Steph West: Starfish Social Club and the Neurodivergent Community

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Before we jump in, if you haven't already, I invite you to tap Follow. It only takes a couple of seconds and it helps us show reach more families who need to hear these conversations. Thanks for being here, joining us today is Step West, the founder of Starfish Social Club, where she's helping neurodivergent kids and teens become more competent, more connected,

and more comfortable, mean exactly who they are.

She's also an author, a speaker, a podcast host, and someone who probably embraces her own ADHD brain as part of her superpower. She didn't see just a need. Be stepped into it, build something that's changing lives, kids, parents, and entire communities. Her journey is fantastic, so before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted

show right after it worked from our sponsors. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah, I'm excited to be on. Yes, my pleasure. If you would, give us a little information on yourself and what you do.

Absolutely, I'm Steph West and I am the founder and director of Starfish Social Club. I provide small group social skills groups to kids and teens with autism, ADHD, learning

disabilities, basically anybody who is neurodivergent and struggling with the social world.

What was it that led you to create the Starfish Club? That's a great question. I started as a special education teacher, specifically for students with behavioral challenges. So my classroom was a self-contained setting for kids who were not able to be in the general education setting due to the severity of their behaviors.

Sure. I think sometimes one of the best ways to realize that you have a certain skill set is when you notice that other people don't have that skill set. I think sometimes it requires comparison to figure that out.

“And so that's what I started to notice is a lot of other educators were coming to”

me and asking me how I did what I did and I started to see that I was really successful with my students and they were able to make a lot of growth and a lot of progress. And my goal was for them to not be in my classroom anymore. So from there, I became a specialist, an autism and behavior specialist, and so I was working with districts and parents and administrators.

Okay. One day, I was at a training. This group was talking about how they run social skills groups and I thought, "I'm gonna do that." Yeah.

And so that was in February of 2016 and I went home and I created a business and in June of 2016, I was running social skills groups. So was this the Starfish Club? Yes. Yes.

How did you come up with the name? I wanted a name that had the word social in it but didn't get confused with social services or something, you know, not quite the path that I was on. So I came up with social club and I really love that. And then Starfish is from the Starfish story, which is about a child walking along a beach

seeing stranded Starfish all over the beach. And so she starts running along the beach and picking them up and throwing them back

“into the ocean and a man walks by and he says, "Why are you wasting your time?”

You can't save all of them." And he grabs another one and throws it in the ocean and says, "I just saved that one." So it's really just the concept of, "I can't support everybody but I can support the students

at a time." Nice.

“So that's where Starfish Social Club came from.”

It has a nice ring to it. It does. I like it. Yeah. So been around for 10 years now, so it's worked.

Tell me a little about your reach. Are you working mainly in your local community or are you connecting with families across the country or even globally? I do primarily in-person groups, I'm in San Antonio, Texas. So primarily my students are local and in-person and I offer groups on Zoom.

So I do have the ability to support students really anywhere as long as they can meet during the times that we meet, which are evening in North America. Sure, sure. So I have had many students from all over the US and I've worked one-on-one with students in other countries, not in the US, but being in the groups is usually a time challenge

if they're not in our time zones.

But if students are homeschooled, for example, then it's not always such a barrier.

Yeah, I totally get that. I talk with many people in the UK and parts of Europe and there about six hours ahead of us. No. Now, tell me, was there any challenges you had getting this up and going?

Did you ever say, "Why am I doing this?" And if you did, what got you through it? Oh, my goodness. So I'm what I call an accidental entrepreneur. I never in my life saw myself running a business.

“That was never something that I, if anybody would have told me that's what I would have ended”

up doing. I wouldn't thought that was just ridiculous. An accidental entrepreneur to me is someone who ends up running a business because it's how we're able to do what we are wanting to do in the world. At this point, I actually coach other people who are like me, who are accidental entrepreneurs.

Okay. Specifically because we have zero business background, zero business knowledge. And so what I find even with myself and the people that I now coach is that we really have no idea what we're doing when it comes to running a business.

And the reality is if your business can't stay afloat, you're not helping anybody.

And so I have a second business helping people run businesses like mine because I have learned a lot in the process and I feel like I kind of know how to make it happen now. I think very naively thought that when I started this business, it's such a great idea that everybody would come sign up and it would just be amazing that absolutely is not how things work. I did have the fortune that I've been in the special education world in my city for a while.

And so in different capacities, even outside of the school setting, I've been associated with a lot of nonprofit organizations. So I had the benefit of having a lot of connections in the industry in my city. That went a long way to work helping me get up and running and getting my first students in the door and that kind of thing.

But yes, marketing was definitely a significant challenge in the beginning because I had no idea how to do that.

Even things like figuring out pricing when you've never charged anybody for anything before

is a big challenge and then it got to the point where I needed to start hiring staff members and that's another huge challenge. Yeah, right. It's like everything is very difficult the first time and then you kind of figure out what works and what's helpful and you can build a path and move forward.

“Did you have any other challenges that you faced during this whole process?”

You know, so my business before COVID was 100% in person. I didn't have all my options because I never would have even considered that. Most of my students have ADHD and the S-2-I and so I thought there's no way we're doing online classes and so COVID came and my business was entirely shut down. Oh, yeah, I know that feeling.

Right. It's my source of income. Yeah. So that was probably my greatest example of the most challenging time in the business when we were completely shut down and I had no money coming in but still had to pay rent.

The rent payments didn't stop even though we weren't even using the building. But out of that came my online classes and out of that is when I created my own curriculum which is what I teach now. I teach my own thing that I wrote and I license other people to teach it also. Yeah.

Nice. So I think definitely came out in a better position but it was incredibly painful to

before COVID. Yeah.

So there has even been, you know, just from that perspective, things are just different.

Yeah, they certainly are now you mentioned ADHD.

“I think I saw it where you say that you are an ADHD brain.”

You call it your superpower? How has that been your superpower with everything you've created? In one regard, it absolutely helps me understand my students. I think in a way that someone who doesn't have a neurodivergent brain can understand people who do.

So it absolutely helps me understand what my students are thinking, how they're feeling, why they're struggling in the ways that they are and how I can help them. So it makes it much easier for me to support my students because I understand them. Right. Also, I'm incredibly impulsive but I use that to my advantage by acting on most of my impulses.

So I don't have time to second guess myself.

Okay. I don't have time to worry about things because I'm just going to make a decision and move forward. Right. So I also think it makes me very open to risk.

I'm very risk-tolerant. Okay. And so I'm willing to try things.

“I'm willing to do things that I think probably most people wouldn't recommend.”

But it helps me come up with new creative ways of doing things. You mentioned understanding your kids.

I've always said the best teachers sometimes can be the autistic kids that the teachers

are trying to teach. What have the autistic children that you work with taught you? It's interesting. Sometimes people in the industry but often people not in the industry, making statements about autism or talking about autism and saying things that I have experienced first hand

are not accurate. So for example, saying that autistic people don't have the ability to be empathetic. For example, that I find to be very interesting is when being with my students, they show me all the ways that they are misunderstood. And so I appreciate the opportunity to spend so much time with so many amazing human beings

who can show me the world through their perspective. Yeah, now part of what you do is teach the autistic children how to make friends. What do you find that most people, especially neurotypical, misunderstand about friendship for neurodivergent children? One of the things that's important to me when I talk about the concept of friends is that

a friend is someone we choose to spend time with. That's how I describe a friend. And so that means it could be somebody that we play online video games with. Even if we haven't physically seen them in three years, it could be somebody that we hang out and watch movies in our favorite genres together, even if we're not having a conversation

for two hours. Right.

“I think sometimes the concept of friendship can be pretty narrow for a lot of people,”

but really it's, again, my definition is someone we choose to spend time with, but that can look very different for different people. It can even be somebody that you text every evening, even if you don't ever, you might not even live in the same place, but you're choosing to spend time with that person in the way that works for both of you as opposed to in kind of the way that society tends

to define a friendship. Yeah. Now, parents, when they find out that their child is autistic, it is overwhelming. They don't know what to do. They have everyone telling them what they should be doing.

There is just so much to learn, it's a real tough situation to be in. How do you go about helping the parents of the autistic child when they don't understand exactly what's going on? One of the things that I really try to do is I try to be an interpreter for whom ever the audiences are that I'm speaking to.

Typically, in my work, it's a student and their parents, but it could also be a student and their teacher. It could be an adult student and an employer. It can be fouses where one is neurodivergent and the other one isn't.

to neurodivergence, it is really set up. Most social programs are set up with the mindset that the neurodivergent person is doing things that are socially incorrect and they need to be corrected. My approach is that we're speaking different social languages. Yeah.

What I try to do is interpret if I'm speaking to even the night before we're recording this, I met with a new student who's starting in my groups next week and was sharing a strategy with his mom on how to help him recognize topics that other people would also be interested in talking about so that we're looking for things we have in common. My goal is to help her better understand his social language that he's most likely not

aware of the fact that other people don't always care about the same things that he does.

Because in the groups, I'm helping my students understand the social language of the neurotypical worlds.

“But I think it's equally important that the people in their world understand their social”

language. Yeah. To really my goal any time I'm working with parents, teachers, other than my students is creating that to a understanding so that I'm more of an interpreter and helping other people understand how my students social worlds is created.

Now your work is deeply human and deeply emotional where you're working with all these kids that need help because you have empathy for them.

You will lots of times feel that pain.

How do you protect your own energy while showing up to help those kids? That's such a great question. I am definitely an empath. I'm the most emotional person I've ever known, but it goes both ways. The positive emotions are very, very prevalent for me as well.

Sure. The students is my favorite place to be when I'm with the students because it's so enjoyable enjoyable to be with a group of people where we're all working on something together and they're excited to be there and they have such great relationships with each other. It's just a very positive environment.

I think sometimes people ask me if what the students learn in my group's translate outside of my group. The realistic answer to that question is there's no way for me to know that unless somebody tells me. That's the realistic answer.

What I also know is that if the other adults in their world are not interacting with them the way that I do, I don't know how much of it's translating. If they're getting shut down and rejected out in the world, they're probably not using the skills that we're working on if they're not in a receptive supportive environment. But I think I focus on what I can control, which is the time they have when they're with

me. That's what I can control.

“And so that's how I kind of regulate my own emotional engagement is focusing on the two”

hours at a time that I'm with this group of students. I can control that. I can control the mood of that, I can control how it goes. I can control how supported my students feel. Right.

That's what I can control. Yeah. Now, when it's all said and done, what impact do you hope that your work leads on the kids? The families. And of course, if you're helping the kids and the families, you're helping the world, too.

My three goals for my students are they become more socially competent. So they understand the neurotibical world better. They're able to navigate it easier than they were when they started the program. Okay. They become more socially confident, meaning they feel more comfortable, trying things,

speaking out for themselves, taking risks, and they become more socially connected. Sure.

Within the groups themselves, the students just tend to always find at least one other person

that they really get along with. And I've had, you know, students outside of the group form genuine friendships.

“I've had students in the past that I think are going to get married someday of like, I just”

creating these genuine connections that even if they don't persist outside of my groups, that's real while it's happening. It's a real authentic connection in the moment. So those are my three goals for my students in the program is social competence, confidence,

For the parents, my goal is for them to better understand how their child speaks socially,

how they perceive the social world, and to give them some tools and strategies to support their child in their social journey, along the way of becoming more confident, confident, connected.

“And I think for the world, it's back to that topic of helping in a neuro-typical world,”

helping neuro-typical people recognize that neuro-divergent people speak our own social language, and it's not bad, it's not wrong, it's not less than it is. Sure. And so helping neuro-typical people recognize the social language that we are speaking, and how can we mesh those together so that we can all support and understand each other?

If there's one message that you think is important that a listener is here today, and the person is thinking, "Why not me?" But hasn't taken that step yet? What would you tell them to do? I believe that anytime any person has an idea pop into their brain from the universe,

whatever you want to call this, I believe it's because it's meant for you. Okay. I think if it wasn't meant for you, it wouldn't have been implanted into your brain. For example, I don't ever think about being a WNBA star, right?

Like, it's never a thought comes into my mind, it's not for me.

I don't ever think about being a crypto bro, right? Like, it's not for me, but I think any time an idea pops into your brain, it's because it's for you. And so, why not you? If you're thinking about it, it's for you.

So, I think what's the next step? What's one small thing that you can do today

“that might move that a little bit closer to reality?”

What's one thing you can do today? So, yeah, I think why not me is exactly right? Like, why not me? Yeah, exactly. Because if you're thinking about it, it's meant for you.

The world can be a scary place. San Antonio is a great city, been there many times. With that said, when you're dealing with neurotypical and neurodivergent, in a world that was built for neurotypical,

sometimes it can always be a struggle.

They're trying to fit in in a place that makes it difficult for them to fit in. What could an everyday person do that feels very unqualified to do it? Because you know how city hall can be at times. What would you tell them to get them off the edge of thinking about it to actually doing it with getting out there and helping?

Yeah, I think if I ever give it 10 talk, it's going to be on the topic of giving people helpful social feedback. I think what's really interesting is that my students tend to, and I don't even think this is about my students.

“I think in society, in general, speaking obviously I live in the U.S.”

So I can only speak to our culture here. Right. We tend to either give people no social feedback. Meaning we just kind of ignore what's happening. We don't say anything.

We let it go. Sure. Or we give people negative social feedback. Yeah. So we say disrespectful things.

We give them the look. We talk about them to other people. And for any of us, one of the things I joke with my students about is we are all annoying to somebody. Yeah.

Every one of us is annoying to somebody. Oh, yeah. But almost exclusively not intentionally, right? Right. So we're all out there in the world doing things that

bother other people, either nobody's saying anything, or they're being rude about it. Yeah. And so imagine if we could all instead give each other helpful social feedback. And that's part of my curriculum.

I teach my students how to do that with each other. So I teach them how to let somebody know. Though I say the three criteria for giving helpful social feedback is if somebody's in danger of harming themselves, like they're about to trip over something, if somebody's in danger of harming someone else,

maybe even by the words they're about to say. Yeah. Or if they're in danger of harming their reputation. Right. We talk extensively about what a reputation is.

We can give them helpful social feedback. Right. So it could even be something like, would you mind scooting over your little bit too close to me? Sure.

Right. Yeah. Right. And so I think in the world at large, we very, very rarely do that.

We very rarely give people a helpful social feedback. We ignore them or we're rude about it, right?

And so I think in the world, if everybody started doing that, we could change the world. Yeah, absolutely. Now, how do people find you? This way, they get to know more about what you're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. StarfishSocialClub.org. What's one story? It can be with a child or with their parents that you think about. And when you think about it, it reminds you of why you're doing this.

And the first one that comes to mind is actually an example of what I was just talking about about

helpful social feedback. Okay. Also, I want to throw in here for a neurotibical person. It's often very uncomfortable to think about being blunt with their neurodivergent child.

And I'm here to say that we appreciate and we need blunt communication. Right.

“So there's a huge difference between blunt and rude, right?”

Oh, absolutely. But we need blunt communication. Students can stay in my program for as long as they want to. So I frequently have students that stay for years. And I had a student who, I think at the time, he was maybe 12.

And he had been with me for a couple of years. And at this time in particular, he started to be pretty disrespectful to the other students. He's kind of snarky. He would say things that he knew the other students wouldn't realize were disrespectful. And it just really not getting along with the other students in the group.

And this had not been how he had been historically. And so it was just kind of surprising. And at the time, I had a very elderly dog that went to all the groups with me. Everybody loved her partly because she was so old and I took him aside one day and started talking to him about what was going on.

And he said, well, I don't really need any of this because I just want to walk dogs for living. And so I don't even need to deal with people. I just want to be around dogs. I just want to walk dogs for living.

That's a really reasonable thing to want to do for a living.

“And that's a really reasonable reason to want to do that, right?”

So I don't ever invalidate anything that my students are thinking or feeling.

But I did say, you know, I'll tell you that I would never pay you to walk Molly.

He looked at me and he asked me why. And I said, because of the way that you treat people. And I said, the person that I would pay to walk my dog is someone that's really good to dogs. And also really good to people because I'm Molly's person. And so anybody I pay to take care of her would also have to be good to me.

Yeah. And he just got completely quiet. And we just sat there for a while. I don't ever know what the outcome of conversations are going to be, right? None of us do.

But I had no idea what was going to happen. And so after a few minutes, I asked him if he wanted to go back to the group, or if he wanted to stay by himself. And he chose to go back to the group. And that was the last time he was ever disrespectful to the other student.

Yeah, that's a great story. Like I can't make that happen, right? But I took what he was thinking. And I just grounded it in real. And I helped him understand a different perspective than his own.

In closing, if you was to teach every school,

“every parent, every community, what would this world look like?”

That would be an amazing, an amazing outcome for what I've created. I wish that every student who wanted what I offer had the ability to access it. I do, I've started coaching and licensing other people to open centers like mine.

Because while I do offer online groups, the reality is it's much more effective in person, right?

It just is. And so I would love for there to be social clubs like mine all over the world, run by people who feel like they know what they're doing. And they figured this thing out. But I really do think, especially kids who want help making friends, that is honestly my ultimate goal is for there to be a program for them in their community,

which is why I teach people how to do that. And it's almost exclusively parents that approach me about wanting to start a club, because they come across me and they're not in San Antonio, Texas. And so the next bet's option is to either start their own or find someone in their community to start it. That absolutely would be my ultimate goal is for everybody who wants support with this to be able to get it.

Again, it's not just about helping the students. It's about helping their parents and their teachers and the community better understand their social

I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.

“Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm really glad I got the opportunity to be here.”

It's my pleasure. Thanks again. A big thank you to our guest for sharing that journey.

If today's conversation helped you see the world a little differently, then we're doing exactly

“what we hope to do. Until next time, keep believing, keep learning, and most importantly,”

keep asking yourself, "Why not me?"

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