Rachele Hartley started her career as a substance use counselor working with adults, then spent over eight years as a school counselor in rural Maine. Rachele is a certified school counselor and certified alcohol and drug counselor in Maine and a licensed school counselor in New Hampshire. She received her Doctorate degree from Capella University in the Counselor Education and Supervision program in 2023. Rachele has extensive professional experience working with adolescents, parents/guardians, adults, and counselors-in-training in both school and clinical settings. She has professional interests in rural school counseling, high school counseling, career counseling, substance use, crisis intervention, diversity, group process, and social justice.

Rachele is passionate about suicide prevention, including writing articles in Chi Sigma Iota newsletters and presenting at local conferences alongside NAMI and alone on best practices for suicide prevention, intervention, and school responses to a student death by suicide. Working in rural Maine for her career as a school counselor, Rachele was active in working with local organizations, such as MELMAC, in developing programming to increase first-generation college students’ access to higher education. She renamed and adopted the national movement of College Access Week to Aspire Higher to foster a more inclusive approach to post-secondary planning that went beyond just college to include military, technical programs, and apprenticeships. This name and approach were later adopted by MaineCan and now it is a Maine statewide event.

Since 2018, she has been a member of the Chi Sigma Iota, including being a member of the Chi Upsilon Chi Executive Committee and member of the Newsletter Committee. Rachele has enjoyed writing about burnout prevention, critical issues in school counseling, professional identity as a school counselor, and the development of multicultural competencies. She is now the faculty advisor for the Plymouth State University chapter of Chi Sigma Iota.