Summer Learning Institute 2026

Felipe Mercado, EdD, MSW, PPSC, is a healing-centered educational leader, Assistant Professor of Social Work Education at California State University, Fresno, founder of Wise Souls LLC, and creator of the Wise Compassionate Framework. With more than 20 years of experience as a school social worker, counselor, principal, professor, consultant, and author, Dr. Mercado helps schools build trauma-responsive systems rooted in adult wellness, student dignity, MTSS, belonging, and culturally grounded care.His lived journey through homelessness, incarceration, poverty, trauma, racism, cultural erasure, and loss fuels his commitment to transforming schools into places where both educators and students can heal, belong, and rise. He is the six-time bestselling author of A Journey to Compassion and author of Rethinking Education Together: How the Wise Compassionate Framework Transforms Student Success.His work reminds schools that data without compassion is surveillance, not care, and that the future of education depends on our willingness to build systems capable of seeing, holding, and healing the human beings inside them