Counseling Services

Natural Helpers

Natural Helpers is a peer-assistance program used across the United States and in several other countries. The program helps high school students strengthen their communication and helping skills, while equipping them to provide support to others and service to their schools and community. The Natural Helpers program is based on a simple premise: Within every school, an informal "helping network" exists. Students with problems naturally seek out other students, in addition to teachers and other school staff, whom they trust. They seek them out for advice, for assistance, or just for a sympathetic ear. The Natural Helpers program uses this existing helping network by providing peer-counseling training to students and adults who are already identified as "natural" helpers. The selection process guarantees that all groups in the school will be represented and assures that the students selected for the program are already seen by their peers as trustworthy and helpful.

The community at the Illinois Math and Science Academy is a diverse, yet cohesive community. Each year the students at IMSA are asked to identify staff members and fellow students whom they have found to be helpful by recording their names on the Natural Helpers Survey. The information on the survey is both anonymous and confidential. Students are also given the opportunity to identify what they believe are the top concerns facing IMSA students on campus today. From this survey, a "Top 10 List" of concerns is constructed and integrated into the retreat training. That way, students are trained in basic support and counseling skills while focusing on the real issues IMSA students have to face on a daily basis.

The Natural Helpers program does not turn students into "counselors" or "therapists." Instead, students receive approximately 30 hours of training in an off-campus retreat setting where they learn how to improve their helping skills, learn how to contact helping resources when problems exceed their limits, and learn how to take better care of themselves by setting limits with friends and peers. Each year approximately 35 students and adult facilitators will learn to: