COUNSELORS WORKING IN MENTAL HEALTH

In a video from PBS called “Nearly 1 in 5 teens seriously considers suicide. Can schools offer relief?” we, as the audience, are shown how they really try to show their students that they are cared for and that they should feel safe in school and that they should feel more than welcome to talk to their counselors about anything. The video shows a counselor of Freedom High School in Loudon County, Virginia talking to all of their students in their classroom, almost like an intervention, shortly after a school shooting took place in Connecticut, and while addressing the 10 suicides that that school has been through in the last three years. All of these contributions in the video add to the overall message that school counselors can and should do more to prevent suicide within their schools.  This video from PBS not only shines a light on counselors' perspectives and what they think about suicide prevention but it also gave some former and current Freedom High School students a platform to share some real and touching stories of how their counselors did everything they could to prevent suicide from happening or even being thought of. An alumnus of Freedom High School, Molly Kammerdeiner, spoke in the video about how counselors at her high school that did their part and reached out to molly in her time of crisis and hopelessness, and gave her hope again by being there and giving her someone to trust and confide in.