In this podcast episode, Emily Torres, an educator with Spokane Public Schools for 21 years, discusses her experience piloting a program for trauma-impacted teens. The program uses a counselor-in-the-classroom approach with a curriculum designed around self-awareness. Torres worked alongside psychologists to develop and implement the curriculum, which includes daily practices and a weekly therapist visit. The program also incorporates the Circle of Security approach to help students deal with challenging situations. Torres emphasizes the importance of having a willing teacher and a partnership to implement such a program successfully. Torres’ goal is to help students develop skills that they can use with their own families later in life. Torres believes that her students have incredible wisdom. Overall, Torres’s program aims to help students become more resilient and better equipped to deal with the challenges they face.

• Noticed a shift in student disposition
• AVID was the start, but it grew from there.
• Nothing worse as a teacher than feeling ill-equipped for your students.
• Starting a Project-based learning program that had a counselor in the classroom.
• Soapbox project
• Jevon McCormick episode
• The counselor comes in one time a week.
• Daily practices - therapist comes once a week
• Circle of Security gave us ways to talk about things that were challenging.
• Helped students feel like they had a place every week to deal with what was going on in their lives.
• Savior Complex
• Kids get recommended to come into this class.
• The interview process for students.
• The goal is to see it at every high school.
• Use it to talk about characters in literature
• The Power of different roles in Resilient Schools
• It makes sense for students to make sense of their understanding
• Are we thinking beings who feel or feeling beings who think?
• We are so much more complex than that.
• Awesome People in Progress
• Teaching brain states in regular classes.
• Nobody is harder on us than we are on ourselves.
• The role of the judge saboteur.
• The goal is to do no harm
• The goal is to have the students start using these things with their own kids and families later in life.
• My students have incredible wisdom.
• We need a willing teacher and a partnership.
• See this community

About Emily Torres
Emily Torres has been an educator with Spokane Public Schools for 21 years. In 2016, she helped pilot a program for trauma-impacted teens. This unique counselor-in-the-classroom approach uses a curriculum designed around self-awareness. She has worked alongside psychologists (Kent Hoffman (Every Person has Infinite Worth | Kent Hoffman | TEDxSpokane - YouTube, Dr. Russel Kolts (Dr. Russell Kolts and Compassion-Based Therapy - Eastern Washington University (ewu.edu), and Sean Barrett) to develop and implement this specially designed curriculum. Emily is a trauma-informed trainer through the Community Resilience Initiative (www.CRIResilient.org) where she has also been a presenter introducing others to Holistic Curriculums at their annual Beyond Paper Tigers Trauma-Informed Care Conference. And, she was the 2022 Lilac City Teacher of the Year.

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