Wellness Ambassadors expanding reach to NISD middle schools

Click the following links to learn more about Wellness Ambassadors and Guidance and Counseling in NISD. You can also read about Samiaha Stroud, an Ambassador sharing her voice on a statewide platform.
 

Northwest ISD is committed to fostering a safe, welcoming environment where all students can thrive, and Wellness Ambassadors are student leaders dedicated to supporting this positive culture. 

All four NISD high schools have Wellness Ambassadors who advocate for student needs, guide peers to helpful staff resources and lead initiatives such as kindness campaigns, anti-bullying programs and empowerment activities. 

“Wellness Ambassadors in one word are ‘Support’,” said Cooper Spruill, an intervention counselor at Eaton High School. 

Ambassadors offer peer-to-peer support as they provide listening ears and open eyes in order to be there non-judgmentally when a fellow student is struggling.

“We ask them to not feel as if they are counselors,” Mr. Spruill explained. “But to connect their peers with the counseling department when a student is needing that extra level of support.”

Ambassadors also support a positive campus culture as they lead many enrichment campaigns ranging from a full Kindness Week to creating announcements and videos to just being positive in their classrooms. 

“Above all, they serve as supportive peers, helping to create a stronger, more connected school community,” Mr. Spruill said. 

As students across NISD celebrated Red Ribbon Week and learned about the importance of living a drug-free life, Ambassadors were taking their skills beyond the walls of their high schools and into the district’s seven middle schools.

Throughout the week, Ambassadors from all four high schools visited middle schools and talked to students about the dangers of tobacco, fentanyl and other drugs. 

During their day on campus, Ambassadors saw every eighth grader for 45 minutes. In that time, middle school students rotated through four stations where high school students led them in games and activities that encouraged discussions about a drug-free lifestyle.

Stations included substance abuse trivia, a game of BeanBoozled to help explain the dangers of fentanyl, a coping skills word scramble and a game of substance abuse 20 questions.

“I went to this middle school and we never had student advocates talk to us like this,” said Byron Nelson junior Violet Holzworth while visiting Tidwell Middle School. “I think it's so important to have high school advocates, because the middle school kids may look up to us more than adults. We can help to inform them and relate to them because we were just in their shoes a few years ago.”

That peer-to-peer support is at the foundation of Wellness Ambassadors in NISD.

“Sometimes talking to an adult can be nerve racking and scary,” said Emma Pinney, president of the Byron Nelson High School Wellness Ambassadors. “So talking to a different student allows them to really connect with people they wouldn't think they would connect with typically.”

“To me, a wellness ambassador is the eyes and ears of the student body,” said Larry Le, president of the Eaton High School Wellness Ambassadors. “We help identify if a student is in need, then we can provide them with resources and connections to help them to get better.”

Who supports these students who spend their time and energy supporting their fellow students? Ambassadors are led by the intervention counselors at each campus who provide training and support. 

“We support them by giving them any of the resources or facilities that they need to put their ideas into action,” said Amani Pereira, an intervention counselor at Eaton. “We want their input because they are the ones who are the eyes and ears of the school. So, whatever their ideas are, we try our best to make it happen.

That support is a two-way street.

“At the same time they support us by letting us know what are the main issues that the student body on campus is facing,” Ms. Pereira added. “Is it anxiety or depression or something like that? They then bring that back to us so we can make campus-wide initiatives, and then we circle back and use the ambassadors to implement those initiatives.”