Marla McLellan holds an M.A. in Counselling Psychology and a PhD in Education. She has been working in the public-school system since 1986 and has been a secondary school counsellor since 1997. She has a private counselling practice, www.walkandtalk.ca, incorporating movement, mindful awareness and critical reflection to enhance pre-teen, teen and family wellbeing. As well as an instructor at City University, she teaches at the Justice Institute of B.C., working with teachers to help create a more positive classroom environment for their students and themselves.
Marla has been with City University since 2015. She has taught the Counselling Theories and the Child and Adolescent Growth and Development 3-day courses within the Masters of School Counselling program. She also teaches the Counselling Field Experience and Internship 2-year program, through which she offers clinical supervision and guidance to students along their journey to gain hands-on counselling experience within the classroom and the external site in which they are mentored. She brings with her 34 years of experience working as both teacher and counsellor within four school districts, and a multitude of schools, as well as post-secondary institutions. Her focus for her Masters was cross-cultural counselling and her doctoral thesis, Exploring Reflective Practice and Intentional Response with Teachers: Implications for Wellbeing in the Classroom, focusses on helping teachers respond more effectively to the plethora of triggers that come their way on a daily basis. Her research was focused on reflective inquiry, mindful awareness, compassion, wellbeing and the concept of the self.