Robin McCatty

Student Skills Specialist

Robin has a great talent for making her students feel understood. Her skill is borne of her insatiable curiosity and enhanced by her depth of experience and training. She has worked closely with neurodiverse students for more than a decade.

As school counselor at Willow Hill School, a special education middle and high school in Sudbury, Massachusetts, Robin led classes in Social Skills and Transitional Planning and developed curriculum. “I use evidence-based social-emotional learning strategies

to help open up the social world,” Robin says. “For example, understanding that people are thinking things they are not saying helps students who learn differently develop social competencies and navigate difficult situations.” She has also developed original curriculum on healthy relationships, sex education, and humor.

She supports students in the development of self-awareness, time management, and life balance skills. Robin is tenacious and compassionate. She builds positive connections with students that allow them to feel comfortable and be better able to discover who they are as they learn, grow, and ultimately succeed in their life goals. “Once we build a resonant, trusting relationship, I’m not afraid to have the hard conversations. I can say out loud, ‘oh, that was awkward’ and then explain why.”

During her tenure at Willow Hill, she also taught a variety of electives including Paint Night and Yoga/Barre, during which students practiced the social skills they learned in her other classes. “Meditation, painting, and things like Yoga/Barre can have positive impacts on anxiety. These practices allow students to slow down, and they create space for self-discovery and transition.”

Robin holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from Cambridge College, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in the Townsend Model of Competence and Character Growth from Concordia University in Irvine, CA. She also has a Clinical Training Certificate from Social Thinking.