We were lucky to catch up with Jasmine Pinet-McTague recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jasmine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I am an educator and being one is a risk. I know it is funny to say that being and choosing to be an educator is a risk. True, Educators don’t get paid much, let alone are valued. I choose to become a teacher for the wrong reasons at the time. I was a single mother at the time and I was already a pre-diem teacher aide. So I figured become a teacher and make more money then $75 days a when you work. Also, I needed something more secure especially for the summer. When I finally became a teacher, my outlook changed. I knew I wasn’t going to make a lot of money, but I know I was going to make a difference. I wanted to be an actress at one time, and now I can put my creative talent to use. I can act, dance and sing all day. A year after becoming a teacher, I got married and my husband has been a great support.

As an educator, I am constantly going to workshops so that I can be an effective teacher. I create some of my own contents like, digital blending boards, worksheets, and videos. I am a kindergarten teacher and I am currently back in school at Rowan University working on my supervision cert. I have become more interested in helping children with special needs, behavior differences, and helping children to read.

I also joined the National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc. Alpha chapter. My sorority has also helped me grow and grow in passion too.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I worked with a gentlemen named Terry Harvey. He has known me since I was a teen. He worked with students that had behavior differences and we saw a need. We noticed that parents expressed their outrage on how their children can’t participate in recreational activities and how schools teachers are not trained to handle most of them. Parents came to Harvey and asked to organized and so we created Advocacy for EBD. We help parents find their voice to advocate for their children. We are paired up with many agencies to refer our parents too. Harvey and I knew we were opening up a pandoras box if we continued to help our parents. Behavior Differences is something that is uncharted territories . However, we see that there is a need of advocacy and a chance for these children can be included. Through our efforts, I began to make it my platform we started to compete in pageants. I started to bring awareness about what these children need and what the parents need.

Advocacy for EBD has no boarders and we help all parents who have a child or family member with behavior differences. These can be oppositional defiance, ADHD, ADD, depressions, anxiety and much, much more. Our non-profit organization helps with referring those parents to other services that we are partnered up. We are hoping to one day hold workshops and training to individuals who wants to include students with behavior differences to sports. Those individuals will need to be trained to know how to handle their behavior so that they can still participate in activities.

What I am most proud is seeing something that was a thought, a talk, and turn into an actual thing, truly manifested. We are still working on building our organization. I am also proud that when I started to do pageants, I am able to share my story with other queens and connect with others and at the same time promote advocacy.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Mr. Harvey and I had no idea how to use social media to our advantage. I started to learn as I was part of many multi-layer marketing business. One thing I got out of that was how to build and audience and how to get more parents and clients. We started as a grassroots organization, our parents were the ones spreading the word about our organization and we also networked. One day, I spoke to Harvey about creating a page and a Facebook page. He agreed and we created both. We needed to build our audience and we were very basic. I would share information on our page especially resources I found through my searching. Then, we both started to think about another way we can bring live information. We started the Inside Look Series, were we would invite guest to a Facebook live and we would promote it. We would touch on different topics that we saw our audience wanted. We were not afraid of touching on controversial topics.
One thing I would do is create a flyer, promote it daily. I would also comment on different peoples pictures on Facebook and send information on different groups. Now, I am working towards learning more about digital marketing and promoting so we can grow more.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When Advocacy for EBD started, it was met with some opposition. It wasn’t through the parents that we were meeting and servicing but through high ups in our school district. We have been made to look like we were against them or calling them out in something when all we really want is to partner up. Some stakeholders, don’t want parents to be empowered with information. Which at the time was only one person really. We did make a mistake and we did learn from it, this mistake I am unable to include in this. What I do know is that we saw a need, we want to make a difference. Now, I must be careful how I make that difference and careful to only speak about the organization outside of our school. Like everything, there are learning curves and we welcome those, it is the only way to learn and grow. Now, we know what to do and what not to do. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are still working it out.

As a pageant queen, currently Ms. American Nation 2022-2023, I use my voice to talk about Advocacy for EBD. I share my thoughts and how best we can help others. As a pageant queen, I am able to become a role-model to many and when I talk about Advocacy for EBD, I share my story of my own struggles with anxiety and depression since I was in 3rd grade. I talk about my trauma and how I over come them. Because in Advocacy for EBD, we need the children to understand we all have our behavioral differences, some worse than others. My Goal is to make Advocacy for EBD a house hold name like Autism.
I use social media to bring light. I am learning to create digital marketing information to share. I am learning many things. Just don’t let nothing stop you. If you fall, get back up….and if trying to save the world is too much… only choose one person you want to make a difference for.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://advocacyforebd.org/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdvocateEBD/

Image Credits
All pictures are various people who took the photo of me with my camera. The picture with the red dress and crown photo credit Jeremy Means