By Ruthie MacQuarrie, Staff Writer

At the beginning of the year, school counselors at Conant High School aided in creating a new program to help students, as their needs were not getting met.

The project they created, which helped aid to the emotional aspect of students, created what is now known as the Connect Team. The team is made up of creator David Beauchamp, the district’s home to school liaison, Jim Chisholm, the district’s social worker and psychologist, June Strickland, the district’s psychologist, Amanda Shaw, school counselor, and Diane Fontaine, school counselor.

The Connect Team’s goal is to “increase communication between home and school and connect students to teachers,” Beauchamp said. If a student has a serious emotional issue or is feeling ‘disconnected’ from everyone else, they are sent to be seen by one of the members of the Connect Team.

Where the Team is a new program, they are experiencing some issues in progressing the program. Because there was no preconceived idea of how things were supposed to work, the leaders had to go in blind.

“We know that we are addressing the issues that need the most attention,” Chisholm said.

The Connect Team’s main goal is to lower the anxiety and depression levels in students. The student’s emotional wellbeing is “critical to the learning process,” Strickland said. If a student’s anxiety level is high, learning cannot be done, and they cannot move on.

The Connect Team offers short term counselling, but has connections to graduates of Antioch University in Keene that offer more long term counselling if a student needs it.

The school counselors are working hard and “looking to create a community”, Strickland said, in the hopes to build up the confidence of the students and lower the anxiety and depression levels of young adults throughout the district.