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Kent School

Health & Wellness

Counseling Center

Kent School believes in an integrated approach to mental health that values the wellness of the whole student, focusing on their psychological, physical, and academic health as equal components.

The Kent School Counseling Center promotes an atmosphere of trust, confidentiality, and respect. We value each student’s experience in our community and look for ways to build relationships and connections. Through one-on-one meetings with Kent's licensed, trained professionals, students can address head-on a wide range of adolescent concerns and issues.

A Variety of Approaches

Students work with a counselor to find solutions, develop healthy strategies for addressing concerns, and working through issues. The Counseling Team offers short-term, solution-focused counseling as well as long-term clinically based counseling such as DBT, CBT, trauma-informed counseling, group counseling, and more.

Respecting Confidentiality

Respect for Kent students' confidentiality is crucial to successful counseling. Counselors will at times encourage a student to share information with an advisor, a teacher, or a parent/guardian when it is relevant or is helpful to the student's success. A counselor will break confidentiality to keep a student or others safe when a student discloses that they might cause harm to themselves, someone else, or someone is harming them. 

Navigating Issues

A student might reach out to a counselor for support in addressing/managing stress, anxiety, academic performance, relationships, family issues and concerns, homesickness, roommate difficulties, depression, sexuality, gender identity, grief and loss, body image, eating disorders, substance use or abuse, sexual assault, bullying, athletic performance, and more.



 


 

Wellness

Kent students are encouraged to take ownership of their well-being—physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually—through education, reflection, and discussion.

Kent School students paddling a self-built boat in the pool

The Kent Wellness Program is being developed using eight dimensions of wellness as a model.

Eight Dimensions of Wellness

An interconnected approach

1

Emotional

Coping effectively with life and creating satisfying relationships.

2

Financial

Satisfaction with current and future financial situations.

3

Social

Developing a sense of connection, belonging, and a well-developed support system.

4

Spiritual

Expanding our sense of purpose and meaning in life.

5

Occupational

Personal satisfaction and enrichment derived from one's work.

6

Physical

Recognizing the need for physical activity, diet, sleep, and nutrition.

7

Intellectual

Recognizing creative abilities and finding ways to expand knowledge and skills.

8

Environmental

Good health by occupying pleasant, stimulating environments that support well-being.

Adapted from Swarbrick, M. (2006). A Wellness Approach. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 29(4), 311-314.

 

To create balance for each of these dimensions, Kent School is developing a proactive curriculum that focuses on building a wellness foundation. Our wellness program will explore and educate on specific wellness concerns and priorities, many of which have been identified by Kent students. Examples of priorities include nutrition, creating healthy relationships, and developing positive coping skills. This learning will take place through dialogue, education, and hands-on activities which allow for opportunities to help positively change wellness for the Kent community and the greater community. A Kent student will leave Kent thriving, with a strong toolkit of wellness knowledge as well as understanding the importance of promoting and advocating for the wellness equity of others.