Yali Szulanski
Educational Wellness Consultant
Bio
Yali Szulanski is an educational wellness consultant, teacher, and spiritual educator. She works with individuals, families, schools, and community organizations to create a shared language of emotional wellness, and community strength. Yali listens to the needs of her clients, helps them recognize, name, and validate their emotions, and move through challenges with ease. Her method combines movement, creative expression, breath work, and trauma-informed therapeutic practice.
She has taught in classrooms across The United States, and in Israel, Haiti, Singapore, and The United Kingdom. Yali creates robust, engaging, inclusive, and evolving spaces for people going through life’s big and little changes. Yali received her Masters in Psychology and Education from Teachers’ College, Columbia University, and is currently enrolled in Yeshivat Maharat’s Core Semicha program for Rabbinic Ordination. She is the founder of The "I Am" Project through which students integrate contemplative and mind-body-spirit practices into their classrooms and lives in accessible and practical ways. As a survivor of trauma and in recovery from an eating disorder now for over a decade, Yali uses what she has learned from navigating her healing to inform her work with others. Her personal experiences enable her to speak and teach with emotional honesty, compassion and understanding. Yali creates spaces in which people can safely tend to their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Yali works individuals - children and adults, with groups in the classroom, advises parents and teachers, and works with people of all ages and origins.
Yali worked with our sixth grade classes for three years. Her "I Am" Project workshops taught students and teachers to incorporate social-emotional wellness into the classroom environment. In a tracked study, students performed better on assessments and reported higher rates of positive feedback regarding their levels of anxiety, and mental wellbeing as compared to previous years, and throughout the year. Parents reported their children being more capable of expressing their frustration and anger at home in healthy ways, and exhibiting calm and informed approaches to problem solving.
Bala Cynwyd Middle School
Yali worked with my daughter weekly for two years after she began having panic attacks in the classroom. She taught her to connect to her emotions by grounding her in her body, in her strengths, and giving her the language to express herself, and create change in her life. They worked with meditation, spiritual connectedness, journaling and cognitive training. She gave my daughter many tools to work with to help her through this. This year, my child has not exhibited these daily challenges. She has the tools to talk herself through difficult moments, the understanding from a wider perspective and the confidence that she can get through it.
Dafna, Mother of 3
Yali helped craft our Mindfulness curriculum, and worked tirelessly with our students to give them the language to express their emotions, the tools to live healthy, productive lives, and the ability to create a definition of presence and awareness in every day life. Our students report using the tools well beyond their time in the program.
Fountain House, College Re-Entry
Yali has such an intelligent, creative and inspiring writing style. The strength in her voice and in her story has inspired full classrooms to delve into their creative wells. We were honored to have a glimpse of her input and insight into our poetry slam programs and training. She has left a poignant impact on the kids in the teams she coached.
Word Forward, Singapore
