North Hunterdon Voorhees Regional High School District
Student Assistance Program

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North Hunterdon-Voorhees Student Assistance Program

The Student Assistance Program (SAP) for the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District is an adaptive program that is based on demand driven elements.  The SAP is a comprehensive program that includes counseling, curriculum development for health classes, school wide prevention for faculty and students, parent and student information.

Adaptive Counseling Program/Demand-Driven Elements:

  •  Individual counseling–meet with students individually on a variety of topics.
  • Group Counseling–including but not limited to drug/alcohol, crisis, stress, etc. (see website for details). Developed in response to  student-driven demand, e.g. Children of Alcoholics, Divorced Parents, Adoption issues, Sexual Orientation issues, Diversity.
  • Crisis Counseling and Management
  • Family Counseling and Intervention/Referral
    • Provide parents with information on counseling, treatment, and support services available in the community.

Curriculum Elements

  • Substance Abuse Prevention – help to develop appropriate health curriculum on drugs and alcohol.

    • 9th-age appropriate education on a variety of drug, alcohol and social issues.

    • 10th-age appropriate education on a variety of drug, alcohol and social issues.

    • 11th-age appropriate education on a variety of drug, alcohol and social issues.

    • 12th- age appropriate education on a variety of drug, alcohol and social issues.

    • Outside agencies, Hunterdon Drug Awareness Program or Hunterdon Prevention Program, come in to provide additional lessons on drugs and alcohol.

  • Lifelines Suicide Prevention Curriculum–taught in the 9th grade health; review classes offered in subsequent years.

  • Safe Dates–taught in 9th grade health (North Hunterdon)

  • Share the Keys (replaces Alive at 25)–taught in 11th grade health and mandatory parent program offered.

  • Peer Mediation–students or staff mediating student conflicts

  • Anti-Bullying Curriculum–taught in the 9th grade health classes (North)

  • Program Promotion–via school TV station, web sites, email, and announcements.

  • Parents’ Pages Newsletters – monthly issues of note disseminated to all parents

Other Educational Elements

  • Staff Information Memos–Information sent to staff on a regular basis on a variety of student issues, e.g. referral process, recent adolescent trends, substance abuse developments, general health issues, etc.

  • Parent Information mailings–Information sent to parents on a regular basis on a variety of student issues via periodic emails, school messenger system.

  • Websites–information on a variety of student issues, information for parents, staff, community.

  • School Wide Assemblies–Include but not limited to:

    • Improbable Players

    • STOP

    • PRIDE (NJ Dept. of Corrections)

    • John Halligan

    • Katie Koestner

    • Rachel’s Challenge/Legacy

    • Rutgers sober living students

Additional SAP Elements

  • Maintain relationships with community organizations such as

    • Municipal Alliance

    • ASAP

    • Safe Communities Coalition

    • Safe in Hunterdon

    • Law enforcement

    • County SACS

  • Random and Suspicion Based Drug Testing–receive and record results, engage students with positive results in mandated counseling, advise staff and administration on issues related to procedure and protocols.

  • Graduate Counseling Internships–supervise graduate level school counseling and Student Assistance candidates from Rutgers, TCNJ, others

North Hunterdon-Voorhees Student Assistance Counselors’ webpage – https://sites.google.com/nhvweb.net/vhsstudentassistanceprogram