SSFS Sources of Strength Peer Leaders Honored

SSFS Sources of Strength Upper School Peer Leaders were recently recognized with a 2025 Intervener Award from the Don’t Be A Bully Project for their work in promoting positive messages and outreach in our community. The group received a $200 prize and each student will be honored with a certificate of recognition. Later this year, one of our peer leaders will speak at their Intervener Training and will share their experience of being part of Sources of Strength at SSFS.

Sources of Strength (SOS) is a nationwide wellness initiative that trains middle and upper school peer leaders in supporting their classmates and sponsoring campaigns about resiliency factors that are our sources of strength. Sources of Strength takes an “upstream approach in the prevention cycle: to build resilience, increase connections, change unhealthy norms around help seeking, to teach healthy coping strategies, and ultimately prevent the very onset of suicidality.” Throughout the year, SOS Peer Leaders run campaigns and assemblies to help students tap into their sources of strength including Positive Friends, Family Support, Mental Health, Physical Health, Spirituality, Healthy Activities, Mentors, and Generosity: messages that have a natural overlap with SSFS’s Quaker values. 

SSFS was awarded a grant in 2022 to bring Sources of Strength training to our campus, and each year provides on-campus student training with our counseling staff. Campaigns and assemblies that our peer leaders have sponsored help students reflect on and share how their sources of strength both support them and connect them to those that are important in their lives.

Campaigns and initiatives have included

• “What Helps Me?” - identifying who or what helps students through challenging times
• “Gratitude Cards” - writing notes to those who have helped them through challenging times and understanding the positive impact that gratitude plays in our well-being
• “Kindness” Assemblies in the lower school to help younger students understand how they can show kindness and stewardship to others and our environment
• ...and our most recent campaign: Pink Out “You Can Sit With Us” - a lunch gathering that encouraged friends to wear pink and invite new friends to their tables to play games and share about themselves.