Licensed Professional Counselor • Child Development + Psychology • School Counselor • Teacher Coach

About Kristin Castillo, LPC

I built Who They Become after years of working across counseling, child development, school culture, and teacher support—and seeing the same disconnect over and over. Schools often say they value connection, regulation, belonging, empathy, and student growth. But those values only matter when students actually experience them in the adults, systems, and classrooms around them.

I look for the gap between what a school says it values and what students actually experience.

  • Licensed Professional Counselor

  • background in child development and psychology

  • school counseling

  • teacher coaching

  • classroom observation

  • student regulation and behavior support

  • SEL programming

  • family partnership

  • school culture work

  • Texas Rising Star coaching/observation

What I Bring

Child development + mental health + school systems + adult-student interactions + school culture

Across nearly 20 years, I’ve worked with children, families, educators, and school communities in a range of settings. Those experiences have shown me how much the adult in the room matters. The same child can look very different depending on the environment, the relationship, and the way an adult responds. The reverse is true, too: students also shape the adults and systems around them.

Why This Work

As schools increasingly recognize the value of social-emotional learning, it is often added in the way education knows best: as another lesson.

But this work cannot happen in isolation.

SEL has to be part of how a school thinks, how adults interact with students, how conflict is handled, and how support is provided along the way. It requires a mindset shift—not just for students, but for educators too.

The goal is to build a system where social-emotional development is supported throughout the day, reinforced across relationships, and treated as an important part of who students are becoming.

Always grounded in what will actually work for the school and the people in front of me.

How I Work

Relational, Direct, Curious, Reflective, Practical, Willing to have hard conversations

The goal is not to create perfect students or perfect schools.

The goal is to help schools become more intentional about who students are becoming while they are there.