Presentation: Every High School Needs a Fight Club: A counselor in the classroom approach to education
Emily Torres
Emily Torres has been an educator with Spokane Public Schools for 22 years. In 2016 she helped pilot a program for trauma-impacted teens and ever since has continued to incorporate a counselor-in-the-classroom approach to education. She has had the unique privilege of working alongside psychologists (Dr. Kent Hoffman Every Person has Infinite Worth | Kent Hoffman | TEDxSpokane – YouTube, Dr. Russel Kolts Anger, Compassion, and What It Means To Be Strong | Russell Kolts | TEDxOlympia (youtube.com), and Mental Health Therapist Sean Barrett to develop and implement an ELA curriculum designed around self-awareness. Emily is also a trauma-informed trainer through the Community Resilience Initiative (www.CRIResilient.org) and has been a presenter introducing others to Holistic Curriculums at their annual Beyond Paper Tigers Trauma-Informed Care Conference and at the 2024 Regional Equity Summit. She was also one of Lilac City’s Teacher of the Year in 2022.
What you can look forward to in Emily’s Talk:
This talk will highlight a proactive and positive approach to meeting the needs of today’s youth. She and Sean share a hopeful glimpse into a space that can and should exist in all public schools, revealing the benefits that occur when communities and schools come together to address our 21st century mental health crisis.
Fun Fact:
Her first concert back in the ’80s was Michael Bolton and Kenny G. Since then, her love of music has continued and she has seen an eclectic group of performers from Prince to Stevie Nicks. She believes music is our common language serving as a reminder that we are always more alike than we are different.
Sean Barrett
Meet Sean, a mental health counselor who at the age of 16 had steered clear of psychology classes because he and the counselors he was working with were unable to unravel the mystery to him finding himself. A mixtape given to him around this time was Sean’s Rosetta Stone, giving him the first words and emotions to understand what he had been experiencing.
Sean began his career rocking the soundwaves as an audio engineer after moving to Nashville to study music production. If you would have told Sean that he’d end up in graduate school for marriage and family counseling he would have laughed. He later found that music, like people and relationships, share a need for balance and harmony.
Sean treasures his roles as a husband, father, family member, friend, and colleague. Alongside TEDx co-speaker Emily Torres, he is devout in bringing language arts and psychology to every young soul in every classroom possible.
Those who know Sean best describe him as empathetic, affable, and a bit of a muppet – qualities he would recommend to work in an industry where the chief commodity is pain. His guiding philosophy? Start with putting relationships first, and listen to one another the way you listen to your favorite song.
What you can look forward to in Sean & Emily’s TEDx Talk:
- How combining psychology and language arts offers students a roadmap to their schoolwork, themselves, and their health
- How putting a counselor in the classroom works, and how it can work for other teachers and counselors
- How the needs for student success and health evolve, and how we can meet them
Fun Fact:
Once shook hands with B.B. King. Has since washed his hands.
Find Sean on Social Media:
Website: https://www.familytherapyspokane.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/familytherapyspokane/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/familytherapyspokane/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/familytherapyspokane/