Everyone remembers important milestones – graduating with a degree, earning a big promotion, buying a dream house. For Taylor Germain, Upper Arlington mom and local business person, being a mother and impacting the community are her greatest achievements and passions.
A mom, teacher and long-time caregiver, Germain dedicates her time to addressing pediatric mental and behavioral health. Her mission is to bring mental and behavioral health awareness to her family and community and to combat stigmas surrounding child mental wellness.
“I feel like my motivation is both my professional background and my kids,” Germain says. “They’re seven, five and three.”
Hooked from the beginning
Taylor Germain
Born and raised in Washington D.C., Germain says she first began her career at a school in Maryland where she worked as a personal aide for children with autism. She was later promoted to a social skills teaching position before moving to Columbus in 2013, where she attended graduate school at The Ohio State University for applied behavior analysis in the special education program. She then began a position at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the autism spectrum center.
“I was always really drawn to what they call challenging behavior that kids with autism use as a way to communicate, because sometimes they can’t communicate in appropriate ways, and I was hooked from the beginning,” Germain says. “That kind of blossomed into more of a wider passion for mental health when I had my kids.”
After becoming a stay-at-home mom, Germain remained motivated by her former students and sought a way to continue serving the children in her community. As a result, she helped establish the Beehive Alliance in 2019, a nonprofit organization seeking solutions for pediatric behavioral and mental health in Upper Arlington. The organization now has 40 members, most of whom are a part of the Upper Arlington community, she says.
“I loved working with kids with autism, they’re just such a special, unique community and I just fell in love so immediately with behavioral health in general,” Germain says. “I’ve just been inspired by all of the kids that I worked with, I remember almost all of their names.”
When she’s not working as a mom or community leader, Germain can be found needlepointing, on vacation with her family in Naples, Florida or hanging with college friends on her annual girls’ trip.
Taylor Germain
Combating stigmas
According to Germain, the team at Beehive Alliance has now raised more than $400,000 for the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Behavioral Health Pavilion.
Without the backing of her community, Germain says she never could have realized the impact she has with her message. She’s incredibly happy with the way her community has taken a stance against mental health stigmas with her.
“I’m proud that the community cares about mental health,” Germain says. “I’m so proud that they support kids and people think that it’s important.”
Germain believes that mental and behavioral wellness should be valued and experienced by both adults and children. She implements a family focus towards addressing these issues in both her business and personal life, helping parents in the community have access to important resources to evaluate their children’s mental wellness.
“I just feel so strongly about all of this pediatric mental health stuff so that we can try to get people thinking about it earlier so that people aren’t waiting their whole lives to be diagnosed with something, or they’re struggling their whole lives when they could’ve gotten help at a much earlier age,” Germain says.
Taylor Germain
According to Germain, mental illness isn’t a “casserole disease,” meaning a child diagnosed with bipolar disorder is not going to receive the same support from their community that someone with a physical sickness might. Germain wants her children to be unaffected by these stigmas and feel comfortable talking about their mental health concerns and struggles as they get older.
“We all want physical health and mental health to be held to the exact same standard,” Germain says. “I use the strategies that I’ve learned every day in my household.”
More time to play
As children become exposed to social media and technology at earlier ages, Germain says the need for pediatric mental and behavioral health services are more necessary than ever.
“There’s no evidence that shows that social media is healthy really for anyone, if you think about our usage of social media as well, but we’re adults who have fully formed brains and kids don’t,” Germain says.
Passionate about this issue, Germain says she’s also involved in Upper Arlington’s Okay to Delay chapter, a national initiative to deter children from getting online at early ages.
“The idea is that you delay the smartphone until 14 and then no social media until 16 because the data has shown that girls’ and boys’ mental health suffers greatly when given access to social media at an early age,” Germain says. “My kids aren’t there yet so maybe I’ll feel differently but my husband and I both feel really strongly about the social media part of it.”
Germain says she hopes for a return of play-based childhoods, and a world where children aren’t so overloaded, overcommitted and pressured by schools and parents to perform. Instead, she believes they should have more time to simply play.
“It feels like their childhood is getting cut shorter and shorter than it used to be,” Germain says. “It’s starting younger and younger and it’s just so much overscheduling and pressure to be somewhere at a certain time.”
Looking forward
Taylor Germain
One of Germain’s goals going forward, she says, is to expand the Beehive Alliance into other Columbus neighborhoods to get more people involved in mental health advocacy. She also hopes to connect more with schools, bring parents of school-aged children more resources and focus more on teens in the community.
“One of our goals is to have families weave this into their everyday lives,” Germain says. “As we know, in middle school and high school, mental health becomes even more important for kids to think about and for parents to have the resources available that they need to support their kids through those times.”
Because of her love for the autistic community, she additionally hopes to incorporate services into schools to help children communicate and interact with their classmates with autism.
“When I see my kids being really kind to other people or talking about their feelings, that’s really rewarding to me,” Germain says. “It makes me feel like me and my husband are doing something right to bring mental health into our family.”
Frances Denman is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
