Eye to Eye

Eye to Eye | Info

Eye to Eye

AT A GLANCE

Headquarters
New York, New York

Social Entrepreneur
David Flink, Founder & CEO

Year Founded
1998

Website
http://eyetoeyenational.org/

Mission:

Eye to Eye is building a youth-powered movement to combat the prevailing stigmas attached to learning differences and to equip students to self-advocate. Eye to Eye pairs middle school students with learning differences with similarly identified high school and college students in yearlong mentoring relationships focused on building self-esteem and self-advocacy skills.

Vision:

Eye to Eye aims to help create a world in which people with LD / ADHD are fully accepted, valued, and respected—not just by society, but also by themselves—and live free from second thoughts or worry, ready, able, and eager to apply their unique strengths to whatever they encounter in life.

Approach:

Eye to Eye has a network of 120 schools in 20 states, driven by dynamic community partnerships with public and private schools, colleges, universities, and local businesses. Mentors and mentees come together once a week to create art projects specifically designed to share similar experiences while building self-esteem and self-advocacy skills.

Build The Skills Needed for Success

Eye to Eye mentors share skills developed through their own experiences, showing Mentees how to take charge of their unique learning styles with techniques including:

  • Metacognition: An individual’s ability to understand and articulate how he or she learns best is one of the most critical aspects to leading to a successful life with LD / ADHD. Our Mentors engage Mentees in ongoing conversations about discovering and embracing their learning styles to help them better understand their learning differences.
  • Self-Advocacy: It is essential that students with LD / ADHD speak up positively and appropriately for their unique needs.
  • Proactive Learning Strategies and Academic Accomodations: Eye to Eye helps students integrate alternative learning styles with concrete academic skills such as note-taking, organization, study skills, reading, writing, and math strategies. In addition, Mentors and Chapter Leaders work with Mentees to create personalized goals and accommodations to be discussed during their Individual Education Program, 504, or parent-teacher conference meetings.

Create a Safe and Fun Community Environment Through Art:

Using visual art as the ultimate form of self-expression and empowerment, mentors work in an art room setting so Mentees are able to access and cultivate their unique gifts for project-based, spatial, tactile/kinetic, and interpersonal learning. Art also helps Mentors and Mentees start the conversation about LD / ADHD, reducing the anxiety and vulnerability many Mentees feel when discussing their labels.

Encourage and Inspire Professional Development:

Eye to Eye Chapter Leaders attend the Young Leaders Organizing Institute (OI), the annual summer conference, where they learn about Eye to Eye’s latest organizational tools and materials. The OI prepares Chapter Leaders to return to their communities, ready to build and run their chapters effectively. Each local chapter also receives on-site Mentor training which includes community-building activities, mock art room simulations, guidance on using our art curriculum, and art room management strategies.

Impact:

Experience with thousands of students labeled with LD / ADHD tells us that the Eye to Eye model of mentoring relationships works. Independent academic research has confirmed this as well. Research conducted by an evaluator from Teachers College, Columbia University over the past five years shows that students with LD / ADHD have seen improvement in the following areas after being mentored in Eye to Eye:

  • Self-Esteem: 85% of students felt better about themselves.
  • Hope for the Future: 87% reported that their Mentor helped them to think about their future positively.
  • Academic Empowerment: 87% reported, "Being a part of Eye to Eye got me to think about what I am good at."
  • Positive Role Modeling: 82% reported that their Mentor was the kind of student they wanted to be.
  • Self-Advocacy: 73% believed that their Mentor helped them learn how to ask for the things they need in order to do well in school.

Research conducted with Eye to Eye Mentors also reveals that:

  • 89% felt that being part of Eye to Eye made them better advocates for themselves as students with learning differences.
  • 81% agreed or strongly agreed that Eye to Eye helped them to think about their own learning style and metacognitive skills.
  • 90% strongly agreed that being part of Eye to Eye helped them think differently about their strengths.
  • 86% believed that Eye to Eye had a positive impact on their self-esteem.
  • 95% reported that because they felt like part of a real community (often for the first time) their self-confidence and self-esteem improved, as did their ability to advocate for themselves.