Students helping, supporting, and caring about other students; That is the concept which the Peer counselor group is based upon.

Albeit difficult to define in exact terms, the Peers are a group of 34 students who have applied to assist student services in their care and support of other students.

“It’s a multi-faceted leadership role,” counselor Kelley Madden said. Madden is in her first year leading the program after the retirement of long-time counselor Pam Kilness. “Students are trained in a variety of different areas to work with their peers on common issues that teenagers struggle with. Often times we find that teenagers may find adults intimidating or scary and the first person they want to talk to is someone their own age because they can relate to them.”

The Peers have a space in student services that is available for students to address and process issues in their lives, receive support from a group of people that are trained to handle them, or otherwise just have a friend to hang out with.

Outside of meeting with students personally, Peers are also responsible for giving presentations on suicide prevention, healthy dating relationships, and sexual assault prevention.

“I really emphasize the presentations because that is a big part of what Peers do,” Madden said.” Peers get trained on sexual assault (prevention), healthy dating and dating violence, and suicide prevention. We may also bring in different topics depending on student interests.”

Peers give presentations to freshman health, Lobo 101, and teen choices classes. The presentations they give are Protect the Pack, for suicide prevention, Sexual Assault Resource Training (SART), for preventing and addressing sexual violence, and Time to Talk, for teaching students about healthy and unhealthy dating relationships.

The training and group development the Peers go through makes an impact on their lives and changes how they shape the community around them.

“I feel like I’ve grown more in this two months involved in Peers than I have in the rest of my high school career,” senior Eric Krehbiel said. “It’s life changing and I feel like I’ve blossomed into a person I never thought I’d become. I feel like I’m a happier person who can relate to others and it has made high school so much better.”

The Peers exist to be a safe and comfortable group to talk to whenever someone is in need, and they would like people to know that they are free to approach them because that is why they exist.

“It’s a big group of people, but we’re approachable,” senior Chris Cathcart said.

“I don’t identify as a Peer as much,” Krehbiel said. “I’m Eric, and I’d rather people approach me as Eric. I want people to know that I’m there to help them. Being a Peer isn’t some status symbol. I’m just Eric and I’m there to help you.”