Who is Allison Ochs?

Allison Ochs is an American-Swiss author, educator, and international voice on adolescent wellbeing in the digital age. Over the past decade, she has worked with more than 70,000 students, parents, and educators across the globe — and she has kept the questions they actually asked her. Hundreds of them, from every corner of adolescence. That archive is the foundation of everything she does.

Allison is the owner and president of EDIT Change Management Sàrl and EDIT Books, developing curriculum and literature for digital citizenship from kindergarten through grade 12. She is an affiliated consultant with the Council of International Schools and has collaborated with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne on the Oscar and Zoe series, a pedagogical story collection on digital citizenship for primary school children.

Amsterdam University Press published her book Would I Have Sexted Back in the 80s? in 2019, a hands-on guide for parents and educators navigating teen life in a connected world. She previously hosted The Things They Ask on World Radio Switzerland. Her work has been featured in 24 Heures, The Economic Times, Times Radio, and Amsterdam Mamas, among others.

Her most recent work brings those real, unfiltered questions directly to the people who need them most. Allison has built a podcast series alongside her partner and co-host Serene Xefos, rooted in genuine, unscripted conversation: Dear Tween and Dear Teen each give a young person the floor to pick a question and simply talk it through; Don't Tell My Parents brings the two of them together to unpack those same conversations from the adult perspective. It is a space where tweens, teens, and parents all get to hear what the others are actually thinking. All three podcasts are offered freely, because Allison and Serene believe that honest, caring guidance should reach every family that needs it — not just those who can seek it out. Dear Tween closes each episode with the words that capture everything she stands for: "for kids and their parents who deserve to know."

Allison holds a dual diploma in social work and social pedagogy and is a licensed social worker and social pedagogue in Germany, with experience teaching empathy and conflict resolution at the CAU Hospital in Kiel and working in a teen transition home. She has completed professional training at Harvard University's Center for Digital Thriving. In Switzerland, she has taught languages and cultural studies in both public and private schools, and held leadership roles within the public school system.

When she is not on the road, Allison is based in Switzerland, in a small town above Lake Geneva.