Dr. T specializes in youth life coaching with transition support for young people who are committed to ceasing delinquent behavior and working toward positive change. She works with youth who are struggling with internal intrusive pressures. Dr. T needed a coach when she was young to help her successfully navigate her own positive transformation and then went on to achieve her Ed. D in Counseling Psychology. She integrates her personal experience as a successful long-term case manager, therapist, along with her extensive formal research and coaching expertise in gratitude, wellness, and positive change to support young people committed to reform.
Dr. T experienced emotional and physical abuse and abandonment from the ages of 10-17. At 17, she decided to do better with her life. She chose to stop allowing others to hurt her and also quit harmful behaviors and replaced them with working to build a life she could be proud of. Through that work, she went on to achieve success in ways she would have never dreamed of. Sadly, she has close loved ones who lost their lives to early death, and those who lost their freedom and opportunities to long-term sentences or addictions that kept them down. The sobering reality of those outcomes fuels my passion for this work. She does this work for those who don’t believe positive, long-term transformation is possible, or that they’re worth the time and effort. It is and you are. Plenty has succeeded before you...You and your life remain too valuable to waste. You have so much good to offer this world. You just need to figure out what that is and use it well.
Dr. T’s Youth Life Coaching and Support balances the client’s introspection and retrospection with their emotional intelligence by using techniques that are grounded in gratitude, mindfulness, and wellbeing. Dr. T’s Youth Life Coaching and Support provide that stability and transparent support, so youth feel comfortable expressing their feelings, goals, and concerns and can celebrate their accomplishments.
Dr. T helps the youth she works with know and feels supported while they are experiencing life problems. Using methods such as positive psychology and “real talk,” she provides a nonjudgmental space and place that helps youth have positive outcomes. There is no issue that anyone should feel they have to go through alone, “Let ME be your B.F.F.”
Stage 1:
Transformation and Mindshift
(3-6 Months) determined after Assessment
Twice weekly meetings for 12-24 weeks. Includes, one 90-minute group session weekly that covers behavioral science education and life skills training + one 45-minute individual coaching session weekly. Primary objective is to stop harmful behaviors and replace them with working to build a life the client can be proud of. After completing this stage the youth can move to become a mentor or youth coach.
Stage 2:
Persist & Assist
(3-6 Months) determined after Assessment
Once weekly training sessions for 12-24 weeks. Successful youth are trained as peer mentor coaches to assist other young people working toward positive reform. Two-hour training sessions include an introduction to basic coaching skills, coaching demonstrations, practice, and supervision.
Stage 3:
Volunteering and Giveback to the Community
(2 days per week for 4 weeks)
This stage is in one of these areas tutoring, mentoring with children, running groups, clean up in the community, and feeding families. After completing volunteer and give back to the Community for (4-weeks) youth will have earned their graduation certificate and celebration and will be able to apply for a job at Better Family Foundation.
Graduation Stage
Fun days and field trips in the community and special events
Job Qualification Stage
Complete Youth Program Successfully and with a recommendation
Breakdown of the Cost and Approach with Life Coaching with Youth: $500.00
13-18-year-olds with a history of foster-care, juvenile-delinquency, expelled students from school with non-violent or criminality predisposition
12 months of weekly support including, education, coaching, and training
Twice weekly meetings for 6 months includes, 1 group training and coaching session + 1 45-minute individual coaching session weekly
Once weekly meetings for the next 6 months - Successful coached are trained as peer mentor coaches
SCHEDULE: Group session meeting weekly, Tuesdays, and 1:1 session occurring weekly, Thursdays or Fridays, as scheduled by Dr. T and each client meeting location is pending confirmation
Monthly installments are due in advance of each month's sessions to continue participation.
How To Get Results For Youth After Working With Dr. T
Beginning with an assessment, Dr. T works with each of her clients to understand the client’s needs and goals. From there, she tailors the program to the client by incorporating relevant focus areas from the four domains below. Focus areas are adjusted for ongoing development as the client progresses.
Family and Community Awareness
Coaching clients through family and community awareness involves helping the client identify and leverage the internal and external tools presently available to them to begin moving toward their goals. Dr. T facilitates self-awareness around concepts like identity, strengths, interests, values, and desires to enhance self-mastery.
Personal Development
Coaching clients through personal development involves helping clients enhance their sense of agency to choose goals, act toward chosen goals, and succeed. Dr. T support clients as they prioritize self-regulation and tap into self-determined motivation, meaning, and purpose on their way to achievement.
Social Development
Coaching clients through social development involves facilitating social and emotional learning and related competency building. Through this focus, clients become more aware of the functional role of social interactions and relationships to success and well-being.
Structural Support Development
Coaching clients through structural support development involves facilitating goal-orientation for fit in education, job paths, and prosocial groups conducive to goals. Dr. T coach clients through the research and considerations necessary to begin to establish self-determined life direction, related planning, and action steps around long-term goals.
Dr. T has 25 years invested deeply in our youth. She believes that when youth are healthy, they want to help their peers become healthy too and she has started a nonprofit so the youth can do this responsibly. Dr. T opened Better Family Foundation to allow youth to help their peers by becoming a youth coach and much more.