New Town Group SOARS Together
Peer-to-peer mentorship program helps students to open up, forge connections and inspire classmates By Tom Gerhardt, NDU Communications
High school counselor Chelsie Smith guides a purposeful group of students here at New Town High School. They’re part of a group called SOAR – Stand Up and Represent. The idea behind the group is to create a peer to peer mentorship program-working to normalize difficult but real conversations on topics like suicide, loneliness and drugs and alcohol. “They come in and they talk about things that are important and relevant to them and they create videos with concepts that will speak to their peers and have an impact,” Smith said. “We’re trying to have a systemic approach to this in order to change
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school climate. But [also] changing the atmosphere and making an effort to do that, they’ve reached out in several different ways and asked their peers what they’re struggling with, and they’ve addressed that in videos. Let them know that they’re not alone, that they are here for support in whatever way they can help. And I think it’s amazing what they’ve done in a very short period of time. I couldn’t be more proud of this group.” The videos — and you can find them on their New Town High School Leadership Council YouTube channel — have allowed SOAR students to take ownership in the projects they’ve created including selecting topics, writing, editing and on-camera appearances.
