By Angela Loston, NDG Contributing Writer
Helping children cope with trauma experienced through poverty or their environment is the cornerstone of the Momentous Institute’s mission. Since 1920, the Momentous Institute has served North Texas reaching out to school-aged children who are in need, experiencing a crisis or grappling with emotional challenges.
The organization will get a much-needed boost when the PGA TOUR tournament, the AT&T Byron Nelson, comes to town to raise money on the institute’s behalf. The AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament is May 8-12 at the Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas. All proceeds from the tournament will go to support the Momentous Institute.
“The organization seeks to strengthen our community by ensuring all children can develop social emotional health, and for nearly 100 years we have impacted hundreds of thousands of children by providing services through mental health through our lab school in Oak Cliff and through training professionals locally and across the country on how to integrate our practices,” said Jessica Trudeau, the executive director of the Momentous Institute.
Formerly the Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers, the Momentous Institute has an academic campus in Oak Cliff, the Momentous School, and therapeutic offices in Oak Cliff and Northwest Dallas. The Momentous Institute focuses on building and repairing the emotional health of more than 5,000 children and families annually, and the school has 248 students enrolled there yearly.
“The Momentous Institute stands for our belief that all children, regardless of past or present circumstances, deserve to have adults in front of them that believe that they can achieve momentous outcome,” Trudeau said. “We as a community have this really beautiful opportunity to walk with children and families until they reach that end.”
The program offers therapeutic services to children as young as infants to 15-year-olds. Parents are also encouraged to attend counseling sessions alongside their children.
The Momentous School works with Pre-K through fifth-grade students to elevate their emotional health through therapy while helping them to focus on their studies. The school’s curriculum combines lessons on empathy and managing stress with lessons on reading, writing, and arithmetic. The students learn how to self-regulate their emotions and use breathing techniques taught via the social emotional therapy they receive.
“We infuse social emotional health practices into everything that we do,” Trudeau said. “That’s a significant part of why we think our model is effective. Our goal is that every child is seen, heard and honored.”
Along with the school and therapeutic services, Momentous Institute also offers training and shares its research with educational professionals, child therapists, and other professionals locally, across the state and nationwide.
“There’s a profound impact for students who are experiencing trauma on their ability to learn and focus and perform in an academic setting,” Trudeau said. “So a big part of our training is to help administrators, leadership teams and teachers identify what trauma looks like when it manifests in the classroom and give them strategies to help students.”
The benefits of the program are enormous. According to the institute’s latest annual report, 97 percent of students who participated in the program in years past have graduated from high school, and 82 percent have enrolled in college. Furthermore, 84 percent of Momentous Institute alumni have moved on to their second year of college.
The Salesmanship Club of Dallas, a nearly 100-year-old organization that is committed to transforming kids’ lives, operates the Momentous Institute. Its more than 600 members support the Momentous Institute through fundraising and volunteerism at the school. The Salesmanship Club is the host of the AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament. Since 1968, the AT&T Byron Nelson has raised more than $160 million on behalf of the Momentous Institute. Last year, the tournament raised $4.8 million. This year, the sales goal for the tournament is $16 million.
“We are incredibly grateful for the AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament because it allows us to continue to do the work to strengthen our community and work with our partner organizations so that we can have a stronger community over the next 100 years,” Trudeau said.
For more information on the AT&T Byron Nelson, visit attbyronnelson.org. For more details of the Momentous Institute, visit momentousinstitute.org.
