Everybody Matters is a nonprofit organization that uses interns at college level social work, psychology, counseling and family studies to help children.

This organization’s mission is to teach coping skills to vulnerable students which helps improve their ability to live, love, and learn.

The Everybody Matters organization also provides emotional support to vulnerable students throughout the valley and provides great coping skills to children that they can use during times of stress.

The CEO and founder, Lori Madrid, is a social worker who tells nevalleynews.org that she has been in this field for over 20 years.

She realized she wanted to begin the Everybody Matters organization after seeing all the children that needed secure therapeutic services, but many families could not afford this.

Choosing the right people for the work is key and Madrid doesn’t take the task lightly when vetting staff.

“Really mindful about people who would really care about the kids, so our initial board members began with teachers, nurses, principles of some sort all the people who are stake holders and want to make sure that the kids are getting really good care,” Madrid said.

Bennett MacKinney, is the current vice president of Everybody Matters and been with the organization since its inception.

“Everybody Matters provides a simple solution to a very complicated and very detrimental problem in our society we are so many children especially children with trauma from backgrounds where they are exposed to trauma who come to school and aren’t ready to learn to their best of ability— but Everybody Matters provides them with simple strategies that help them cope with their emotions and deal with their feelings and then return to class ready to learn,” MacKinney said.

Interns are chosen carefully as well and extensive training begins immediately and includes real skills in learning how to help students through coping mechanisms.

“We work on things from social skills to coping skills to anger management, sadness, grief, behavior, and we also do friendship groups,” said Deret Musselman, an intern who loves the organization and working with Madrid. “We meet with kids once a week for 30 minutes for about eight weeks.”

Everybody Matters is currently serving four school districts and plans on expanding to serve even more.