Natural Helpers Peer Helping Initiative Continues

Huntington High School’s Natural Helpers program is up and running and fully staffed by students. It’s a peer helping initiative that can be found in schools across the country. It’s been in Huntington for many years.

“The Natural Helpers are a group of students who are seen by their peers as trustworthy and helpful,” said Robert Gilmor III, a high school dean who serves as the organization’s faculty advisor. “In order for the program to be successful, Natural Helpers needs to consist of a cross section of students who are representative of all the sub-groups in the school.”

Students were surveyed earlier in the year to identify classmates in the building who are trusted by others to help them with their problems.

Those tapped to be Natural Helpers attend an overnight weekend retreat to acquire and refine the skills needed to successful assist others. The program is said to “help friends help friends.”

While Natural Helpers are not professionally trained therapists or counselors, they are skilled helpers. The retreat training is followed by ongoing training sessions.

“Natural Helpers is based on the idea that within every school an informal ‘helping network’ already exists,” according to the organization’s website. “Students with problems naturally seek out other students – and also adults – whom they trust. Natural Helpers taps and uses this helping network and provides training to 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.”

The three-day retreat training includes discussions on such topics as:

• Taking care of yourself

• Working as a team

• Knowing when friends need help

• Expressing care and concern

• Pressing limits for helping a friend

• Recognizing situations that require professional helping resources

“The training also begins to focus Natural Helpers’ attention on the problems that students in their school consider the most important,” the group’s website states.

The Natural Helpers program was developed and piloted in the state of Washington in 1979 and 1980.

The Natural Helpers program is designed to meet four basic goals:

1. To help young people develop the capability to prevent some of the problems of adolescence

2. To help young people develop the capability to intervene effectively with troubled friends

3. To help young people develop the capability to choose positive ways of taking care of themselves

4. To help young people develop the capability to improve their school and community

For more information about the Natural Helpers program at Huntington High School, send a message to Mr. Gilmor at rgilmor@hufsd.edu.