Dear Raptor Families,

 

It is National School Counseling Week and we would like to take a moment to recognize our Counseling and Intervention Team here at Silver Creek High School.  

Whitney Mires – Interventionist

Barb Norrbom – Counselor serving families A-El

Michael Sardinia – Counselor serving families Em-La

Kristi Ehle-Parker – Counselor Serving families Le-Ri

Andy Yeomans – Counselor serving families Ro-Z

Susan Metzler – Counselor Universal High School

Mary Kennedy – Counselor Universal High School

Leach Saraceni – Counseling Intern

 

What does a high school counselor do?  It may be easier to say what a high school counselor doesn’t do.  All of our counselors have either worked within the clinical field or within the classroom prior to becoming a school counselor at Silver Creek.  All of our counselors hold Master’s Degrees and Certifications as licensed school counselors.  On a daily basis counselors assist students with a myriad of issues, challenges, and help to celebrate student successes.  The areas in which school counselors play a supportive role in the lives of our students include:

 

-Four Year Planning

-Fine-tuning student schedules

-Individual Student Planning

-Responsive Services

-Assisting and resourcing At-Risk Youth

-Intervention Services

-Promoting Post-Secondary and Workforce Readiness

-Serve as liaisons to programs such as Career Development Center, Front Range Community College, Innovation Center, OUR Center, A Woman’s Work, The Inn Between, School to Work Options, and College Fairs

-Help to plan college events

-Host college fairs and representatives

-Introduce students to Naviance

-Assist with the college admission process

-Mediate conflict

-Manage student records

-Promote scholarships and the scholarship process

-Help every student to plan for a successful path towards graduation and beyond

 

We certainly are very lucky to have an experienced, supportive and student-focused counseling team.  With registration coming up our counselors will embark upon an ambitious project in meeting with every student on their caseload.  This effort will be made to look at students’ four-year plan and align their plan to courses we offer in addition to academic programs available outside of Silver Creek.  

As we look towards the future our school counseling team helped to launch Sources of Strength this week at Silver Creek.  This program, while born out of suicide prevention, is a strengths based program that incorporates positive messaging and early intervention within a school.  Students also work to de-stigmatize the need for support when facing social emotional duress.  By de-stigmatizing the need for mental health support our teens will be able to access early intervention and resources available at school and within the community.  An example goes like this; if a friend had a gaping wound you likely wouldn’t just put a band-aid on it and call it good.  You’d hopefully tell your friend to go get medical assistance and escort them.  Same holds true for mental health, if a friend is suffering we have an obligation to guide them towards help from a trained professional.  This guidance is all of our responsibility.  

Sources of Strength will continue to enhance the inclusive environment of Silver Creek, provide early mental health intervention, focus on the strengths of our teens within Silver Creek and build positive messaging around our high school community.  This program was made possible by a sizable grant from Boulder County Public Health and is being piloted at Silver Creek, with the notion that all high schools in St. Vrain could adopt and bring Sources Of Strength to their school communities.  Thank you to Mrs. Whitney Mires and, St. Vrain Counseling Liaison, Matt Hofmeister for spearheading these efforts.  More information is available upon Sources Of Strength at https://sourcesofstrength.org/

Once again, thank you for your continued support of Silver Creek.  I feel incredibly fortunate to have such a great community and families to serve.  Thank you to our dedicated staff of school counselors.

 

Sincerely,

 

Erick Finnestead

Principal, Silver Creek High School