Our Mission
To preserve and protect the mental and social health of caregiving moms globally.
We Are Brave Together brings its mission to life by creating meaningful opportunities for caregiving moms to connect, rest, learn, and feel understood. Through Connection Circles and Mom Mingles, retreats and scholarships, and the Brave Together Podcast, We Are Brave Together creates spaces where caregiving moms can build community, share their stories, and reconnect with themselves and one another.
Our books and free Virtual Mental Health Education Sessions further extend that support through education and storytelling. Together, these five pillars provide caregiving moms with practical tools, resources, lived-experience connection, and opportunities to care for their mental and social health—meeting moms where they are and reminding them that they are not alone.
Our Founder
Jessica Patay is passionate about serving caregiving moms and creating authentic communities. She has always fostered deep, life-giving friendships and has been intentional about her community of girlfriends. As a caregiving mom herself, this passion carries on as she gathers women to encourage them, mentor them, inspire them, and validate their intense and precious journeys.
Her own story as a mom to a child with a disability, began in 2003 when her second son, Ryan, was born and diagnosed with a rare, genetic disorder, called Prader-Willi syndrome. Within two days of receiving this diagnosis, she received a phone call from a mentor mom from the Prader-Willi California Foundation. Immediately she felt relief and comfort knowing she was NOT ALONE. Thankfully, Ryan is sandwiched in the middle of siblings Luke and Kate, both fierce and loving cheerleaders and helpers to Ryan.
If Jessica could show up on every mother’s doorstep, with flowers, chocolate, a witty-and-wise motherhood manual, and…a gorgeous banner that says, “You are not alone,” she would. And you never know, she just may do this. The We Are Brave Together organization was born out of this desire and heart.
Jessica Patay has fueled WABT’s growth into an international community of over 4,600 moms. She has helped launch over 75 support groups all over the United States, and in New Zealand and Australia, in the last six years. She is one of the co-hosts of “Brave Together Podcast” found on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and YouTube. Brave Together Podcast is in its 11th season and has offered a library of inspirational stories and resources for moms from at least 100 countries who find themselves in the trenches of caregiving.
Her favorite topics:
The mental and social health of caregiving moms
Preventing caregiver burnout
The power of connection and community
Siblings in a disability family
Grief in altered motherhood
Supporting a friend though crisis or chronic hardship
The healing power of storytelling
Our Leadership
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Board of Directors
Brian Altounian
Anthony Brown
Stephanie Fleck
Natalie Handy
Dr. Corrine Hickson
Cindy Kaplan
Anthony Rivello
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Officers
Anthony Rivello, President
Stephanie Fleck, Secretary
Anthony Brown, Treasurer