Counselor Encourages Community with Intentional Counseling

The face of school counseling looks like never before, especially for Teresa Lyons. Each school morning, the decorated educator arrives to her elementary campus nestled in a historic South Dallas neighborhood. Throughout the day she helps young people unpack their burdens and equips them with purposeful tools to combat life’s ills.

By day, she counsels, she consoles, she parents; she chases down students to redirect behaviors. While the job can be tiresome, Lyons wouldn’t have it any other way. This neighborhood - this community is where her story began.

Born and raised in “Sunny South Dallas,” Lyons has a real affinity for the area, the people and the many untold stories. Like many young people, she was encouraged to pursue college after high school. She did just that, but soon learned of opportunities that awaited her in the military.

Shortly after completing basic training and moving to San Antonio, Lyons met a man who would prove not too accepting of the word “no.” She became a victim of date rape, which resulted in her pregnancy. Her decision to end the pregnancy caused a great deal of angst and stress, causing her to make an untimely exit from that military school. It wasn’t until recently that Lyons decided to share the events of her early twenties. She would end her efforts in the military and return to college.

“I had to figure out how to pay for college and not allow my story to end with that trauma,” Lyons explains. “I applied to, was accepted and earned my Bachelors in Rehabilitation Science from UT Southwestern Medical Center.”

Lyons is a firm believer that one must write out what one wants to accomplish in his or her life. She remembers writing that she wanted to graduate from college, meet someone worthy of marriage and find her dream job.

“In 1995 the Lord blessed me to not only meet my now husband of 30 years, but I also graduated from college and landed a dream job with a nonprofit organization,” Lyons says.

The loving wife and mother of three worked for that nonprofit until it ran out of funding. It was then that she turned her focus to education, as a special education teacher. Today, Lyons serves as school counselor at H.S. Thompson Learning Center in the heart of South Dallas. Each day, she ventures through neighborhoods existing in times of gentrification, to arrive to a campus where many native South Dallas families are slowly being pushed out.

“Disparities are entrenched into the area,” she says. “Redlining, a shortage of grocery stores, a dumping area, the lack of affordable housing are all issues in this community. And there is a constant practice of blaming the victim. Our children exist amongst it all.”

In addition to serving the students and families on her campus, Lyons Consulting has formed to meet direct needs of the community. With her business, Lyons provides both training and professional counseling services to individuals and families. She engages in motivational speaking opportunities and contracts with local counseling practices.

“My heart is with offering culturally sensitive and quality counseling, specifically for South Dallas,” Lyons says. “When you’re in a counseling setting – to have to help someone understand what it feels like to be Black before you can help them is a challenge. I pride myself on being relatable to people who look like me and thrive in my beloved community.”