Jen Lilienstein, multi-award-winning author, businesswoman and Kidzmet founder, will be bringing her award-winning method to Santa Barbara in the first-ever Kidzmet Club GPS (Guided by Purpose and Strengths), designed to empower kids to transform their thoughts and ideas into actions that can make their world and community a better place.

Each group will meet once per week for two hours, with a minimum of four kids and a maximum of seven. The Kidzmet Clubhouse is centrally located at 112 W. Cota St. (top floor of the Dubin Learning Center). Classes begin the week of Jan. 5. The final event will be March 14. The cost is $500 per child.

This new Santa Barbara area enrichment club for 9- to 12-year-olds will be grounded in shedding light on the causes closest to our hearts while developing both the unique strengths of each participant and critical 21st-century success skills. Each club will be individually tailored to the unique strengths of the group’s participants, centered around Kidzmet’s award-winning profiles and methodology.

Club members will discover an inspiring and enriching program that sparks learning through fun as they work together to develop presentations and promote a final event chock-full of kid-developed ideas about how to make our world a better place.

As they prepare their “ideas worth spreading” for a TED-style final event for the public in mid-March, young team members will develop soft skills necessary for career success like collaboration, effective presentation design, awareness building, problem solving, time management, and project planning.

Lilienstein’s background combines 20-plus years of marketing, advertising, writing, and speaking with a passion for celebrating, embracing, and nurturing kids’ unique learning strengths. A former UC Regents Scholar who earned her bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine at 19, she has won a multitude of awards for her work with Kidzmet.com the past five years, including:

» Named one of Startup Nation’s Leading Moms in Business 2010
» 2011 Parent Tested Parent Approved award for Kidzmet
» 2012 National Parenting Center’s Award for her Kidzmet work
» MIT Enterprise Forum audience award in 2013
» Spring 2013 Pinnacle Award for Best Parenting and Family Book
» Summer 2014 Academics’ Choice Smart Book Award for A Parent’s Playbook for Learning

At home, Lilienstein is mom to an extraverted-intuitive daughter who has a passion for the arts and an introverted-sensing son who is enthralled with nature and engineering.

Kidzmet’s assessments and tools are trusted by tens of thousands of parents, homeschoolers, and teachers around the globe. The company’s award-winning learning assessment helps map middle school and elementary learners’ unique paths to success based on kids’ personality types, multiple intelligences and preferred learning styles.

— Jen Lilienstein is the founder of Kidzmet.