp. She was the first person in her immediate family to go to college, and then she went on to earn her master’s in Educational Psychology and Program Evaluation. Trudy is deeply proud of her decades of work with hundreds of young people and families—work she continues today and that is a huge part of why we built Anchor Point. Kim wrote How to Have an Epic First Day of School. In more than 15 years working in Hudson, she has taught students, helped them build job skills, connected them with internships and employment, trained and worked alongside some of them as lifeguards, and continued being a resource long after they graduated. Some of the most meaningful messages come years later from students who say she helped them get through high school or changed the direction of their lives. We are proud of building T.I.M.E. Consulting together and of our lifeguard training work in Columbia County and the neighboring county to the south.