Ashley Poklar: Speaking Up for Those Who Cannot Speak

The first time Ashley Poklar walked into an alternative school classroom, she was a student teacher who had specifically requested the placement everyone else avoided. The room held ten to twelve high school students with varying needs and abilities. These were the ones other schools had labeled and released, the kids who had been written off before they turned eighteen. One girl poured chocolate milk over Ashley's head for asking her to sit down. There was no guidebook. There was no perfect way to do it. Ashley stayed anyway. 

That decision, made more than two decades ago, set the course for everything that followed. Today, Ashley serves as Clinical Director of Sentinel Foundation and founder of A Poklar Ponders. She trains law enforcement agencies across the country, consults with institutions that serve vulnerable youth, and builds bridges between systems that too often fail to communicate with each other. Her work puts her in rooms where she is asked to say things people do not want to hear. She has learned to say them anyway, though not without cost. 

The Kids Nobody Wants 

Ashley did not set out to work with children in crisis. As a second grader watching Jane Goodall on Reading Rainbow, she dreamed of studying chimpanzees in remote jungles. When her family moved from Georgia to South Carolina during her sophomore year of high school, that dream collapsed. South Carolina had no zoology program, and as a first generation college student dependent on state funding, leaving was not an option. She did not learn until years later that she could have attended school in Georgia since her chosen field was unavailable in her home state. At fifteen, she believed she had no choice. 

A teacher cadet class offered extra credits and unexpected direction. The Teaching Fellows program would pay for her undergraduate education if she stayed in state to teach. Ashley accepted the offer, then made a request that surprised everyone: she wanted her student teaching placement at the alternative school. The one with the difficult kids. The one other student teachers avoided. She wanted to lean into the hardest thing possible because she believed that if she could handle that classroom, she could handle anything. 

What she found there changed her. She saw past the labels to recognize something familiar. These were not bad kids. These were kids whose trauma was expressing itself through behavior, kids who had learned that adults could not be trusted, kids who had been failed so many times they had stopped expecting anything different. Ashley understood something important about them. The only way kids who do not trust actually learn to trust you is if you genuinely are a trustworthy human being. You cannot fake it. They will know. 

The Girl Who Changed Everything 

After her first daughter was born, Ashley questioned whether she could give both her own child and her students what they needed. She loved the relationship building, the emotional regulation work, helping students calm themselves enough to learn. A master's degree in counseling felt like natural progression. Three daughters later, she completed her internship at a juvenile detention center, where some of her former students had ended up. 

One fifteen year old girl shifted everything. Ashley will not share the details of her story because it is not hers to tell. What she will say is that meeting this girl made her realize how broken the systems were. The schools, the courts, the social services, the mental health providers. None of them were talking to each other. Children were falling through gaps that should not have existed. Someone needed to stand in those gaps and speak for the ones who could not speak for themselves. Ashley decided she would be that someone. 

The Cost of Speaking 

Much of Ashley's consulting work now centers on communicating messages that systems and institutions do not want to hear. She has learned how to deliver difficult feedback without being dismissed. Instead of voicing criticism directly, she starts with a thorough audit of current functioning. She talks to decision makers and stakeholders. She highlights strengths and growth edges through the voices of those already embedded within the system. This allows her to come to the table as a partner rather than a judge. Together, they find paths forward that feel like everyone's idea. 

This approach does not mean institutions always love her recommendations. Some of them stop requesting her services after the initial consultation, usually because they are unable or unwilling to lean into the changes she has identified. Ashley has made peace with that. She has also made peace with what her work has cost her. 

Speaking up has cost her valuable time and energy with her own children. It has cost her potential friendships with colleagues and potential promotions. Being the squeaky wheel housed within an institution or system does not tend to win you any friends or power. That is why she moved into consultancy work. She has niched herself within her professional sphere in a way that was not entirely by choice. The louder she yells, the more tunneled her potential opportunities become. 

When asked whether the cost is worth it, Ashley does not hesitate. She does not love the cost of speaking up. But she abhors the cost of staying silent more. 

Teaching Others to Find Their Voice 

The young people Ashley works with have often been taught that no one is listening. They have been talked over, talked about, dismissed, and ignored. Their experiences have convinced them that their voices do not matter. Ashley's job is to help them discover otherwise, though not in the way most people expect. 

She does not teach them to speak out. She teaches them to speak in. The empowerment process starts with showing deep respect, curiosity, and genuine interest in what they have to say. They own their time with her. As they become more comfortable with that power, she begins to offer choices. Together they determine where the best use of their voice lies, which battles are worth fighting now, which ones are a waste of time and energy. 

Expressive arts play a central role in this work. Music, drawing, painting, journaling. These become tools for young people to express themselves to themselves first. To find their voice, hone their voice, and discover who they are beneath the layers of what everyone else says they are. It is less about finding a voice to speak out and more about finding their own true voice, for themselves, among the noise of everyone and everything else. They have to learn to listen to themselves, and to value what they have to say, before they can expect anyone else to listen. 

What She Would Tell You 

Ashley gets asked for advice by women in all kinds of industries. Women who see something wrong but are afraid to say it out loud. Women who know the cost of speaking up and are not sure they are willing to pay it. She does not give them easy answers because there are none. 

Instead, she asks questions. Is anyone else seeing this? Is anyone else speaking up? What is the cost of speaking up? Is the cost something you are willing to own? If not, is the cost of staying silent something you are willing to own instead? That last question is the one that always gets her. It is the question that has guided her own choices for years. 

She tells women to say it to themselves first. In as many ways as they need to. To find others who are already speaking up and align with them. To look for ways to speak up that are safer than others. And ultimately, to do what feels most right to their own values. There is no universal answer. There is only the answer you can live with. 

The Work Continues 

Since we last spoke with Ashley in August 2025, her anti-trafficking work has focused increasingly on efforts within the United States. She has been training law enforcement partners at local, state, and federal levels, building relationships that help bridge gaps between law enforcement and social services organizations. The goal is to ensure kids and families are getting the support they need across their entire journey, not just at one point of contact. 

She also completed development of the 21st Century Sentinels program, a training series for parents and teens that builds awareness of online dangers and gives practical tips for keeping themselves and loved ones safe. The program includes targeted talking points designed to help parents build communication with their children about difficult topics. It is another way of giving people the tools to speak and to listen. 

This May, Ashley will join us at The Voice of Industry Weekend for the Bloom Workforce Readiness Intensive. She is bringing a hands-on exploration of values, the framework she uses to guide her own professional and personal actions. It is how she chooses when to speak up, when to lean in, and when to walk away. The idea that women can leave her session with a concrete way of navigating tough decisions and bringing more purpose into their daily lives is what excites her most. She feels humbled by the opportunity. 

Humility is a word that comes up often when Ashley talks about her work. For someone who has spent her career speaking difficult truths to powerful systems, she carries remarkably little ego. Perhaps that is why institutions are willing to listen to her even when they do not like what she has to say. Perhaps that is why young people who have learned to distrust every adult in their lives decide to trust her. She is not performing authority. She is showing up, again and again, for the ones who need someone to show up. 

The girl who poured chocolate milk on her head all those years ago taught her something important. You do not earn trust by demanding it. You earn it by staying in the room.