About Us
We didn’t come to this work from the outside.
We came to it because we lived it.
What We Kept Seeing
Across schools, we kept seeing the same pattern
Educators were being asked to carry more — more roles, more expectations, more emotional weight — while the conditions around them remained largely unchanged. Burnout was rising. Good people were leaving, and replacing them was becoming harder.
The adults in schools are among the most mission-driven people in any profession. They chose this work. They stay because they believe in it. And yet the systems around them, shaped by decades of accumulated decisions, shifting expectations, and mounting pressures from every direction, have not kept pace with what they are being asked to do.
Teaching is a calling. So is leading a school. And right now, both are harder than they should be. We wanted to meet that commitment with genuine support. Not another initiative. Not a mandated program.
Something that actually fits.
What happens when we attend to the adults with the same care and intentionality we bring to students?
ROOTED IN RESEARCH
We are researchers at heart and translators by practice. We've developed our own diagnostic tools and spent years turning global findings on adult flourishing into clear, practical steps that actually work in schools.
BUILT ON EXPERIENCE
With decades inside schools, across countries and contexts, we understand each constituency - faculty, leadership, parents, and boards alike.
TAILORED TO YOU
We've watched trends come and go. The ones that don't stick usually skipped the hard questions. We ask them, listen carefully, and let the reality of your school drive what we recommend.
PRESENT THROUGH CHANGE
Change is hard, and people navigate it in their own way — they resist, adapt, and sometimes circle back. We've navigated enough of it to know that staying matters as much as starting.
This work matters to us personally. It also has to work in practice.
That’s why we pair genuine care for the people in schools with rigorous research, honest diagnostics, and sustained partnership. We bring both because schools need both.
An Introduction
Founder & President
Natalie Demers
Natalie Demers has spent over 25 years inside schools — as a teacher, academic dean, associate head of school, and director of research, learning what it takes for educators to thrive. Before founding FFP, she directed research and professional learning for a global network of 550+ schools across 22 countries, where she built the Global Action Research Collaborative on Girls' Education from a nine-person pilot into a community of more than 100 educators across seven countries. Natalie's work draws on ongoing research in character, virtue, and human flourishing. A learner first, she presents and collaborates regularly with school leaders, researchers, and associations across the independent and mission-driven school landscape, believing that the strongest schools are built by people who model the curiosity, humility, and care they hope to cultivate in others. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Character Education at the University of Birmingham's Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (U.K.) and holds a Master of Social Service with a concentration in Community Practice, Policy, and Advocacy from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School and a B.A. from Colgate University.
Director of Research & Insights
Monica Vitale
Monica Vitale knows what it looks like when a school community works, and what it costs when it doesn't. In a 14-year tenure at a mission-driven boarding school, she chaired the enrollment management committee, analyzed attrition patterns across years, conducted every exit interview for departing students, and oversaw residential faculty performance. At a start-up classical academy, she led the institution to full Cognia accreditation in 18 months, a process projected to take three to five years, while building a college counseling program from the ground up. Across 20 years as a teacher, advisor, and administrator, Monica has worked at the intersection of adult experience and institutional culture, from curriculum design and international education to residential life and professional development. Born and raised in South Africa and educated across five countries, she brings a global perspective to the question of what helps educators stay, grow, and contribute fully. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Character Education at the University of Birmingham's Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (U.K.) and holds an M.S. in Global and International Education from Drexel University and a B.A. from Colgate University.
Whether you’re building on momentum, strengthening what’s already working, or trying to understand something that feels harder to name, we’d welcome the chance to listen.