Between Mindfulness, The Dating Game, Drugs: Dilemmas and Decisions, Cyberwise, Suspending Stress, and Breaking the Silence, there are plenty of workshops for everyone. 

The Counseling Department wanted to do something new, unique, and different to help the students of Dallastown.

“It all started with senior workshops for their future. We soon realized that not all students are college-bound, so we added workshops for military and workforce,” Counselor Mrs. Wabnik said.

While most of the workshops started off as future planning, the counselors soon realized that there were many more needs in the school that had to be addressed. 

So, they took the idea of the workshops for students’ future, applied and tweaked them to focus more on a variety of needs dealing with mental health. The Byrnes Health and Education Center came to assist with this along with faculty member Mr. Rojahn who taught a Mindfulness workshop.

According to Wabnik, “We wanted to bring in a representative from the Byrnes Center so that way students weren’t just hearing this information from us.”

She went on to say, “The Byrnes Center has had a relationship with Dallastown for a long time, but they focused more on the elementary schools. We just decided to expand that to the high school.”

Not only did Dallastown Counselors feel that this was important, the representatives at the Byrnes Center believed these workshops would be helpful to students. 

In fact, Sharla Scotten, representative at the Byrnes Center, said, “No matter what workshop you’re in, if you reach one student that’s what matters.”

The counselors weren’t too sure how this would all pan out, but students came, were receptive, and even enjoyed the workshops. 

One student in particular said, “I went to all of them and I liked them all. They were very helpful and I highly recommend them. My favorite workshop would probably have to be the Dating Game, but the most helpful was the ideal coping skills to relieve stress. The mental health information helped me a lot and I became more aware than I already am. Dallastown should definitely continue these,” junior Makaylie Mostert said. 

While some students attended all of the workshops, others only attend one or two and still received all the positive outcomes that other students had.

“I only went to the mindfulness workshop, but I loved it and was extremely helpful.The strongest piece of information I got was to always try to focus on the now because you just might miss something later on. I strongly think that Dallastown should continue mindfulness and even create a club for it,” Madison Harhager said. 

Overall, each and every workshop affected the student body of DHS and are helping create a better atmosphere.

Stay tuned for Part III in this series about the small groups offered by DHS Counseling Department.