Dr. Jatali Bellanton tackles youth financial literacy by addressing mental health
Money doesn't grow on trees. But money can grow like trees, so Dr. Jatali Bellaton helps others tackle financial literacy at an early age.
Originally from Manchester, Bellaton splits her time between New York City and the United Kingdom, an arrangement stemming from her mother figure (she doesn't use the term "stepmother") living in Brooklyn. As she was growing up, she witnessed an adult in her life struggling with financial literacy.
"I just knew what I didn't want to do when it came to money, I knew I did who I didn't want to be," Bellaton said. "As time progressed, it just allowed me to just learn about stocks and bonds and investing in real estate portfolios."
She started her first job at age 13 and continued working ever since. But Bellaton left her steady life in the finance world to pursue entrepreneurship after motherhood. She wrote a children's book on financial empowerment for her son — easy enough for him to understand, informative enough for him to actually learn.
Spurred by educating her own son and her psychology background, she began breaking down financial literacy for youngsters through her program Kids Who Bank. Her children's stories simplified concepts like depreciation and compound interest in nursery rhyme fashion.
Parents, teachers and school administrators soon became interested in enrolling in similar financial literacy programs, but they felt embarrassed to participate in children's courses, explaining how Bellaton's Brilliant Minds Unite came to be. Now, she's enlisted by new money for programming about crypto and Name, Image, and Likeness.
But the crux of her work merges financial health with mental health. Bellaton points to survivor's guilt by many first-generation big earners who use money as a coping mechanism.
"Not to say that money solves all problems, but oftentimes it's the desire to just have a meal, or the money to go to school, or making a commute easier," Bellaton said. "So you see a lot of issues that arise because of money, and then no one talks about the financial health aspect and no one talks about the mental health correlation with that."
