Emily Conway

Summer Cohort Residential Advisor

Emily Conway loves people. She is passionate about working with students with ADHD, and with those who have no diagnosis, but struggle with executive function. We are very happy to have her as our Academic Support Specialist and Summer Cohort Residential Advisor.

She comes to us from Atlanta, Georgia where she works in two roles: as Executive Function & Academic Coach at Creating Positive Futures and as Mental Health Counselor at Walden Behavioral Care where she is certified in Diversity and Inclusion, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Both CBT (working with the interconnections among thoughts, feelings, and behavior) and DBT (giving students the tools to live mindfully in the moment, cope with stress, regulate their emotions, and improve their relationships) will inform her work with Focus Collegiate students. “Dialectic,” Emily explains, “Is the theory that two things that seem to be in opposition with one another can also be true at the same time. For example, a student may truly yearn to do well in school and yet hates homework and would rather watch YouTube videos.”

Having nurtured great patience her roles ranging from Youth Conservation Corps Project Manager to English teaching assistant, to mental health counselor and academic coach, Emily listens without judgement, criticism, or disappointment.

Experience and understanding are the two pillars of her teaching philosophy. Having been in the position of the inbound college students she will be supporting this summer, she knows how scary it can be to start such an important new phase in one’s life. She admits that she was not a prefect student, “I had to work hard, and thought everyone else was smarter than me… It was not until I started looking for support and realizing that there is no harm in it, that I really started thriving as a student.” She looks forward to providing the kind of support that will help others thrive, too.

Emily is trained in Mental Health First Aid, CPR, and First Aid and received her Bachelor of Arts from Carthage College where she majored in English and Interpersonal Communication and minored in Gender Studies.