Editor’s note: In partnership with The Acadiana Advocate, the705 is recognizing its annual Top 20 Under 40 Acadiana Leadership Award honorees, presented by Advancial Federal Credit Union. Honorees will be recognized at a banquet April 10 at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Student Union Ballroom. For tickets, visit bit.ly/20under40for2026.
Layla Touchet is a professional school counselor at Prairie Elementary School. She is a native of New Iberia.
What are one or two of your greatest business and/or community achievements?
Representing Louisiana in Washington, D.C. as Louisiana School Counselor of the Year in 2023 is one of my proudest moments. I earned this title by running a data-driven, comprehensive school counseling program. This achievement led to more opportunities to better support and advocate for my students, such as meeting the secretary of education, collaborating with Proof Positive, writing articles, podcast interviews and meeting with the state superintendent. My pride and joy is the neurodivergent initiative I’ve run the past five years. It started with research that led to certifications in ADHD and autism, my own diagnoses and providing education to others to better support neurodivergent humans. It began at my school and then expanded to include my school district, conferences, churches, teacher in services, podcasts, parent workshops and anyone who wants to learn. Watching the world become more neurodivergent-inclusive makes my heart feel full.
What’s your favorite thing about what you do for a living?
My favorite thing about being a counselor, especially a school counselor, is watching my tiny humans grow every year as they learn to self-regulate, succeed and thrive. Seeing them independently use a coping strategy we’ve practiced countless times never gets old.
You’ve earned multiple counseling credentials and have supervised interns since 2020 while finishing your PhD coursework. What’s one lesson you teach new counselors that you wish every adult understood about kids’ mental health?
The WIT method. My supervisor taught me the WIT method, and it stands for “Whatever It Takes”, and it’s all about meeting the child where they are — either physically or mentally getting on their level — because I get kids who come from all socioeconomic statuses. I have the ones who have trauma from being in poverty, and then I have ones who have trauma from absent parents or parents who put too much pressure on them. You have to meet them where they’re at, and sometimes that means that I’m walking with a kid down the hallway. Sometimes that means not growling back when they pull a hoodie over their head and growl at you while they walk. You have to do whatever it takes to reach them, because a lot of times these kids don’t trust adults. When we meet them where they’re at, they start to trust us. And when they start to trust us, it makes them want to start to work for us.
Whether that’s behavior work in actually doing what they need to do in the classroom or actually wanting to succeed academically, they will want to do it more when they trust us. They trust us when we meet them where they’re at by doing whatever it takes to meet them there. If that means a Skittle, it’s a Skittle. If it’s giving them a high five or a hug every morning, I’ll do it, but it’s all about meeting them and building that relationship.
