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History ddddddThe
Natural Helpers program was first developed and pilot-tested at Mercer
Island High School in 1979 and has since been adopted by hundreds
of schools across the country. School leaders recognized that there
was already an informal helping network in place and that students
often went to their friends with problems before anyone else. They
fashioned a system by which students from all the different subgroups
in the school could act as sources of accurate information. Sometimes
friends don’t recognize the seriousness of the problem or they
have incorrect information. The Natural Helpers Retreat is a training
opportunity for students and adults who are already serving as helpers.
It gives them skills to help others more effectively: it gives them
places to turn to when they’re not able to help. Natural Helpers
are not professionally trained therapists or counselors; they are
skilled helpers. Natural Helpers are selected through an anonymous
school-wide survey. This assures that they are already seen by their
peers as trustworthy and helpful people. The Retreat Training is a
time when these diverse individuals can become a cohesive group. Some
of the topics addressed during the Retreat Training are taking care
of oneself, working as a team, knowing when friends need help, expressing
care and concern, expressing limits, recognizing situations which
require professional helping resources, and contacting a resource.
The training also begins to focus Natural Helpers attention on the
problems that students in their school consider the most important. |
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