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in
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Parent
Whisperer
PHOTO CREDIT: JOHN HARWICK
Meet
Julie Fisher,
working on the
Federation’s
teen mental
health initiative .
VIVIAN HENOCH SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
A
former high school teacher, now a
sought-after speaker and parenting
expert as principal consultant at
the MJ Fisher Group, Julie Fisher, M.Ed., is
a trusted adviser to parents, school admin-
istrators, kids and teens on a variety of
topics related to managing stress, social
media and the pace of life online and
off. Developing a new curriculum for
resilience, Fisher joins Federation’s
Mental Health Initiative as an inde-
pendent consultant and workshop
leader. To follow her work, visit www.
jhelp.org/weneedtotalk.
Fisher’s interest in education began
in her senior year at the University of
Michigan. Based on her internship the
previous summer with Special Olympics
International in D.C. — and at their
request — she marched into the Sociology
20
June 14 • 2018
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Department and pitched the idea of pilot-
ing a program pairing university students
with Special Olympics athletes, then teach-
ing a class on developmental disabilities
and inclusion. To her surprise, the school
gave her a green light; the course was listed
in the catalog and a full class signed up.
Based on that project, she graduated with
both a Student Achievement and Student
Humanitarian Award. After college, she was
recruited into Macy’s buyer’s training pro-
gram in New York City.
Fisher discovered that teaching was her
first love. After those first years in retail, she
returned to school for her master’s in edu-
cation at Loyola University in Chicago. In
Chicago, she taught high school history in
Evanston, then took a job on the south side
of Chicago at a school with metal detectors
at the doors and an active police depart-
ment inside the building. “I would start the
year with all these fabulous eager students,”
she said. “And then, I had kids who were
arrested in my classroom and girls drop-
ping out of school before the end of the year
because they were pregnant. Kids just didn’t
understand that they had better options.”
Fisher is well-attuned to the challenges
of teens and advocating for better options
for young people and their families. A
board member of Planned Parenthood of
Michigan for many years, Fisher served for
more than a decade as director of BBFA
(Building Better Families though Action), a
nonprofit parenting education organization
focusing on preventing destructive behav-
iors in kids and teens. While running BBFA,
she jumped back into education and into a
former role as an AP History teacher at the
Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield
continued on page 22