Dr. Jaelyn Farris

As a developmental psychologist, Dr. Farris has spent more than 20 years working in the fields of mental health and academia. Her career has included working as a clinical mental health counselor, spending more than a decade as a college professor who taught numerous classes while running an active research lab, writing books to debunk myths and misperceptions about disadvantaged youth while also describing the factors that lead to resilience, publishing peer-reviewed journal articles about children's healthy development and success in school, and conducting applied research that used psychological principles to improve the lives of at-risk youth and their families. As a professor, Dr. Farris taught hundreds of current and future teachers how to harness the power of psychology to build healthy classrooms via college classes such as Psychology of Education, Child Development, and Adolescent Development. Learning about psychology, and how to apply it in their classrooms, allowed these teachers to shift from a “classroom management” perspective to a model in which students and teachers could not only survive, but thrive. Witnessing this dramatic shift was part of what compelled Dr. Farris to create her educational method.