About Dear Mixed Girl®
Dear Mixed Girl® is a professional learning, consulting, coaching, speaking, and educational-resource company founded by Dr. KayLa N. Allen-Young. Our work helps people and organizations strengthen how identity, culture, communication, emotional intelligence, leadership, and human development are understood and practiced in the environments where people live, learn, work, lead, and grow.
Dear Mixed Girl® applies a focused body of expertise across very different settings without treating those settings as interchangeable. A biracial teenage girl developing a stronger understanding of herself requires a different approach than an executive strengthening leadership capacity, a team addressing trust and communication, or an organization responding to a documented workplace concern. Each engagement is developed around the people involved, the responsibilities surrounding them, and the outcomes the work needs to support.
Research-informed practice, thoughtful customization, and practical application guide our coaching, professional learning, facilitation, consulting, keynote speaking, workplace training, leadership development, and educational resources.
Meet Dr. KayLa N. Allen-Young
Dr. KayLa N. Allen-Young is an Identity Development & Cultural Proficiency Expert and the Founder of Dear Mixed Girl®. Her multidisciplinary background brings together health administration, public health, epidemiology, psychology, coaching, leadership, and organizational systems to examine how people develop, how environments influence them, and how leaders can create stronger conditions for growth.
Lived experience adds another layer to that professional preparation. As a Black and Mexican biracial woman, Dr. KayLa understands identity not only as an academic or professional subject, but as something shaped through family, culture, language, appearance, relationships, expectations, and the systems people encounter throughout their lives. Her work brings those perspectives together without allowing personal experience to replace evidence, preparation, or professional responsibility.
Dr. KayLa also leads the Black Women of Mixed Ancestry Caucus of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association, creating intentional space for adult biracial women while contributing to broader conversations about mixed-race identity, culture, self-definition, and the lived realities that scholarship and professional practice must be prepared to understand.
Education & Credentials
Doctor of Health Administration
Master of Public Health
Post-Master’s Certificate in Epidemiology
Bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Studies with a Psychology minor
Certified Health & Wellness Coach
NSLS Executive Leadership Certificate
Professional & Organizational Work
Professional development becomes valuable when it changes more than what participants know. Leaders make decisions, supervisors shape working conditions, teams build patterns of communication, and organizations create systems that can either reinforce responsible practice or allow harmful patterns to continue.
Dear Mixed Girl® develops professional learning, executive and leadership development, facilitation, consulting, and workplace education around the actual conditions facing the client. Leadership development may require stronger emotional intelligence, communication, cultural proficiency, ethical decision-making, or executive presence. Organizational culture concerns may require examination of trust, supervisory practices, expectations, accountability, communication breakdowns, or learning systems. Corrective workplace education requires even greater precision.
When an engagement arises from a complaint, investigation, conciliation agreement, consent decree, settlement, documented culture concern, or corrective-action requirement, Dr. KayLa develops the educational response around the authorized scope, required audiences, identified behaviors, leadership responsibilities, organizational context, and expected outcomes. Generic awareness training is not substituted for work that requires specificity.
Legal counsel, human-resources leadership, settlement administrators, organizational executives, and other authorized stakeholders may remain involved where appropriate so that educational content stays within the defined boundaries of the engagement. Dear Mixed Girl® provides training, professional learning, coaching, facilitation, consulting, and organizational-development services; the company does not provide legal advice, conduct independent workplace investigations, or certify legal compliance.
Professional and organizational clients receive work designed to be useful beyond the room in which it is delivered. Customized participant materials, leadership tools, implementation guidance, train-the-trainer resources, follow-up learning, and evaluation strategies may be incorporated when the engagement requires sustained application.
Biracial Girls & Families
Biracial and mixed-race girls ages 12–18 remain a defining part of Dear Mixed Girl®. Adolescence carries its own developmental complexity, while mixed girls may also encounter racial assumptions, pressure to explain themselves, family differences, questions about appearance or culture, mislabeling, identity performance, and environments that recognize only part of who they are.
Dear Mixed Girl® helps girls develop language for their identities, strengthen self-awareness, build confidence, and understand that self-definition does not require permission from the people around them. Parents, grandparents, guardians, and chosen family members receive culturally informed guidance that helps them listen with greater understanding, recognize experiences they may not personally share, communicate more effectively, and strengthen identity safety within the family.
Strong support protects the fullness of a girl’s story rather than asking her to reduce herself to make other people more comfortable. Coaching and educational resources are designed to help families move beyond love as an intention and develop the language, awareness, and cultural proficiency that allow love to become more effective support.
Dear Mixed Girl® Letters
The Dear Mixed Girl® Letters are a signature body of original writing and one of the clearest expressions of the voice behind this company. Personal, culturally aware, and intentionally direct, the letters create room for conversations about identity, family, race, culture, womanhood, leadership, relationships, self-understanding, and the human experience of becoming.
Readers will not find generic encouragement dressed up as a letter. Dr. KayLa writes with the freedom to affirm, question, challenge, protect, celebrate, and tell the truth, especially when a person’s identity or experience deserves more care than a quick public conversation can provide. The letters carry the same commitment to dignity and thoughtful reflection found throughout Dear Mixed Girl®, while preserving a distinctly personal form of connection.
One Dear Mixed Girl® letter was written directly to Former Vice President Kamala Harris. The returned correspondence holds a meaningful place in the Dear Mixed Girl® archive and reflects what these letters have always been capable of doing: creating sincere connection through words written with purpose.
The growing archive preserves letters from different seasons of Dear Mixed Girl® while continuing to make space for new conversations worth having.
How Dear Mixed Girl® Began
Dear Mixed Girl® began from experiences I understood personally and questions I had already spent years learning how to examine more deeply. As a Black and Mexican biracial woman raised in Houston, I grew up navigating other people’s assumptions about race, culture, language, appearance, and where I was supposed to fit. I heard that I was not “Black enough,” had people question why I spoke Spanish, wrestled with my hair and cultural identity, and reached adulthood before learning more about parts of my own family history.
My experiences gave those questions personal meaning, while my education gave me stronger tools for understanding them. Academic preparation in psychology and public health was already shaping how I thought about behavior, identity, health, family environments, and the systems surrounding people when I created Dear Mixed Girl® in 2019. Continued study in epidemiology and health administration expanded that perspective even further by strengthening the way I examine patterns, systems, organizational responsibility, and the conditions that influence human development.
Dear Mixed Girl® gave me a place to bring those parts of my life together with intention. I could write truthfully about mixed identity while creating coaching, education, and resources grounded in something deeper than personal reflection alone. The company has always held both the human story and the professional responsibility to understand what shapes it.
I think the story actually becomes stronger in this position. By the time the reader gets here, they already know what the company does today. Now the story answers, “Why does Dr. KayLa understand this work the way she does?” instead of being forced to carry the commercial positioning of the entire company.
Purpose & Responsibility
Dear Mixed Girl® treats responsible business practice as part of operating a healthy company rather than as a marketing claim. Human dignity, fair working practices, responsible partnerships, community investment, philanthropy, environmental consideration, and ethical stewardship are reflected in the standards we establish for ourselves as the company grows.
Our Sustainability, Human Rights, and Community Responsibility Policy documents those commitments in greater detail, including expectations related to labor practices, suppliers and partners, community involvement, pro bono service, philanthropy, and community-impact reporting.
Effective Date: July 15, 2026
Last Updated: July 15, 2026
Our Commitment
Dear Mixed Girl® is a founder-led professional learning, speaking, consulting, coaching, and educational-resource company. Our operations are primarily digital, and our direct environmental footprint is comparatively small. Small size, however, does not remove our responsibility to operate thoughtfully, respect people, conserve resources, and contribute positively to the communities we serve.
This policy establishes our environmental, human-rights, workforce, and community-responsibility commitments. Beginning in 2026, Dear Mixed Girl® will review these practices annually and publish a progress update through our website or another appropriate public channel.
HUMAN RIGHTS, MODERN SLAVERY, AND RESPONSIBLE LABOR PRACTICES
Dear Mixed Girl® is committed to conducting business in a manner that respects human dignity, protects fundamental rights, and promotes fair and responsible labor practices.
This commitment applies to the company’s founder, employees, independent contractors, consultants, interns, vendors, suppliers, subcontractors, collaborative partners, and others performing work on behalf of or in partnership with Dear Mixed Girl®.
Dear Mixed Girl® prohibits and will not knowingly support, benefit from, or participate in:
• Forced, bonded, trafficked, compulsory, or involuntary labor
• Modern slavery or human trafficking in any form
• Exploitative or unlawful child labor
• The confiscation of passports, identification, wages, or personal property as a condition of work
• Threats, coercion, intimidation, abuse, harassment, or retaliation
• Unlawful discrimination in employment or contracting
• Wage theft, knowingly unlawful compensation practices, or deliberate failure to honor agreed payment terms
• Unsafe, degrading, or exploitative working conditions
• Business or purchasing practices that knowingly rely upon human-rights violations or labor exploitation
FAIR AND RESPECTFUL WORKING PRACTICES
Dear Mixed Girl® is committed to:
• Treating workers, contractors, consultants, and partners with dignity and professional respect
• Communicating scopes of work, expectations, responsibilities, deadlines, and compensation terms clearly
• Providing fair and timely payment according to agreed terms
• Supporting a working environment free from unlawful discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and retaliation
• Respecting lawful freedom of association and workers’ rights
• Supporting reasonable accessibility and accommodation practices
• Protecting confidential, personal, client, and company information
• Encouraging sustainable workloads, healthy professional boundaries, learning, and development
• Following applicable employment, labor, wage, safety, anti-trafficking, and human-rights laws
SUPPLIER AND PARTNER EXPECTATIONS
Dear Mixed Girl® expects vendors, suppliers, contractors, and business partners to operate lawfully and to avoid forced labor, human trafficking, exploitative child labor, unlawful discrimination, wage theft, and other serious labor or human-rights abuses.
Because Dear Mixed Girl® is a small, primarily digital professional-services company with a limited supply chain, its review practices are proportionate to the nature, size, and risk of each business relationship.
When reasonably appropriate, the company may:
• Review publicly available information about a prospective supplier or partner
• Ask questions regarding labor, sourcing, or ethical-business practices
• Prefer organizations whose practices align with human dignity and responsible labor
• Request clarification when credible concerns arise
• Reconsider, suspend, or discontinue a relationship when credible evidence indicates serious labor exploitation, forced labor, trafficking, unlawful child labor, or material human-rights violations
REPORTING AND RESPONSE
Concerns involving possible human trafficking, forced labor, unlawful child labor, discrimination, harassment, wage violations, retaliation, or other serious human-rights concerns may be reported through the contact information available on dearmixedgirl.com.
Dear Mixed Girl® will review credible concerns in good faith, preserve appropriate confidentiality, avoid retaliation against individuals who raise concerns honestly, and take corrective action within the company’s authority when warranted.
This policy will be reviewed periodically and updated when the company’s workforce, supplier relationships, operating structure, or material risks change.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, PRO BONO SERVICE, AND PHILANTHROPY
Community service is not separate from the mission of Dear Mixed Girl®. The company was created to strengthen identity, belonging, emotional well-being, leadership, cultural proficiency, and the systems surrounding children, families, professionals, and communities.
Dear Mixed Girl® contributes time, professional expertise, educational resources, mentorship, and public learning through local, national, and international engagement. International service may be delivered virtually, allowing educational support and professional expertise to reach communities beyond the company’s immediate geographic area.
COMMUNITY-INVESTMENT PRACTICES
Dear Mixed Girl® may support communities through:
• Free or pro bono speaking, education, facilitation, coaching, consultation, or professional learning
• Identity-development education for mixed and biracial girls
• Guidance and educational support for parents and parental figures raising mixed and biracial children
• Community conversations addressing identity, belonging, colorism, emotional intelligence, cultural proficiency, leadership, and family support
• Educational service for schools, nonprofit organizations, healthcare professionals, counselors, youth-serving professionals, faith communities, professional associations, and community groups
• Mentorship and encouragement for girls, women, professionals, entrepreneurs, and emerging leaders
• Publicly accessible articles, letters, videos, conversations, and educational resources
• Virtual educational engagement serving audiences throughout the United States and abroad
• Donated professional time, expertise, resources, or services
• Participation in mission-aligned community initiatives, conferences, panels, programs, and collaborative efforts
• Sponsored, reduced-cost, or no-cost programming when appropriate and financially sustainable
PHILANTHROPY AND IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS
Dear Mixed Girl® recognizes that philanthropy may include both financial contributions and in-kind service.
The company’s in-kind contributions may include donated professional time, waived speaking or facilitation fees, complimentary educational resources, mentorship, strategic guidance, community education, and other mission-aligned forms of support.
Community support will be provided thoughtfully so that pro bono service remains meaningful, equitable, aligned with the company’s mission, and sustainable alongside the responsibilities required to maintain a healthy business.
COMMUNITY-IMPACT RECORD
Beginning in 2026, Dear Mixed Girl® will maintain a proportionate annual record of material company-supported community involvement. Depending on the activity, the record may include:
• Pro bono or donated-service hours
• Programs, presentations, or learning experiences provided
• Communities or audience groups served
• Complimentary or donated educational resources
• Local, national, and international virtual engagement
• Mission-aligned partnerships and collaborative initiatives
• Estimated value of donated professional services when reasonably calculable
• Significant outcomes, testimonials, or community benefits that may be shared ethically and with appropriate permission
Dear Mixed Girl® may publish selected community-impact highlights through its website, annual business updates, professional profiles, or other appropriate public channels while protecting confidential and personally identifiable information.
Our community commitment will continue to grow alongside the company, guided by mission, integrity, responsible stewardship, and the belief that education and human-centered leadership can create lasting change.
This policy will be reviewed at least annually and updated when the company’s operations, workforce, reporting capabilities, or material environmental and social impacts change.
Questions regarding this policy may be directed through our contact page.
Why Dear Mixed Girl®?
Clients come to Dear Mixed Girl® when the work calls for more than a generic presentation, a recycled training deck, or surface-level awareness. Dr. KayLa brings together advanced preparation in public health, epidemiology, health administration, psychology, coaching, identity development, cultural proficiency, and organizational systems, then applies the relevant parts of that expertise to the specific challenge in front of the client.
Every engagement begins with context. The audience, organizational environment, authority boundaries, learning objectives, documented needs, and desired outcomes shape what should be taught, discussed, practiced, measured, or carried forward. Customization is not limited to changing a logo on presentation slides or replacing a few examples.
Families receive support that respects the complexity of identity development. Leaders receive development connected to the decisions and relationships they influence. Organizations receive learning built around their actual culture, responsibilities, risks, and opportunities for improvement. Conference and keynote audiences receive an experience that combines substance, human connection, and practical relevance rather than inspiration without application.
Dear Mixed Girl® is best suited for clients who take their work seriously, expect strategic internal transformation, value responsible leadership guidance, and understand that meaningful development requires more than checking a box.