Safe Community Coalition Pilots WeCoach: Student2Student Support

The Safe Community Coalition is sponsoring a student-led, pilot peer-to-peer coaching program for high school and college students. The pilot program will train 10 high school and college students to facilitate circles with four or five of their peers. Ten peer circles will launch virtually in mid-July and run through early August. We are looking for students to join the circles. This is a great leadership development opportunity and will deepen problem-solving, teamwork, inquiry, empathy, and reflective skills.

Circles will use a proven, structured peer coaching method to help circle members with their current challenges, questions, or priorities. Each week a person in the circle will raise their issue of concern and everyone will help them. It is a great opportunity both to get support and give support to others during this tough time. Each circle will meet four times in July-August for 60-90 minutes.

This is not therapy, so clinical issues like severe anxiety, depression, suicidal ideations, or OCD are beyond the scope of this program. That said, peer circle leaders and their adult mentors will be trained to spot these issues and connect peers with other great counseling and mentoring resources. WeCoach is solely students helping students using a structured problem-solving, peer coaching approach.

The concept for the pilot was hatched by two brothers in our area (one a rising senior at Marshall High School and the other a student at Northern Virginia Community College) who wanted to do something to help kids navigate through the pandemic, and their mom, who is a leader development professional and certified coach. SCC volunteers are supporting the pilot.

If you or somebody you know is a high school junior/senior or college student interested in participating in a circle, contact Adriano at 703-477-4254 or Camillo at 703-401-8471. There are still spots available! *Deadline is July 1st* If you are a parent and would like more info, call me, Valerie Lingeman, at 202-276-6116 or email me at valerie@doublehelixlearning.com.

For more information about the Safe Community Coalition, please see http://mcleanscc.org/.