Valerie Velez was the Health Education Program Specialist for her local school district almost 30 years. For the past several years in that position, she provided mindfulness training and practice sessions for administrators, teachers and support staff at all grade levels throughout the school district. She holds a Master's Degree in Public Health from U.C. Berkeley in Applied Behavioral Sciences. She is also authorized as a Trained Mindfulness Facilitator and an affiliate teacher for the Mindfulness Awareness Practices course through the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center in the School of Medicine at UCLA. Valerie has been practicing meditation since 1983, and leads a weekly meditation group, provides one on one mindfulness guidance and facilitates mindfulness retreats and events. She launched Insight Idyllwild in 2019 to share mindfulness practices with as broad an audience as possible.