Founder: Mario Depeine, Sr.

I earned my BA in Clinical and Personality Psychology from Princeton University.  Although, I completed a semester of a doctoral program in clinical psychology, I realized that I wanted to be more than a therapist.  After dabbling in lots of business related positions, I decided to become a teacher.  I taught in major cities such as Newark and Jersey City, NJ,  as well as smaller ones like Bayonne and Highland Park, NJ.

While working as a teacher, I have taken part in various creative ventures. I produced citizen journalism videos that have been used by CNN on their news broadcasts. I have written songs that are on streaming platforms.  I have also written a nonfiction, spiritual book.

Like all the children at the Children’s Space, I was a child too! I know what it’s like to have really fun experiences and those that were very difficult to bear.  I really didn’t have people I could talk to about most things. Fortunately for me I didn’t experience too many very difficult challenges that many kids face today.

As an educator, I started to notice a very disturbing pattern among the school children in underserved communities.  They would experience some very traumatic things and their only source of “therapy” was to be in the school among their peers and their teachers. The school was their temporary haven.  I often said to my colleagues, these kids are probably saying, “I can’t believe they’re trying to get us to focus on math and follow directions when I almost got killed last night.” As teachers, we often felt like our hands were tied.  Unfortunately, that was the daily reality of these kids and the teachers’ goal to teach.  Often, I would try to give them opportunities to express their hearts, but the curriculum didn’t allow too much of that.

These kids would experience abusive situations. Some witnessed the murder of their loved ones right before their eyes. One child saw his mother and sister stabbed to death while he hid and avoided being killed himself. I remember one of my more engaged students sleeping in my class.  When I pulled him aside and asked him what was happening, he confided in me and said, “I can’t sleep at night because my father almost got robbed and killed.  The man didn’t kill him because he saw me in the back seat of the car.”  Another student one day said to me, “Mr. Depeine, I can’t sleep at night.”  I asked, “Why?” She said, “There’s shootings in my neighborhood and I’m afraid a bullet will come through the wall and kill me.” This is just some of the stories I heard over the years.

I know that in a lot of places throughout America there are similar stories, and worst.  There are also many children in many privileged areas who see therapists regularly, sometimes just because they’re not popular, experienced a break up or something tragic, traumatic or both.

Over the years, I concluded that therapy should not be available to just the privileged but also be available to the most needy of children.  Children in underserved areas are struggling with a lot of challenges and they have the least amount of resources.

I hope through the Children’s Space, I and my team of therapists will be able to reduce the number of children who have mental health needs and no therapists to help them.  Join us in bringing peace of mind to these children.