Following a year plagued by even more strains of COVID on top of several on-campus crises and for many on campus, a return to in person school after a year of online, students across the nation have had a lot to deal with. Lamar however is well prepared to aid students in all they need for their mental well-being with multiple counselors on staff ready to assist students at any time.

Counselor Adrienne Williams explained the tools Lamar has on staff to help students.

“There’s myself- a licensed counselor, we also have Ms. Dehbahni Tijerina, who’s also a licensed counselor,” Williams said. “Then we have Mr. Burbridge, who is a former education administrator/principal who has a lot of knowledge of the infrastructure of school.” 

Counselor Didehbani Tijerina went into greater detail.

“We also work with Houston Independent School District’s social and emotional learning department and they have a specific skill set that they’re able to offer in those crisis situations. I also work with Communities in Schools, so we also have a crisis consultation team.” Tijerina said.

Also available to help students is The Montrose Group, which Williams elaborated on.

“The Montrose group comes in every Friday,” Williams said. “They host an open group, meaning that any student that identifies with the LGBTQ plus community can participate in that group. And of course, it’s confidential but it helps them talk about how they identify with the community and the challenges that come along with them identifying themselves as LGBTQ plus.”

Tijerina provided examples of even more resources the counselors offer separate from mental and emotional struggles.

“We provide different supportive services and so it’s sometimes it’s not counseling, other times students will come to us if they need help with like academics and so this could be study skills, testing skills, or students will come to us with questions about like, their future so like jobs or college and so we’re able to like help them out in a lot of different ways,” Tijerina said.

Though she also has struggled with being able to reach out to and spend enough time on students.

“There are only three of us for close to three-thousand students. I wish I could give more than like 30 minutes but then there’s other students waiting or taking a little bit longer to check back in,” Tijerina said.