Clymb, a minority- and woman-led startup supported by Maryland’s TEDCO, is expanding its personalised emotional wellness platform across US schools, emphasising culturally responsive and easy-to-use mindfulness tools for children’s mental health.
On a recent Kids Yoga Stories podcast, Giselle Shardlow and Ashley Williams explored how schools and families are using technology to strengthen children’s emotional health. Williams, founder and chief executive of Clymb, argued that digital tools can do more than deliver lessons: they can help make mindfulness, yoga and social-emotional learning part of a child’s everyday routine.
That message fits a wider effort by Williams to turn classroom-based well-being support into a scalable platform. TEDCO, Maryland’s technology development agency, backed Clymb with additional investment in 2023, describing the business as a woman- and minority-led startup focused on youth mental and emotional health. TEDCO said the funding was intended to help the company provide more tailored care and support for young people facing stress and other pressures.
Clymb began life as Infinite Focus Schools before rebranding in 2023 to better reflect its mission. According to the company, the platform offers personalised emotional wellness resources, including virtual materials developed with therapists, educators, mindfulness instructors and other specialists. Earlier reporting by WYPR said the software had already been used in city schools and local non-profits and was expected to expand to dozens of sites across the US, reflecting rising concern about anxiety, depression and toxic stress among young people.
The podcast also highlighted a practical theme that runs through Williams’s work: emotional health tools are most effective when they are culturally responsive, inclusive and easy to use. The conversation pointed to the need for adults to model calm routines themselves, whether at home or in the classroom, and to weave short mindfulness practices into the day rather than treating them as a separate intervention. That approach mirrors the wider mission of Kids Yoga Stories, which was founded by Shardlow in 2012 to give teachers, parents and school staff simple ways to introduce yoga and mindfulness to children.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
