The Team at LSIS

Meet the people who create and deliver our programming and work every day to make a difference for the people in Palm Beach County and South Florida

People

Suzanne Spencer, Ed.D.

CEO

Dr. Spencer brings a wealth of experience and expertise in non-profit leadership and for-profit organizations to her career in community organizing and has been recognized for innovations in the field of mental health and addiction. She has served as Chief Executive Officer of Living Skills in the Schools for since 2013, leading a prevention team in their attainment of record-breaking goals and an organizational turnaround.

Suzanne has pioneered innovative practices within the health and wellness terrain by mobilizing organizations, community partners, and diverse stakeholders to inform and transform the workplace, workforce, and community. Motivated by her belief in one’s ability to find wholeness through integrated strategies of self-advocacy and organizational care, Suzanne is the visionary behind the Delray Beach Drug Task Force programs such as Project Trailblazer, What Happens After Narcan, and SUDTALKS, thus advancing the national dialogue on our public health crisis and opioid epidemic during her leadership tenure.

Suzanne enjoys fostering and leading collaborative teams with community wellness partners to focus on emergent social challenges. These collaborative teams have implemented programming that reduces the stigma surrounding neuro-diverse populations in the workplace, deploys compassionate leadership models, and designs sustainable intervention strategies to reduce long-term recidivism. With a special emphasis on processes that aid in workforce re-entry, the impact of these programs has helped build capacity in supportive workplace practices to reduce employers’ risk factors as they recruit from under-represented communities.

Her most recent initiative as co-founder of Heads Up Florida addresses vicarious trauma in school systems as a result of school personnel’s chronic exposure to students with adverse childhood experiences, school violence, and bullying.

Suzanne is an inspirational speaker, a conference headliner, addressing audiences such as Florida Atlantic University’s’ Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work and Women Empowering Women Forums, among others. She currently holds an undergraduate degree in Organizational Management, a Graduate degree in Leadership, and Doctorate degree in Education Leadership.

Stardust Myrtil

Teresa Bairos, LMFT

Program Director

Teresa comes to us with extensive experience working with children and families in a variety of roles since 1999. As a therapist, she has supported families coping with mental illness, addiction, trauma, and acculturation. As an administrator, Teresa worked with the State of Rhode Island’s Department of Health to bring supportive integration services to children with special needs in the child care setting.

She supported the U.S. military overseas providing both psychoeducation and treatment around suicide prevention, substance abuse, domestic violence, acute trauma response, and post-deployment reintegration. Teresa has been a lead therapist, family therapist, program developer, clinical director, and clinical supervisor.

She has additional training in attention deficit and hyperactivity management, Collaborative Problem Solving approach, and co-occurring disorders. She has worked in treatment centers delivering clinical services to individuals and families living with a number of challenges including addiction, trauma, grief & loss, mental illness and developmental disabilities. She serves her community as an autism awareness advocate supporting families and educators.

She is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a Master of Arts degree in Marital and Family Therapy from the University of Connecticut.

Olga Lucia Ordonez, LCSW

Prevention Coordinator

Olga Lucia is a mental health clinician with vast experience working as a social worker. Her excellent communication skills are underlined by a strong passion to help patients overcome adverse mental conditions. Having worked as a clinical social worker, a family therapist, and a clinician for well renowned non-profits such as Vitas Healthcare, Caron Renaissance and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Olga Lucia exhibits a keen understanding of clinical processes that are beneficial to many non-profit programs.

She possesses a myriad of skills, suitable for the successful growth of non-profit organizations, which include: addiction counseling, group therapy, mental health counseling, biopsychosocial assessments, treatment planning, crisis situations, case management, as well as liaisons between patients, families, physicians and/or community organizations. In addition, Olga Lucia is an active volunteer for NGO community services, acting as field coordinator on various psychoeducational and health projects, conducted within underdeveloped regions in Kenya, Africa.

She owns several certifications including the Child Welfare certificate and Dialectical Behavior Therapy Certificate, as well as a Master’s degree in Social Work; all from Florida Atlantic University. She is also an esteemed member of globally recognized professional organizations such as National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and Phi Kappa Phi – Honors Society.

Olga Lucia is bilingual, possessing a mastery of English and Spanish; and also a modest understanding of Swahili and Samburu.

Yslorne Eugene

Yslorne Eugene, MSW, RCSWI

Prevention Coordinator, K-5

Yslorne graduated with a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Social Work from Florida Atlantic University. She is currently a Registered Clinical Social Work Intern and attained a certificate in Mental Health. Yslorne is fluent in French, Haitian Creole, and Spanish.

With her passion and dedication, Yslorne has partnered with over 45 elementary schools in Palm Beach County and steadily adding more! While in the field Yslorne doesn’t just enjoy partnering with the schools’ professionals but also enjoys her time in the classrooms as a Clinician educating the little ones about Medicine Literacy.

She has worked with multiple mentoring youth programs in different schools and treatment centers as she continues to grow with her Clinician hat on. She is passionate about giving back to the community and providing the right resources to our youth.

Outside of working as a Prevention Coordinator, she continues to volunteer once a week to mentor the youth in her neighborhood.

Kayla Irby, LMFT

Prevention Coordinator, grades 6-12

Kayla Irby is a mental health clinician and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Her experience includes working as a mental health professional in local public schools, a homeless shelter, and a substance abuse agency.

She is driven by a desire to help others make healthy choices for themselves. She is an active member of her community and participates in numerous service projects across the area, primarily focusing on women and youth.

Kayla graduated from the Xavier University of Louisiana, where she earned her Bachelor’s in Psychology and has a Master’s degree in Family Therapy from Nova Southeastern University.

Kayla is a firm believer in the importance of self-care and self-compassion. She believes in the age-old philosophy, “You must put on your oxygen mask first before assisting those around you.” In other words, you must ensure you are capable and ‘full enough’ to help those around you.