Dr. Cher Edwards has been a Counselor Educator for over 25 years. Prior to living in Washington, Cher was a counselor and counselor educator in Ohio where she served on the State Board of Education and as the president of the Ohio Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development, the president of the South East Ohio Counselor Association, and president-elect of the Ohio Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling.

She also served as vice president of Chi Sigma Iota, an honor society for counseling students. Since coming to SPU, Cher has served the national board of Counselors for Social Justice as member-at-large, awards chair, and treasurer, served as the founding president of Washington Counselors for Social Justice and has served as the Ethics Chair and Vice President of Post-Secondary Education for the Washington School Counselor Association (WSCA). She currently serves as an advisor for the Sigma Phi Upsilon chapter of Chi Sigma Iota and is the President-Elect of the Washington School Counseling Association. She is the recipient of the O’Hana Award presented at the American Counseling Association national conference in 2006 due to social justice advocacy work. Dr. Edwards’ research interests include school counseling, supervision, multicultural competency, and social justice. She has published in the Journal of Professional School Counseling, Virginia Counselors Journal, Journal of the International Community of Christians in Teacher Education, and the Journal of Counseling and Values. In addition to scholarly journals, she has contributed to book chapters, published book reviews, instructors’ manuals for texts, reviewed test instruments, and most recently co-authored a group counseling textbook titled, Group Counseling in the Schools. Dr. Edwards has served on several editorial boards as a reviewer for Professional School Counseling, the Journal of the International Community of Christians in Teacher Education, and the Journal of Job Placement and Development. She has presented at state conferences including the Ohio Counseling Association and Washington School Counseling Association annual conferences and national conferences such as the American Counseling Association, American School Counselor Association, and the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision. International presentations include Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Beverley, East Yorkshire, England; Hangzhou, China; and Ariccia, Italy.

Jerry Balistreri is a professional educator, administrator, trainer and author. His training on how to read body language leaves participants wanting more and creates a memorable experience. Jerry gets the participants involved with fun learning experiences that leave them with concrete knowledge of how to read body language and what the "tells" mean.

His strong presence in front of a group, great sense of humor and ability to actively engage participants in the training session ensure that people leave his sessions with take-away value they can use immediately. His enthusiasm, energy and positive attitude are contagious and he consistently earns high marks from those attending his presentations.