Red Mountain Colorado is thrilled to announce the addition of Liz Villanueva, Academic Director, to the team. Liz joined RMC in January and brings a wealth of enthusiasm, experience, and expertise in working with students with learning differences, emotional struggles, and behavioral challenges.

As a Certified Special Education Teacher, Liz was drawn to Red Mountain Colorado because of the focus on mindfulness, mental health, and overall well-being.

Though Liz is pursuing a Masters in Organizational Leadership and had previously left the classroom to work in human resources, she realized that she missed working with adolescent students. When she found Red Mountain Colorado, she immediately knew it was a good fit. “After my first day, I was like, this is my dream job!” Liz said.

While her role is helping students regain momentum in school, Liz’s priority is helping students feel safe and comfortable in the classroom. “My biggest thing is always relationship building,” she said. “When I worked in public schools, I always had the ‘problem’ students sent to work with me.  But I never had any issues with disrespect, because I built relationships first.”

Liz, also a mother of two young children, works as a mentor at RMC in the morning before school and stays after school to tutor individuals who need extra help or those who want to work ahead. She also spends time getting to know students during lunch.

Recently Liz, who is fluent in Spanish, has been connecting with a few students around the topic of racial diversity. She values learning about everyone and seeing how they view the world and the issues that brought them to RMC. “I love having conversations with them,” she said. “They have so much to say.”

In addition to her ability to connect with students, Liz is passionate about photography, world travel, and education. In her previous schools, Liz taught or co-taught every subject and is skilled at helping students with executive functioning deficits find success in academics. She loves working individually to help students fill the gaps in their understanding and is used to getting creative when working with her students.

“It’s about finding what works for every student,” Liz said. “They are not made with cookie cutters.”

About Red Mountain Colorado:

Red Mountain Colorado, located just north of Denver, provides an ideal location for adolescent males and nonbinary individuals, who would benefit from a mindfulness-based residential treatment program. Red Mountain helps teens with co-occurring disorders heal by working with the mind, body, and spirit using various forms of meditation, mindfulness, yoga, martial arts, life skills education, and evidence-based therapies including CBT, DBT, EMDR, and Brainspotting.