By Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY Middle and high school students are making a difference in the community, thanks to former Upper Middle School Principal Bill Robbins who resurrected the Natural Helpers Program that had faded away due to budget cuts.
The premise is that there are born leaders in schools who their peers naturally feel inclined to go to when they have problems or concerns. The program takes these already established leaders and teaches them how to be even better listeners and more able to help their friends and peers.
Mr. Robbins said these particular students are often found in sub groups. For example, ethnic groups, sports teams, student council members or highly academic students. Within these sub groups there are go-to people for guidance, advice or heart to heart conversations.
”We give them training on how they should go about handling situations,” said Mr. Robbins. “We get them to be good listeners so if they stumble upon an issue they will know what to do with that information.”
Whether it’s learning how to effectively listen to a friend’s girlfriend woes or knowing the correct professional to direct a peer struggling financially, Natural Helpers will know how to best provide assistance or alert the right people to an impending disaster.
”Kids will always know what’s going to happen in the school before any adult does. Eventually adults find out later down the road and then it might be too late to help the situation,” said Mr. Robbins. “This is mostly a proactive program instead of waiting for something, we can fix it before it happens.”To spot these Natural Helpers, students are given a questionnaire without any explanation of the purpose. The questionnaire asks students for their existing problems or concerns and then asks them to list three peers and three adults in the school that they would feel most comfortable talking to about these issues.
Any 25 to 35 names that are mentioned the most become those Natural Helpers.
”It’s not a popularity contest,” he emphasized. “It’s who you trust, who you go to with your problems.”Mr. Robbins said that initially chosen Natural Helpers are concerned about “telling on someone,” but Mr. Robbins stressed that it’s not about that.
”It’s about helping people. This is a way to cipher out those issues that might be more serious,” he said. “Be as confidential as you want, but if someone is going to hurt themselves you have to help them.”As part of this training program, Natural Helpers go on a three day retreat at a camp to learn about working as a team, addressing stereotypes, building trust, supporting friends and recognizing situations which require adult help and teaching others.
This time, about 25 high school students, 35 middle school students and 10 faculty members from each school went to Camp Speers/Eljabur in the Poconos. For two nights and three days, these Natural Helpers trained intensively to further develop their inherent capabilities to improve problems of adolescence, intervene effectively with troubled peers and increased their ability to improve their schools and community.
One of the most effective activities at the camp was a stereotype learning exercise. Helpers were given a card to wear on their foreheads that contained a stereotype such as head cheerleader, jock, nerd, or class president that they were unable to see.
They were then asked to discuss a topic, but respond to each other according to how they would talk to that stereotype on the card. Helpers then discussed how they felt about being talked to in that certain way.
”We react to people because of the stereotypes we know. We talked about that does how it eliminates you from listening to someone who might have a really good idea based on a first impression,” said Mr. Robbins. “This was a strong exercise that helped the kids understand why you shouldn’t stereotype why you should listen to everyone.”
He stressed that the program isn’t about training students to be guidance counselors.
”You can’t be trained to be a counselor in three days,” he said. “The point is to make them more comfortable with their role it’s something they are because of who they are.”
When students arrived at the camp, Mr. Robbins described them as “wide-eyed and inquisitive” but that they returned to Montgomery with a sense of camaraderie among them.
”This brings all of those sub groups together, making the student body more cohesive,” he added. “It stops a lot of friction in the school.”
But students aren’t the only ones who benefit, the faculty members and even Upper Middle School Principal Cory Delgado learned a lot at the camp too.
”The wonderful thing is those adults have given up their weekend to be there,” said Mr. Robbins. “Teachers love it because they get trained in new skills, they know how to better help the kids.”
While the Natural Helpers worked hard over the weekend, the most difficult part of the program was trying to find a weekend when everyone was available to attend.
”You’re asking the most active kids so there are always some sport, some game, some practice, some club meeting,” he explained. “We finally found one weekend in between sport seasons when nothing was going on but then you’re contending with weekend events.”The Natural Helpers program was restored with the help of a grant from the Montgomery Rocky Hill Municipal Alliance and PTA donations. The program is a package that initially costs $1,000 along with the added expenses like the camp that are necessary to run it. The camp charges approximately $100 a child to cover food and lodging.
Natural Helpers is a nationwide program that started in Washington over 20 years ago in a school system where there was a student who committed suicide. The victim had confided in several other students, but those individuals were unsure of how to handle the information and didn’t alert anyone that could have prevented the death.
Mr. Robbins is no stranger to the program and last year’s fall retreat marked his 13th year of doing Natural Helpers. He started implementing the program when he was a vice-principal at Allentown High School and brought it with him to Montgomery.
”Every time I’ve done it, they always come back re-energized and as a unit,” said Mr. Robbins. “It works every time, it really does help kids feel more confident in helping their friends.”
His only future concern is funding to keep the program going every year. While the PTA agreed to continue giving donations, Natural Helpers won’t be able to rely on the Municipal Alliance.
”The Municipal Alliance tends to only fund start up programs. They will fund it for a few years, but then we have to look for other means,” explained Mr. Robbins. “I hope funding isn’t something that will deter us.”
And parents don’t want the program to vanish again either.
Mr. Robbins said that even the parents notice a positive change in their children when they return from camp.
