The Root And Rise Academy

The Root & Rise Academy is a Creative Somatic Emotional Regulation School founded by Dr. La’Tia E. Phillips-Bey, an EMDR Therapist, and Nefertiti H. Peterson, BSN, RN. As a living extension of Project Beautiful’s H.E.A.L. initiative, the Academy serves children ages one through four during the most formative years of human development, when the nervous system, sense of self, and relationship to the world are being shaped. Rooted in the understanding that healing, learning, and emotional intelligence begin in early childhood, The Root & Rise Academy offers a revolutionary model of early education that honors the whole child: body, heart, mind, and spirit.

At the heart of the Academy is horticulture as sacred education. Children learn the art of growing by planting seeds, tending soil, cultivating fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers, and caring for living ecosystems. Through daily engagement with the land, they witness how something small becomes abundant. They learn patience, responsibility, and reverence for life. Growing food becomes both a practical skill and a living metaphor, teaching children that they, too, are seeds capable of becoming something beautiful and strong. In nurturing plants, children learn that the Earth responds to care, presence, and love.

Emotional regulation is woven into every aspect of the day through practices that feel natural, joyful, and embodied. Rather than being taught as abstract concepts, emotional skills are experienced in the body. Children learn breathwork as play, including blowing dragon breath, feather breathing, bubble breathing, and humming soothing tones that calm the nervous system and gently guide them back to center. These playful rituals build lifelong tools for self-soothing, awareness, and resilience.

Movement as medicine at The Root & Rise Academy. Through yoga, stretching, animal walks, dance, and rhythm games, children release stored emotion from the body and learn that feelings can move, shift, and change. These experiences strengthen coordination, confidence, and emotional flexibility while honoring the truth that the body is a primary language of expression for young children.

Mindfulness is cultivated through the senses. Children participate in listening walks, barefoot grounding, smelling herbs, touching soil, and noticing colors in nature. These practices anchor them in the present moment, attune them to their environment, and build a deep sense of safety within themselves and the world around them. Nature is not a backdrop; it is a teacher. Tree sitting, cloud watching, water play, and caring for animals, including chickens, foster empathy, patience, and belonging within the greater web of life.

Creative expression is honored as a vital emotional outlet. Art, drumming, storytelling, and music allow children to process their inner worlds in ways that transcend words. Emotional literacy is gently cultivated through naming feelings, using feeling wheels, role-playing conflict resolution, and practicing “I feel” language. Children learn that emotions are not problems to suppress but messages to understand.

Somatic awareness is introduced through simple body scans, hands-on-heart practices, and noticing where feelings live within the body. These early experiences build a lifelong relationship between mind and body, empowering children to recognize internal states and respond with compassion rather than overwhelm.

The ultimate objective of The Root & Rise Academy is to prepare children for their formative school years by teaching them that they are supported by a village and that their voice matters. Each child is seen, heard, and honored as a unique being. Here, children learn that they belong, that their feelings are valid, and that they have the power to grow, regulate, and thrive.

The Root & Rise Academy is not simply a school; it is an ecosystem of early healing, a garden of becoming, and a living model of what education can be when it nurtures both roots and wings.

ECOSYSTEMS OF THE ROOT & RISE ACADEMY

Somatic Expression as Emotional Regulation

At The Root & Rise Academy, the body is honored as a primary language of emotion. Children are taught that feelings live in the body and that the body is a safe place to listen, respond, and release. Through simple body scans, hands on heart practices, gentle self touch, and guided awareness, children learn to notice where emotions arise, such as tight tummies, fluttering chests, heavy shoulders, and wiggly legs. These practices teach that emotions are not something to fear or suppress. They are sensations that can be felt, named, and moved through. By developing this early somatic awareness, children build a lifelong foundation of self trust, internal attunement, and emotional resilience.

Mindfulness Through the Senses

Mindfulness at The Root & Rise Academy is grounded in sensory experience. Children learn presence through listening walks, barefoot grounding, smelling herbs, touching soil, watching clouds, and noticing colors in nature. These practices anchor children in the present moment and gently train their nervous systems to recognize safety. Sensory mindfulness teaches children to slow down, tune in, and feel connected to their environment. Over time, this builds emotional steadiness, attention, and the ability to self regulate by returning to what is real, tangible, and soothing.

Movement as Medicine

Movement is treated as a healing language. Through yoga, stretching, animal walks, dance, and rhythm games, children learn that emotions can move through the body rather than becoming trapped. Joyful movement releases stored energy, supports motor development, and helps children discharge stress in healthy ways. These practices normalize the idea that the body holds feelings and that movement can restore balance. Children learn that they are allowed to move, shake, sway, and express themselves physically as part of emotional health.

Breathwork as Play

Breathwork is introduced as imaginative play that builds nervous system regulation. Children engage in dragon breath, feather breathing, bubble breathing, humming tones, and soft sighing games. These playful rituals teach children how to slow their breath, calm their bodies, and return to center during moments of big feeling. Breath becomes a friend, something they can use anytime to self soothe, refocus, or ground themselves. What begins as play becomes an intuitive tool for emotional mastery.

Creative Expression

Art, drumming, storytelling, music, and imaginative play provide children with nonverbal pathways to process their inner world. Creative expression is honored as emotional language. Through color, rhythm, sound, and story, children release what cannot yet be spoken. These practices affirm that every feeling has a place and that expression is safe. Creativity becomes both outlet and mirror, allowing children to see themselves reflected in their work and feel witnessed without judgment.

Emotional Literacy

Children are guided to name and understand emotions through feeling wheels, storytelling, role play, and the practice of “I Feel” language. They learn to recognize emotions in themselves and others, identify what they need, and communicate with kindness and clarity. Conflict resolution is taught through play, helping children build empathy, boundaries, and emotional intelligence. Emotional literacy at this stage plants the seeds for healthy relationships, self advocacy, and confidence.

Nature-Based Regulation

Nature is a co teacher at The Root & Rise Academy. Children engage in tree sitting, cloud watching, water play, gardening, and caring for animals such as chickens. These experiences regulate the nervous system through rhythm, repetition, and connection to living beings. Nature teaches patience, presence, and belonging. Children learn that they are part of a larger ecosystem and that care creates harmony. The land becomes a place of grounding, wonder, and emotional safety.

Together, these pillars form a living educational model where emotional regulation, embodiment, and connection are not separate from learning, they are learning. The Root & Rise Academy prepares children not only for school, but for life, teaching them that they are supported by a village, that their feelings matter, and that their voice carries power.

FOUNDERS

Dr. La’Tia E. Phillips-Bey is a visionary healer, scholar, and architect of transformative spaces whose life’s work is devoted to restoring emotional safety, embodied wisdom, and generational wellness within individuals and communities. A Doctor of Healthcare Administration, EMDR Therapist, Somatic Yoga Professional, and trauma-informed practitioner with over thirty years of experience, Dr. Phillips-Bey stands at the intersection of clinical science, somatic intelligence, and sacred care. Her work is rooted in the understanding that healing is not merely cognitive, it is embodied, relational, and lived through the nervous system.

For more than three decades, Dr. Phillips-Bey has served individuals navigating grief, trauma, identity fragmentation, and systemic stress. Her professional journey spans healthcare leadership, mental health, community development, and integrative healing, allowing her to see the full arc of human experience, from crisis to restoration. Across every setting, she has carried one central truth: trauma is stored in the body, and healing must include the body to be complete.

As an EMDR Therapist, Dr. Phillips-Bey is trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a globally recognized, evidence-based therapeutic modality used to help individuals process traumatic memories and restore emotional regulation. EMDR works by engaging the brain’s natural healing mechanisms through bilateral stimulation such as eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones, allowing distressing experiences to be reprocessed and integrated rather than remaining stuck in the nervous system. When trauma is unresolved, the body continues to respond as if the past is still happening, leading to hypervigilance, emotional overwhelm, anxiety, or shutdown. EMDR gently guides the brain to complete what was interrupted, transforming the way memories are held and restoring internal safety.

Dr. Phillips-Bey’s knowledge of EMDR is uniquely enhanced by her somatic orientation. She understands that trauma is not simply remembered, it is felt. It lives in breath patterns, muscle tension, posture, and unconscious movement. As a Somatic Yoga Professional with over thirty years of trauma-informed experience, she has devoted her career to teaching people how to come back into relationship with their bodies. Her approach honors the body as an intelligent archive and a sacred ally in healing. Through breath, movement, awareness, and gentle attunement, she guides individuals to reclaim agency within their own skin.

This fusion of neuroscience and somatic wisdom is what makes Dr. Phillips-Bey’s work so powerful and what shapes the soul of The Root & Rise Academy.

Dr. Phillips-Bey understands that emotional regulation is not something we suddenly learn in adulthood. It is formed in the earliest years of life. The nervous system is patterned in childhood. How a child learns to experience safety, move through emotion, and return to balance becomes the blueprint for how they will navigate stress, relationships, and identity for a lifetime. Rather than waiting for trauma to be treated later, Dr. Phillips-Bey is building a world where healing begins before harm takes root.

At The Root & Rise Academy, her EMDR-informed lens ensures that every practice is grounded in nervous system science. The Academy’s pillars—breathwork as play, movement as medicine, somatic awareness, mindfulness through the senses, creative expression, and nature-based regulation—mirror the very mechanisms that restore regulation in trauma therapy. Children are taught, in age-appropriate and joyful ways, how to settle their bodies, recognize internal states, and return to safety. They learn that big feelings are not dangerous. They learn that their bodies are wise. They learn that regulation is something they can do, not something imposed upon them.

Dr. Phillips-Bey brings to the Academy an unparalleled depth of understanding about how safety is built. She knows that regulation is relational. That attunement heals. That rhythm calms. That breath reorganizes the brain. That movement releases what words cannot. Under her guidance, The Root & Rise Academy becomes more than a school. It becomes a living therapeutic ecosystem where every interaction reinforces stability, agency, and belonging.

What distinguishes Dr. La’Tia Phillips-Bey is her ability to hold both the scientific and the sacred. She speaks the language of neuroscience and the language of the body. She understands systems and souls. She is equally at home in academic discourse and in the quiet moment of a child placing a hand over their heart. Her leadership carries rigor, reverence, and radical compassion.

Through her work, Dr. Phillips-Bey is redefining what education can be. She is creating a future where children are not taught to override their bodies, but to trust them. Where emotional intelligence is foundational. Where healing is preventative. Where school is a place of safety, not stress.

Her legacy is not only in the lives she has helped mend, but in the generations she is shaping to come, children who will grow up knowing that their feelings matter, their bodies are wise, and their healing began at the root.

Nefertiti H. Peterson is a Registered Nurse with over thirty years of clinical and community-based experience, whose life’s work has been devoted to the restoration of wholeness in individuals, families, and communities. Her career spans bedside nursing, maternal-child health, trauma-informed care, and integrative healing, positioning her as a bridge between medical science and embodied emotional wellness. With a presence that is both grounded and deeply compassionate, Nefertiti has long understood that healing is not confined to the physical body. It lives in the nervous system, in memory, in breath, and in the spaces where people feel seen and safe.

Throughout her decades in nursing, Nefertiti has served populations most impacted by stress, trauma, and health inequities. She has worked closely with mothers, infants, and families, witnessing firsthand how early experiences shape lifelong outcomes. These encounters sharpened her understanding that many of the challenges faced in adulthood—chronic illness, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, and disconnection—are rooted in early nervous system imprinting. Rather than accepting these patterns as inevitable, she committed her life to changing the story at its beginning.

In addition to her nursing practice, Nefertiti is trained as a somatic yoga professional, bringing a trauma-informed lens to every space she enters. Her work integrates neuroscience, somatic awareness, and compassionate presence, allowing individuals to safely process stored emotional experiences and reclaim their internal sense of agency. She is especially gifted in helping people recognize the language of their bodies, guiding them to understand how unspoken experiences live in muscle, breath, posture, and sensation. Her approach is gentle yet powerful, rooted in the belief that the body already knows how to heal when given safety, permission, and support.

Nefertiti’s philosophy of care is deeply holistic. She understands that emotional regulation is not a cognitive skill alone. It is embodied. It is learned through rhythm, touch, breath, movement, and relational safety. This insight has guided her work beyond clinical settings and into visionary spaces of prevention and early intervention. She is passionate about creating environments where healing does not begin in crisis, but in childhood, before trauma has the chance to harden into identity.

As Co-Founder of The Root & Rise Academy, Nefertiti brings her decades of medical expertise and trauma-informed practice into a revolutionary early childhood model. The Academy reflects her belief that children deserve tools for emotional regulation as naturally as they learn language and movement. Here, her nursing wisdom meets somatic education, shaping a learning environment where breath becomes play, movement becomes medicine, and feelings are welcomed rather than feared.

What distinguishes Nefertiti H. Peterson is not only her extensive professional training, but her way of being. She carries a rare combination of clinical precision and maternal warmth. She listens with her whole body. She teaches without urgency. She holds space in a way that allows others to remember themselves. Her work is rooted in the conviction that healing is not about fixing what is broken, but about restoring what has always been whole.