About Me
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About Me
In my experience, young people often feel like they are rarely. After coaching hundreds of teenagers in my 20 years in education, I was driven to begin an adolescent and emerging adult life coaching service. At Rise Coaching, my goal is to help young people feel elevated, empowered, and excited about their day-to-day lives and hopeful for what’s to come.
I absolutely adore working with teenagers, and I often think they are misunderstood. Adolescence is an extremely difficult time for most people. Young people are rarely taken seriously or honored as they should be. They are smart, capable beings growing towards adulthood, and their journey should be not only acknowledged but celebrated.
Young people don’t often feel truly listened to, seen, or prepared with the resources or the tools to move forward with joy and passion to meet their fullest potential.
My coaching journey began when a good friend suggested that I try seeing a life coach rather than a therapist. The work we did together changed my life. I realized through my sessions with him just how to unlock my deepest passions and joys, and I found myself living a more powerful and meaningful life.
This work led me to deeper relationships with people I love, stronger boundary-setting skills, personal wellness, honest self-reflection, and a more profound understanding of what really mattered to me.
After a colleague said to me years ago, “You really need to be a life coach, Kara,” I decided to finally take that leap.
I ended a 10 year role as the director of a charter high school in Washington, D.C., and my family and I relocated to Wilmington, North Carolina. I began my new chapter at Rise Coaching, where I can provide teenagers with focused, personalized support as a life coach.
For Parents
Adolescence is one of the most challenging and important periods of a person’s life, and I don’t believe we are supporting it well enough just yet. Our young people often don’t feel heard or understood, and as much as we can support them, they’ve often told me they don’t really feel “seen.” My goal at Rise Coaching is to help adolescents feel seen through support, goal-setting, and lots of attention and care, in partnership with their family.
In our changing world, we need to provide the guidance, support, and love that they need most, and it’s drastically different for each teen, which is why Rise offers an individualized, tailored coaching program for each teen and family.
At Rise Coaching, my aim is to help our young people prepare to meet their potential, their goals, and mostly, their joys. I ask them, How do you want to spend your days? The goal here is. What do you care about? What fulfills you in your day-to-day life now and for the long term?
If we can help our young people find meaning, we can help them become their truest and most wholesome selves. And after all, isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t that the goal?
I’d love to work in partnership to unlock and support your adolescent’s growth, ambitions, loves, and joys. I believe the period of adolescence is where and when a person’s greatest passions are either fostered or squashed. I’m here to help you help them not miss out on a life where they can explore, determine, and live out their joys, and thrive.
In the past twenty years, my work with young people has been broad. I’ve worked in schools in Massachusetts and Washington, DC, serving young people and families of all backgrounds and needs. And it’s been the honor of a lifetime.
After leaving the school setting most recently, I felt I was not finished working with teenagers. I truly believe they are one of the most special and fascinating groups of people on the planet, and I am deeply drawn to working with them. This is what brought me to launch Rise Coaching.
Our Mission
Our mission is to guide young people through one of the most pivotal stages of life—adolescence—so they can move into adulthood with clarity, excitement, and confidence.
We do this by:
Helping young people discover their “why”
Creating space for reflection, growth, and new possibilities
Supporting families and loved ones in this journey
Providing practical strategies for everyday challenges like academics, friendships, and time management