By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

During their meeting on Feb. 9, the Lake Orion Community Schools Board of Education heard a presentation from Lake Orion High School administration, staff and students regarding the social emotional (SEL) program at the school.

Giving the presentation were LOHS principal Steve Hawley, teacher Amy Redman and several students (senior Ava Darbyshire, junior Alessaundra Shallal and sophomore Mattea Muscat).

“Social emotional learning has really been an important part of what we’re doing at Lake Orion High School, not only this year but in the past,” Hawley said. “The focus this year…has been very concerted as schools across the country have really focused on the impact of the pandemic not only on the academic progress of our students but also on the social emotional well-being of our students.”

According to Hawley, at the high school level, LOCS has benefited greatly from multiple surveys that have been conducted throughout the district among parents, staff and students. From those surveys, the high school has introduced several added initiatives.

“These initiatives go beyond just the relationships that are so important that we build in our classrooms each and every day,” Hawley said.

Included in these initiatives is the increase in the number of homeroom sessions hosted throughout the year and incorporating the topic of mindfulness into their health classes.

“Those homeroom sessions are important because in those sessions we’re talking about social emotional learning and we’re also in a smaller setting with less students for each teacher,” Hawley said.

The high school has also instituted the Sources of Strength program. The program is headed by Redman who used to run the school’s Students Offering Support (SOS) program which is now Sources of Strength.

Sources of Strength is a national program that, instead of being risk focused and instead of focusing on sadness, trauma, shock and being a more adult driven program, has more of a positive approach to mental health awareness, Redman said.

“It is more positive strength focused. There are messages of hope, health and strength that we can draw upon and it’s more peer led which I think makes it a very powerful program,” Redman said.

Currently, the program has 200+ student peer leaders and 14 adult advisors.

“We believe that life has its ups and downs and our mission is to acknowledge that and drawn upon our strengths with a focus on hope, help and support to help each other get through it,” said Redman. “It’s very much focused also on sharing and connecting with each other about these strengths. We don’t want anyone to feel overwhelmed or helpless. And that connection, that we connect with students and staff in our programing that we’re running through this year, we believe will help us reach people that might not be easily reached and just kind of connect with as many students as possible. We want to end the stigma of mental health issues and we want to spread a very positive message, like I’ve said, of hope, health and strength.”

In order to spread this message, LOHS is implementing various campaigns that are done throughout the days and weeks and in their homeroom.

Using the Sources of Strength wheel, students participated in different activities that were designed to help students gain additional support, Darbyshire said.

While SOS is essentially about individuals being a part of one whole, there are smaller groups that are meant to reach different areas of the school. The smaller groups include the activities group which consist of SOS members who are also in Leadership, the social media group, a networking group, the classroom presentations group, a video productions group and a displays and artwork group, said Shallal and Muscat.

LOHS is expected to continue with the Sources of Strength program and carry it over into the upcoming school year as well.