The Insight Project for Kids
1111 N Dearborn Street, Ste 510
Chicago, IL 60610
website: insightfulkids.org
Description of Organization
The Insight Project for Kids (IP4K) partners with Chicago public schools in divested neighborhoods to co-create healthy learning environments for educators and students through school-based conflict resolution and stress management training. IP4K aims to teach at-risk youth sustainable techniques for managing stress and conflict in daily life. IP4K’s programming impacts youth through social, emotional, and behavioral intervention as well as skills development. The core program, Stress Management Solutions (SMS), uses various techniques to teach at-risk elementary school students such skills as impulse control, self-motivation, perspective-taking and empathy, conflict resolution, and more. SMS operates in partnership with over forty Chicago public schools, offering workshops to students throughout the school day.
Grant(s) Awarded
In 2022, a grant in the amount of $6,000 was awarded to support the continued creation of ”Take a Breath” series By Kids for Kids, a 300-page book prepared by 300 students. Each student creates their writings and drawings based on contemplative methods utilizing creative visualization mindfulness exercises in a Public-School educational setting. As a result of their experiential mindfulness visualizations taught by student coaches and the Insight team, the students then record their experience of the mindfulness exercises in drawing and written form. The E-Book is shared with the entire school to facilitate kinship and understanding with their fellow students of all ages thereby bringing into alignment contemplative methods in an educational environment. The ensuing program is to complete physical paperback books with the same drawings for each student as well as coloring books highlighting the black and white pencil drawings. Insight will continue teaching mindfulness to at-risk Chicago public school students during three visits in September 2022, reaching 150 students in grades 2-6 . Yoga classes will be taught to bring in the element of cross-cultural understanding of yoga, aligning the Buddhist mind-body wellness connection for new students.
In 2021, a special COVID-19 Operational Grant of $7,000 was awarded in order to support the expenditures necessary to proceed with remote learning of The Insight Project for Kids Stress Management Solutions. The COVID-19 Impact: In early 2020, The Insight Project for Kids in-person classroom programs to 1,200 Latin-X students in Title 1 (low-income) schools in Chicago were canceled due to the pandemic. Additionally, the grantee was scheduled to host an afterschool book-writing class for at-risk youth which was also cancelled.
In 2019, A grant was awarded for $2,500 to offer SMS programming in spring 2020 at Columbia Explorers Academy, a public elementary school in the city of Chicago. The program will operate twice a week over the course of three to four weeks. Staff will meet with students, ages 6-13, in small groups for one hour at a time. Instructors will utilize IP4K’s Social and Emotional Learning curriculum, which teaches stress management tools in an environment that encourages peer-to-peer learning.