Author: Rishab Jain
Date: December 1, 2021
The Instagram page for the Cougar Support Den, displaying information and sources for support. (https://www.instagram.com/cougarsupportden/)
Started in April 2021, EVHS Cougar Support Den (CSD) has grown from an effective peer counseling resource to a holistic mental health service. Led by students Rachel Handa and Jackson Tong; one of our school’s social workers, Ms. Graves; and a group of 30+ peer counselors, CSD offers services to get in touch with EV staff, EV alumni, and access to mental health support. The service is also developing guides as a part of their Self Education Awareness branch to educate on topics such as mental health, relationships, social identity, and more.
CSD is open every school day. At any time during the day, you can contact Ms. Graves or any available peer counselor in D Building to seek support in the services CSD offers. Every day during lunch, students can also enter the theater lobby and visit peer counselors.
Over the past month, Rachel Handa, Ms. Graves, and Sofia Malmhall, a peer counselor at CSD, gave insight on what CSD and its mission is, the impact they hope the service has, and ways to get involved.
Rachel hopes CSD creates educational opportunities and resources for students’ social and emotional well being. “Cougar Support Den is the official student-led support service here at EVHS. All the time throughout the school day, you will be able to reach out to someone for CSD. If you want to leave during class you are allowed to. Ms. Graves has teacher aides who are peer counselors that are available during then. Or, you can also come to the theater lobby during lunch just to see anyone if you want to talk to them, get some snacks, or receive some peer counseling.” Rachel explains that Independence High School has their own student service program, and Ms. Graves wanted to implement one here at EV, leading to the creation of this program with her and Jackson.
CSD has 4 main branches in development, all aimed to help students in different aspects of their school and personal environments.
Rachel explained the four different services in greater detail. “[Our first] is peer counseling. Our second one is Alumni Outreach, which basically helps students with networking with people who graduated from EV. Our ‘Get to know EV Staff’ is mainly for information about teachers and creating bonds and greater relationships between students and staff. In our Self Educational Awareness (SEA) service, we seek to provide educational guides and many different measures towards educating people, providing information, and implementing changes within the school itself.”
Sofia Malmhall, a peer counselor at CSD elaborated more on the services she is a part of. “I’m a part of the Peer Counseling and SEA committee. [SEA] is kind of like a self help service where we write guides about a bunch of issues like mental health and identity, and we give it out to people to read it and come to their own terms. It’s to help them find healthy habits around mental health and what it is. We are trying to reduce the stigma around it and some of those controversial issues.”
The different services offered have left an impact on students, counselors, and supervisors.
Ms. Graves, one of EVHS’s social workers, hopes that CSD has an impact beyond making friends. “Beyond making friends, I hope [CSD] gets [students] to realize that they are not being judged like they think they are. There are safe people to go to but you have to know the difference between those that are safe to go to and those who are not.” She also wants to create a system where a student who might feel lonely can simply go down to the theater lobby and talk to someone and eat lunch with them. Within the counselors of CSD, Ms. Graves hopes the program helps them find out whether or not this is something they want to study in the future and continue as their career.
Sofia Malmhall hopes CSD makes students more open to help. “I hope CSD makes students change their lives for the better. I hope it helps them find new ways to cope with mental health, so they don't take out their anger and frustration in unhealthy ways. I want to help whoever is willing to be helped find their place in our community and be a good person to themselves and their community.” Sofia also hopes CSD helps herself become more open. “I hope CSD makes me a person who is more receptive to others’ advice and guidance. I used to be very isolated and I wouldn’t accept help from anybody. I felt really alone, so I really want CSD to help people open up and let them know they’re not alone.”
Rachel’s time at CSD has also had a positive impact on her. “I feel like I can already say how much of an impact CSD has had on me individually, and the same applies to Jack. For example, in summer we had our training for all the counselors and we learned a lot about mental health. The biggest thing I hope to gain from CSD is just knowing that we are leaving something behind that’s going to help students and evolve in the future.”
Finally, the counselors have hopes on how CSD will grow, and how students can get involved with CSD and be a part of that growth.
Rachel wants CSD to grow to the point where students can lead, make impacts, and make changes themselves. “I really hope that it evolves past what me and Jack and Ms. Graves have made it currently, and I know that it will.”
Sofia Malmhall stated that she simply wants to see CSD be a bigger service, and that she wants it to be bigger among students.
Additionally, a new wellness space that will take up D Building next year. “We are going to have a whole wellness space. For [students] to be able to go in there and meet CSD members and be able to receive services - it'll look different next year,” said Ms. Graves.
Rachel also explained how students can get involved with CSD: “So right now, we only open the peer counseling role to upperclassmen. If you are interested in being a part of CSD as an underclassmen, try utilizing your experiences and looking at issues that you see in your communities, and look at how you can make changes yourself. Developing that kind of sense of passion and commitment by yourself instead of with something that is already there really strengthens who you are as a person, what you believe in, and what you want to do. That kind of commitment and that kind of personality and dedication is what will make you really qualified for CSD in the future.”
To formally sign up, an application will be posted in SchoolLoop around February or March with the process. To be accepted, students will have to fill out an application and go through an interview process. Later, peer counselors will go through training to make sure they have the necessary skills to succeed as a peer counselor.
A teacher recommended CSD to Sofia. “You can sign up when they put up a form in the SchooLoop news section. Once you fill out the form, you agree that you have to have a teacher recommendation - I already had that.”
Once accepted into the program, students then must go through summer training to prepare as peer counselors. Rachel elaborated on the summer training peer counselors go through: “We use the training that Independence High School uses. It’s supposed to be throughout the entirety of summer, but we combined it into multiple days per week. We talked about confidentiality, responsibility, rules, and just what a counselor’s job is as a CSD member. We also went over reflective listening, communication, and different kinds of counseling skills and structures. We also covered a lot of different subjects like stress, anxiety, conflict, family issues, LGBTQ+, generational trauma, and ACES, which is a very progressive sociology term. We also went over depression and different mental disorders.”
CSD is a very valuable service at EV that truly has the student’s best interest at heart. The organization is a resource that should be utilized. Through CSD students can help themselves and others through CSD.
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