Listen and understand
Better understand what a young person is telling you and what they may need next.
A new approach to supporting young people
Think of a young person you care about.
They may be struggling at school, having trouble speaking up for themselves, feeling overwhelmed, or simply needing the people around them to understand what would actually help.
CAPES is for adults who support K–12 young people—including coaches, mentors, educators, extended learning staff, youth-development professionals, and caregivers. CAPES gives you practical skills for providing stronger, more consistent support while keeping the young person’s voice, choices, and growing independence at the center.
Young people don't need to be redesigned. The systems that support them do.
The Problem
Today's support systems weren't designed to work together.
A young person may have support in many parts of their life. The problem is that those supports are often disconnected.
A caregiver may see one part of the picture. A teacher may see another. A coach, mentor, facilitator, or program professional may see something else. Each person may be doing good work.
But the young person is still the one moving between all of them.
CAPES helps create more connection, clearer communication, and a shared approach—without taking control away from the young person.
A New Approach
Build skills you can actually use.
CAPES helps you move beyond knowing what good support should look like. You practice what to do when real situations get complicated.
Use good judgment
Make thoughtful decisions when the answer is not obvious and know when to help, pause, or ask for guidance.
Help without taking over
Communicate clearly, set healthy boundaries, and support young people in building confidence and growing independence.
The Solution
The CAPES Integrated Support Framework
CAPES gives you a shared way to think about what a young person needs, what your role is, and what to do next.
The goal is not more people making decisions for young people. It is helping the people already there support them better.
CAPES integrates three complementary practices:
Coaching helps young people recognize strengths, make choices, and move toward meaningful goals.
Mentoring strengthens relationships, encouragement, connection, and trust.
Facilitation helps people communicate, make decisions together, and coordinate support more clearly.
CAPES does not ask you to become something else. It helps you use your existing role more intentionally—and understand how your role connects with others.
Where We’re Starting
CAPES Certified Foundations Coach
We’re starting with paid training for coaches, mentors, facilitators, youth-support professionals, and Extended Learning Programs—the people and organizations already supporting young people every day.
Coaches and Youth-Support Professionals
If you coach, mentor, facilitate, or otherwise support young people directly, CAPES helps you strengthen the way you listen, communicate, make decisions, set boundaries, and guide growth.
Extended Learning Programs
If you lead or work in an Extended Learning program, CAPES helps you give staff a shared approach they can use more consistently with young people and with one another.
CAPES Certified Foundations Coach training combines flexible learning, realistic practice, reflection, and live engagement so you can build judgment—not just memorize a script.
Our Vision
What if young people did not have to navigate the gaps alone?
What if the people around a young person understood what each person could contribute and communicated more clearly?
What if support felt more consistent from one setting to another, while the young person had real opportunities to speak up, make decisions, and build confidence?
CAPES is being built to make that possible.
Meet the Founder
I built CAPES because I have seen this problem from more than one side.
For more than 15 years, I have worked across entrepreneurship, human-centered design, education, accessibility, and student success.
I have also experienced these systems personally—as someone with learning differences and as a parent advocating for my daughter through a complex educational journey.
Again and again, I saw caring, capable people working hard while young people were left to navigate the spaces between them.
CAPES grew from a question I could not stop asking: What would change if we designed support around the whole young person instead of around separate systems?
Join the CAPES Community
Be part of what we’re building.
If CAPES feels like something that could strengthen the work you already do, stay connected. Join the community, raise your hand for future training, or explore the working prototype.