Northwest ISD high school student Wellness Ambassadors visited all seven district middle schools during Red Ribbon Week to talk about the dangers of using drugs.

The details

According to a district news release, all four NISD high schools have Wellness Ambassadors who are involved in the following activities:

• Advocating for student needs
• Guiding peers to helpful staff resources
• Leading initiatives such as kindness campaigns, anti-bullying programs and empowerment activities

Cooper Spruill, an intervention counselor at Eaton High School, said the student ambassadors offer peer-to-peer counseling and provide non-judgemental support when a fellow student is struggling.

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

A closer look

The news release states that during Red Ribbon Week—Oct. 23 through Oct. 31—ambassadors, who perform their duties in the district’s four high schools, took their skills to the seven middle schools where they talked to middle school 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, including substance abuse trivia and a coping skills word scramble that encouraged discussions about a drug-free lifestyle.

What they’re saying

“I went to this middle school and we never had student advocates talk to us like this,” said Byron Nelson junior Violet Holzworth. “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.”

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

The news release states the Wellness Ambassadors are led by intervention counselors at each campus who provide training and support.

“At the same time, they support us by letting us know what are the main issues that the student body on campus is facing,” said Amani Pereira, an intervention counselor at Eaton High School. “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.”