About Debra

Debra Hori, M.A., ET/P

Consulting Educational Therapist

A.B. Psychology, Occidental College

M.A. Special Education, Mild/Moderate Disabilities, California State University, Los Angeles

California Multiple Subject Teacher's Credential

California Specialist Credential, Mild/Moderate Disabilities

ET/P, (Educational Therapist, Professional) Association for Educational Therapists

Certified Martha Beck Life Coach

Certified Bereavement Facilitator, Beyond Loss Bereavement Program, Glendale Adventists Hospital

Certified Nature and Forest Therapy guide 

If you stand in the doorway of Debra's office, you will hear her ask her students, “Can I tell you what you did right?” 

Using a playful and empathetic approach, Debra Hori (she/her/hers) invites students to understand how their brains learn by traveling together through the “neuroscience portal”. She brings into her private practice a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the connections between body, mind, our nervous systems, and our personal relationships to one another. Her focus is on finding ways to return students to their optimal learning state, which means they learn to keep a "calm body."

Debra's desire has always been to help people find positive ways to cope with challenges that present themselves through difficulties in school or work, relationships, parenting, or the death of a loved one. Her work centers around helping people learn resilience and finding ways to make difficult situations into transformative experiences. She has studied different restorative and meditative practices which relax the body and mind. She incorporates these practices into her work with children, families, and adults.

Debra specializes in teaching reading and writing to elementary school children who experience learning challenges, are on the autism spectrum, have attention deficit disorders, dyslexia, or who are “twice exceptional” (gifted with learning differences). Her focus is to develop an individualized intervention plan that is tailored for each students' needs so that success and skills are built over time. 

She is a certified Martha Beck Life Coach, and a certified Bereavement Facilitator, through the Beyond Loss Bereavement Program at Glendale Adventist Hospital.  Her interest in bereavement support focuses on using creative activities to process loss, and, as a result, she pursued additional training with the Creative Grief Studio to develop ways to explore grief through self expression. She is also a certified Nature and Forest Therapy guide. Filling her tool box with these resources gleaned from personal experiences and interests, Debra infuses her work with techniques learned from these varied restorative practices.

She is a writer, a parent of a child with special needs, and she practices mindful awareness. She enjoys spending restorative time in nature, delights in the ever-present stack of books she is reading, is owned by a cat, and stays present to see things growing in her garden, which she believes is the world's best classroom.