Northern Lights - Issue 40 - January 2026
SOS LEARNING LAB: Learning to Manage Mental Health and Well-Being
by AMY LANE
Debra and her extended SOS Learning Lab team recently celebrated 15 years of offering specialized education and mental health support for children and families in northwest Michigan.
One student might need math tutoring. Another, organizational and study skills, counseling, or maybe classes through a flexible online high school to earn a diploma.
With that help and more, SOS Learning Lab LLC is making a difference in the lives of Grand Traverse region youth and families – an educational resource center that, in life and learning, is helping young people achieve their educational goals and mental well-being.
Helping Over 325 Families Feel Safe
“Being an extra layer of support, is what I always wanted to do,” said owner and CEO Debra Caperton. “I think learning in the climate we’re in can be so stressful for kids and families, and it either causes anxiety or you already have it and it helps it to grow. If we feel safe emotionally, physically and our needs are being met, all of these things, the rest will come. You have to feel safe.
“That is more than anything what, when people walk in the door, we’ve created.”
With a staff of specialists, early childhood, special education and general education teachers and others, the organization serves some 325 families each year, collaborating with schools, fellow educators and community agencies. It’s a business that has seen assistance from Venture North Funding & Development as it’s grown from small beginnings just over 15 years ago, as a venture Caperton started out of her home.
At the time, she had moved to the Traverse City area after teaching in Arizona for 10 years, holding a bachelor’s degree in special and elementary education and a master’s degree in school guidance counseling. A Traverse City Central High School graduate, Caperton returned to the region with then 13-year-old daughter Carlee, who was having medical and mental health challenges.
Debra sites daughter Carlee as an inspiration for starting — and growing — SOS Learning Lab, with Carlee now a big part of the team and, “a huge sense of grounding” for her work.
Credentials for Building a Business
Caperton took a job as special education coordinator with Elk Rapids Schools but found Carlee’s needs required her to be present more than a full-time job allowed. Starting SOS in 2010, she had flexibility and used her education, experience and passion to shape and build a business, one client at a time.
Immersing herself in the community, Caperton connected with agencies and organizations, looking not only to fill needs she saw for educational counseling, tutoring and other support but also to find funding sources for her young enterprise.
“My umbrella was always education, I never swayed from that, because that’s what I know, that’s what I’m trained to do,” Caperton said. But, she said, “education isn’t just academic,” it’s working on behaviors and other areas so students then can progress academically.
In a couple years, with a growing client base served by one person – herself -- she was at a crossroads, questioning if she should pursue another job or if SOS was “really going to work” and she would “be able to do this and make ends meet.” Applying for a job at a local disability organization, she found encouragement -- not to take the job but to forge ahead with what she had worked hard to build.
“It was that conversation…that’s when I was like OK, I guess I need a team, and I need a lab,” Caperton said.
Putting Capital and Advice to Work
Enter the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce, where in 2013 she applied to a loan program that led her to Venture North President Laura Galbraith, then the chamber’s vice president of business and finance. The Sub Micro Loan Program and Galbraith later transitioned into Venture North when it formed.
Caperton received a $7,500 loan that helped her equip and open a lab in leased space – a hub in which she could grow further and create jobs, particularly for other women juggling personal and career challenges.
“I wanted other women to experience what I was experiencing,” Caperton said. “You can have a job that you love, and you can make money and get an education, and make a difference in the world too.”
The new lab, opened in 2014, was a turning point. “I think it was grounding for me; a home to be able to create and expand,” she said. “And now we have six spaces, and we could use more. It’s very busy all the time.”
Help for Displaced Kids
Galbraith said she remembers “the passion Debbie shared about her daughter and other kids that are displaced by the education and medical system. I personally struggled with a child that had dyslexia and could relate to the helplessness and frustration that parents feel when they cannot find the resources needed to help their child.
“Debbie had a solid business plan, she was well-respected in the community, and she organized a team of professionals with various areas of expertise. I was really excited for Debbie and SOS Learning Lab’s opportunity for growth. It seemed like she found a gap in the system and could be able to provide valuable solutions for parents and for our community.”
For years, Caperton said, Galbraith gave her guidance and support, respecting her vision and an approach to growth that followed the needs of the community. Like many entrepreneurs, Caperton had no business degree but found a knowledge source in Galbraith. “She let me ask a lot of questions,” Caperton said, and would provide help or connect Caperton with another expert. Said Caperton: “She was my safety net.”
Assistance on business financials and projections also came from counselors at the Michigan Small Business Development Center. “I grew into really understanding my numbers,” Caperton said.
Debra and her team helped 75 students graduate last year and estimates having worked with more than 1,000 students the last four years.
A Business Grounded in Need
In 2016, she was ready to expand further. She applied to Venture North for a $25,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded loan – a loan with little collateral, that Galbraith said would have been difficult for a traditional bank to consider. She said the fact that Caperton had secured contracts and revenue commitments, had successfully paid off her first loan and showed business growth in financials, were all positives.
The loan added work space, technology and a student kitchen. Daughter Carlee, growing alongside the family business, is resident artist, produces marketing materials, flyers and brochures, and manages the website, including a recent redesign for SOS’ 15th anniversary.
She also connects with students at SOS who are learning to cope with health issues similar to hers. “They can tell I’m not judging them for anything,” Carlee said. She runs the SOS Pride Social Group and became an SOS co-owner in 2022.
And there are life lessons for others learning to manage their own mental health and well-being.
“You have to be very diligent; essentially I think you have to train yourself to change those neuropathways that you get stuck in. It takes a lot of discipline,” Carlee said. “It has to come from you, you have to choose to live differently, and in a more healthy way.”
“I think learning in the climate we’re in can be so stressful for kids...If we feel safe emotionally, physically and our needs are being met...the rest will come. You have to feel safe.”
Debra Caperton, SOS Learning Labs
A Mother and Daughter Team Take on a National Challenge
Caperton said Carlee’s been “a huge sense of grounding” in her work. “When I worry and I get all wigged out…I just think about what we get to do. I feel so fortunate that I know what I was exactly put on this earth to do.”
A July 2025 blog post by The Annie E. Casey Foundation noted that “youth mental health is a growing public health priority” and that youth mental health statistics show “large numbers of adolescents are reporting symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress-related conditions.” And, while “early intervention programs and mental health screenings in schools have expanded,” the post said, it cited data from the latest National Survey of Children’s Health that showed 54 percent of U.S. youth from 12 to 17 years old still have difficulty getting needed mental health care.
Tim Ervin, resource development and communications specialist at Venture North, said the “daunting explosion of adolescent mental health illness makes it seemingly impossible to put the right team together to heal your child.”
And, he said, the “availability and accessibility of people and places that reflect excellence in adolescent mental health is more than difficult; in rural areas it can seem impossible. In our corner of the world in northwest Michigan, we are more than fortunate to have organizations like SOS – people who have both practical, hands-on experience and are skilled in listening and responding with the tools to guide an adolescent and their family to a better place.”
Debra and Carlee Caperton.
From a Single Mom to a Team of 14
Once a home business started by a single mom juggling a passion for helping others with her own family needs, SOS now employs and provides benefits to 14 full- and part-time employees, including a specialist in services ranging from special education navigation to helping students who have been hospitalized transition back to school, to educator training and other areas. SOS is also starting to do psychoeducational evaluations with a local psychologist.
Caperton would like someday to buy the building in which she’s located although she’s mindful to keep expansion gradual and not grow too big, too fast. “I think businesses sometimes don’t make it because of that,” she said.
“I don’t ever want to be so big that I can’t shift and keep things going. I don’t want to crumble because I’ve gone too big.”
Venture North’s assistance over the years has included a mini grant to help pay for bookkeeping services, pandemic-era grants and business counseling, Galbraith said. She said Caperton “is extremely successful because of her hard work and tenacity to build this business. Debbie is extremely intelligent and has a really good barometer on what works. And she is not embarrassed to ask for help when she needs it.”
Galbraith recalled visiting SOS last fall and seeing some 20 teens in the center doing homework and connecting with staff and friends. “Everyone was happy and you could tell they were in such a positive, safe and inclusive environment. Debbie is a great leader; only a great leader could cultivate such a caring culture.”
An entrepreneur who has taken adversity and turned it to advantage -- and who imparts that to her students – Caperton’s current goal is building a succession team at SOS. It’s a business that, she said, does everything “with a lot of TLC.”
Amy Lane is a veteran Michigan business reporter whose background includes work with Crain Communications Inc., Crain’s Detroit Business and serving as Capitol correspondent for nearly 25 years. Now a freelance reporter and journalist, Lane’s work has appeared in many publications including Traverse City Business News.
