Building Empathy and Community in Teens With Brad Swanson and Ida Fiore

Brad Swanson and Ida Fiore are Co-founders of SaLT: Service and Learning Together, a 100% volunteer-run, student-driven nonprofit based in Highland Park that creates service-learning experiences for young people through trips and local community initiatives. Since its founding in 2015, SaLT has facilitated 38 service trips, provided scholarships to about 60% of its travelers, and was recognized with the 2026 Serve Illinois Governor’s Cup. With more than 30 years of experience in education, Brad and Ida have dedicated their careers to helping young people build leadership, empathy, confidence, and responsibility both inside and outside the classroom.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[0:15] Brad Swanson and Ida Fiore’s backgrounds in education and the creation of SaLT
[9:25] How Brad and Ida identified the need for service-learning opportunities
[15:43] Brad’s approach to balancing service and learning on student trips
[21:08] The “So What? Now What?” framework for student reflection
[25:15] Empathy and gratitude as central themes of SaLT experiences
[29:15] Partnering with Give Kids The World to support families
[34:05] An overview of SaLT’s local community initiatives
[46:11] Brad and Ida’s collective vision for developing young leaders through service

In this episode…

The experiences that shape the way teenagers see themselves and the world around them often go beyond grades, activities, and traditional measures of success. The relationships they build, the challenges they experience, and their contributions can play an important role in their growth. How can we create more opportunities for teens to connect with others and discover their impact on the community?

According to longtime educators Brad Swanson and Ida Fiore, meaningful growth happens when young people are given authentic opportunities to serve, lead, and learn through real-world experiences. Service becomes more impactful when paired with reflection, including journaling, group discussions, and conversations that help students explore empathy, gratitude, and personal growth. These experiences help teens recognize their ability to create change while developing relationships and leadership skills that last beyond the moment.

In this episode of The Coping Podcast, Dr. Leigh Weisz speaks with Brad Swanson and Ida Fiore, Co-founders of SaLT: Service and Learning Together, to discuss building empathy and community in teens. They explore service learning, youth leadership, and creating meaningful connections. Brad and Ida also share advice on unplugging and fostering empathy.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments:

“We wanted it to be a service experience. We wanted learning to be equally important in that word.”
“Our students are incredibly grateful for their lives, for their own experiences as they go through a trip like that.”
“We are not a travel company. We are a nonprofit.”
“I think that that is what brings the group so close together. All of the chaperones on our SaLT trips are veteran educators.”
“We want them to realize and have that confidence to be a leader, to make change, to make the world a better place.”

Action Steps:

Create opportunities for teens to participate in service projects: Giving young people meaningful ways to help others allows them to develop empathy, confidence, and a stronger sense of responsibility.
Encourage reflection through journaling and group discussions: Helping teens process their experiences can deepen their understanding of what they learned, why it matters, and how they have grown.
Build connections among students from different backgrounds: Bringing teens together through shared experiences helps create supportive communities and lasting relationships.
Teach empathy rather than sympathy: Guiding teens to understand and work alongside others with dignity helps them develop a more meaningful approach to service.
Support youth-led initiatives with adult guidance: Allowing teens to take ownership of ideas while providing mentorship helps them recognize their ability to create positive change.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners.

Coping Partners is a mental health practice dedicated to helping children, adolescents, and adults manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems and much more in the Chicago suburbs.

Our practitioners are devoted to building on our clients’ strengths and bolstering weaknesses.

To gain insight and tools for getting unstuck check out our website at CopingPartners.com, email us at support@copingpartnersgroup.com.

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Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:01

Welcome to The Coping Podcast, where we share strategies for coping with the stressors of life, especially the difficulties of parenting. And here is your host, doctor Lee Weiss.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 00:15

This is Dr. Leigh Weisz. I am the host of The Coping Podcast, where I feature top experts on topics like raising healthy children, parenting, and so much more. Past guests include Dr. Doug Bolton, principal Marcie Foust, anxiety expert Dr. Karen Cassiday, and many more.

This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners. Coping Partners is a mental health practice in the Chicago suburbs dedicated to helping children, adolescents and adults. We help manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems, and much more. Check out more episodes of our podcast and our website at copingpartners.com, and you can contact us with any questions you have.

Just a quick disclaimer. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not intended to provide mental health treatment and does not constitute a client therapist relationship. The information provided is not a replacement for being assessed and evaluated by a licensed professional, and is not intended to replace mental health or medical advice.

Before I introduce today’s guests, I actually want to thank my daughter, Juliana for introducing me to the SaLT organizers. I had never heard of this incredible organization until she learned about it, applied to go on one of their trips, and came home. So moved by her experience as both a parent and someone who works with kids and families, I was immediately intrigued and wanted to learn more about the people behind it.

And that brings us to today’s guests. I’m excited to introduce to our audience two really impressive individuals, Brad Swanson and Ida Fiore, both educators and Co-creators of an incredible nonprofit called SaLT. We’ll get more into it, but SaLT stands for Service and Learning Together. SaLT was just recognized with the 2026 Serve Illinois Governor’s Cup, an unbelievable achievement.

So without further ado, Brad Swanson is a longtime educational leader, community advocate, and Co-founder of SaLT, a Highland Park based nonprofit dedicated to inspiring young people to change their world. With more than 30 years of experience in education, Brad has spent his career helping young people discover their potential and develop the skills, confidence, character and sense of responsibility needed to make a meaningful difference. His experience as a teacher, coach, principal and district level administrator has shaped his belief that some of the most important learning young people experience happens beyond the classroom when they are given authentic opportunities to serve, lead, take responsibility and make an impact.

Ida Fiore is the Co-founder of SaLT and a lifelong educator with more than 30 years of experience in education. She dedicated over three decades to the North Shore School District 112 as a science teacher and continues to support students in science education at Lake Forest High School. Throughout her career, Ida has been passionate about creating meaningful learning experiences, building strong relationships, and helping students grow both academically and personally. She has also led student travel programs across the country, connecting classroom learning with real world experiences and opportunities for service. Drawing on her passion for education and community service, Ida co-founded SaLT and helped create four programs designed to develop youth leadership while addressing critical community needs. Through these programs, young people gain the skills, confidence, and some compassion to lead meaningful service initiatives and create lasting change. Today, Ida continues her lifelong commitment to empowering young people, believing that when youth are given the opportunity to leave, they have power to strengthen their communities and change the world. So thank you so much, both of you, for being here.

Brad Swanson: 04:14

Thank you.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 04:15

Today we’re going to learn all.

Ida Fiore: 04:16

Thank you so much for having us.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 04:18

You’re so welcome. We’re going to learn all about the important organization you created and the important work that you’re doing. So I would love to hear from each of you how you each got started in education. What originally drew you to this kind of field, working with kids and of course, how you decided to create SaLT? Brad, do you want to go first?

Brad Swanson: 04:40

Sure. Thank you. First of all, a huge thank you for well, we’ll go all the way back to Julianna. Thanks to Julianna for making this awesome connection for the three of us. But she was absolutely wonderful to have on our recent trip to Orlando.

So we’ll share more about that, of course. But education, I guess. I mean, simply put, I think I was somewhat always destined to go into education somehow, some way. My dad was a long time educator. My mom’s a retired nurse.

And so I think service and, and that kind of mindfulness was always in our household. And I thought I was going to do other things. I thought I was going to be Top Gun, you know, I thought I was going to do that whole thing in the late 80s. But the truth is that I had a summer experience in the inner city of Atlanta, a summer essentially a summer learning experience and a summer camp experience. And I was working with kids who didn’t have as much as the next kid.

And it changed my life and it changed my whole trajectory on what I wanted to do with my life. And it was the summer after my freshman year in college, and I really did my major and I read. I changed everything and went into English education as a start up. And it was, you know, I, I look at that travel experience and that powerful experience of that challenged me to really think about who I am and what I want to do in the world and what kind of impact I want to have. And I’m really grateful to the people that exposed me to that experience, because it really did give me an entirely different path that I think was going to match with who I was anyway, and it just felt so right.

So I’ve been blessed to have taught English for a number of years, coached always at the high school level, and coached a number of years and then had some opportunities in administrative leadership, which was really amazingly fulfilling. But right now I am a grateful retiree from education 30 plus years and completely enjoy the challenges and the wonderful opportunities that SaLT gives me as a co-founder and the opportunity to see kids at their best in so many different ways. It’s really an amazing organization. We’re blessed to be a part of it.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 07:14

Thank you. Brad. Aida, do you want to share a little bit about your background?

Ida Fiore: 07:19

Yeah, a little bit about my background is I think I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. And I just, I remember Oak Terrace School and just being in love with everything about my teacher at that time. And we were invited to her wedding. And I remember that was a real moment in my childhood that I was like, I want to do this. And I think my most proud moment was being selected as a teacher in the district that I was a product of, and so proud.

My parents were so proud to be able to give back to the community that gave me and my family so much. And I think I have loved every minute of being in the classroom and being a teacher, and I can. 30 it’s actually 34 years for me that I’ve been in a classroom, and I enjoy going to school every day and being part of that world. And I think that is what really led me to look at SaLT and work with Brad on it, to create the model that we have today. And I think it’s the joy of being in the classroom, because that’s what SaLT does for me also is just not so much just in the classroom, but outside the classroom and being able to bring that home.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 08:53

It is incredible to be able to be brought up in the school district and then teach years later. That’s pretty, pretty incredible. So for both of you, it sounds like this was in your soul that you were going to work with children and, and, you know, be educators. Was there something that you felt was missing that the kids weren’t getting in the four walls of the classroom? I’m curious, again, like how you even found each other and where the idea from SaLT really came from.

Brad Swanson: 09:23

I didn’t want to take the lead on that.

Ida Fiore: 09:25

Sure. So I taught at Elm Place most of my career places located in Highland Park, and I ran the Washington, D.C. trip, and I had remembered being a student in as an eighth grader and looking at that Washington, D.C. trip and never have been on a plane before. You know, this was when I was 13 years old. I don’t think I had even stayed in a hotel in my life. And everyone at Northwood was like, we’re going on this trip.

And I looked at the price and I was like, oh dear, I cannot my parents will never be allowed to, you know, this will not happen. So I did a Kool-Aid stand the whole summer into my eighth grade to help pay for that trip. And I remember being on that plane and thinking how much I enjoyed just leaving Highwood and being part of that world that I went out for dinner. I went on a plane, I stayed in a hotel, and it meant so much to me. And then becoming fast forward, becoming a teacher and working in a school where not all kids could afford to go.

I started an independent with a colleague of mine, an independent scholarship program so that every kid at Elm Place School could go to Washington, D.C., regardless of the cost. In the 26 years that I ran the D.C. program, I took over 400 kids on the trip that were scholarships. Wow. So it’s a very proud moment. And because of this fierce community that supported it so much, those kids were able to go on the trip, and the program got so big that I needed to have interview process.

And Brad was the principal at Highland Park High School at the time. And I asked him, do you want to be on my interview committee for D.C. scholarships? And that’s how our connection started. Through that type of travel. And then Brad, I’ll let you take it from there.

Brad Swanson: 11:49

Sure. So I was, I think that I had travel in my background and certainly loved travel experiences and, and, and wanted that for kids, similar to what I explained about my time in Atlanta. And then kind of also serendipitously, some families at Highland Park were asking a very good question, a very difficult question about senior spring break. And there were a lot of families that were uncomfortable with the quote unquote, spring break trip that happens for a lot of families. And there was a challenge about safety, and there’s a challenge about appropriate behaviors and so forth.

Right. And so we just had a very interesting conversation in the community at the time about could there be an alternative? Can we promote an alternative? Can we create an alternative? Can someone take the lead on it?

And so quite honestly, that was the. That was the starting conversation that those are the conversations that started us talking about service trips. And is it possible to create something that, you know, can be an alternative? And so our very first experience with a service learning trip and Ida doing the DC trips, and that being a very natural thing in her world, we said, let’s do a trip to New Orleans in the summer of 2015. And it was the ten year anniversary at the time of the Katrina catastrophe.

And we knew that that was going to be a national conversation. And quite honestly, we chose that destination very purposely to expose our students to an environment, a community, a culture in a tragedy of our country in a way that they maybe would never be able to see otherwise. And so we’re really proud to have that be our first service learning trip. And that was the start of SaLT. Service and learning together.

We wanted it to be a service experience. We wanted learning to be equally important in that word. That’s why, you know, both the S and the L are capitalized. And that means something to us to have that as our mission. And so we took 30 or so students to New Orleans for the very first time.

We are not a travel company. We are a nonprofit. We envision what the mission is, what the purpose is, what the experience will be. We write the curriculum. We want the experience to be a SaLT experience.

But we partner with, you know, a local travel agency, student travel focused agency to provide all of the other bells and whistles that are necessary. But that was our very first experience that kind of kicked things off. And then just real quickly, another little piece of that is that that summer was so hot in New Orleans that we said, let’s move New Orleans to maybe spring break, break, and next summer let’s go somewhere different. And so we went all the way up to Alaska for the next summer. Much, you know, it certainly wasn’t hot.

And that kind of started snowballing into purposely looking at locations that had a different personality, a different mission, a different purpose. And so we started to really be thoughtful and intentional about different locations that would be meaningful for our students, powerful learning experiences and maybe experiences and places that they might never really go otherwise.

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