Health & Wellness Counselor
Position Title: Health & Wellness Counselor (HWC)
Reports To: Dean of Holistic Support and Student Wellness
Employment Status: Exempt
About Eagle Rock
Eagle Rock School is a full-scholarship, year-round boarding school located in Estes Park, Colorado. With an enrollment of up to 72 high-school students, our supportive, community-focused environment fosters a transformative learning experience where students can thrive. We implement effective and engaging practices that nurture each student’s unique potential, empowering them to think critically and connect deeply with their education and the world around them. Our school primarily serves adolescents from historically marginalized communities, who have the desire and commitment to excel in academics, leadership, and personal growth. Eagle Rock is also a Professional Development Center, supporting innovative educational practices across the United States. Eagle Rock supports students and educators to become catalysts of change in their lives and communities.
Position Summary
We are seeking an experienced school-based mental health professional to join our team as a Health and Wellness Counselor (HWC). The HWC will serve as an on-the-ground support & advocate for students, fostering a positive and healthy school experience with a strong emphasis on mental health, life skills, and social-emotional development. This role requires a high level of engagement, effective crisis management and nervous system regulation, mental health triage, and real-time responsiveness to ensure the well-being and success of our students in our boarding school setting.
Our approaches prioritize resilience and empowerment, rooted in trauma-informed care, somatic leadership, holistic practices, and solution-focused interventions. The ideal candidate will have extensive knowledge and experience working with adolescents who have faced complex mental health experiences including trauma, neglect, sexual violence, substance use, loss and grief, depression, anxiety, and more. The role involves direct student counseling, case management, teaching health and wellness curriculum, and crisis management. While many responsibilities are scheduled aiming to provide proactive support, the role will also include unstructured time for check-ins as well as the ability to respond to crises in real-time.
The HWC will support a diverse community of high school students from various racial, ethnic, cultural and geographic backgrounds, LGBTQIA+ students, and students from low-income communities, all of whom have been underserved in traditional educational settings. Our staff is intentionally diverse as well, and we encourage candidates from similarly diverse communities and experiences to apply. Candidates must express a demonstrated commitment to engage deeply and fully with our organizational priorities of Belonging and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
As a member of the Eagle Rock community, the HWC will actively engage in community gatherings and events, such as professional development, meals, residential programming and intramural sports. While community involvement can add complexity to the therapist-client relationship and necessitate strong ethical boundaries, it also cultivates rewarding connections and enhances opportunities for meaningful support.
We are constantly examining and innovating at Eagle Rock, and are currently exploring what it means to have a culture fully committed to wellness. We’re open to creative approaches and welcome ideas and efforts to improve our practices. If you are passionate about supporting others in their journey
toward wellbeing and are excited to be part of a close-knit community of dedicated individuals serving and celebrating our students, we invite you to apply.
Qualifications, Responsibilities & Essential Job Functions
Qualifications
- Master’s Degree in school counseling, social work, psychology, or related field required
- Clinically Licensed (LCSW, LPC, etc) required
- 4+ years of post-degree clinical experience with adolescents
- Experience counseling in a school environment preferred, experience in a residential/boarding setting a plus
- Experience and/or willingness to explore therapeutic approaches such as CBT, ACT, DBT, EMDR, and/or Somatic Therapy
- Substance Use and Addictions Licensure or Certification (LADC/CADC) preferred not required
- Bilingual preferred, with ability to provide services in English and Spanish
- Formal or informal teaching experience preferred - not required
- Professional written and verbal communication; effective public speaker and emphatic listener
- Strong organizational, time management, leadership and interpersonal skills
- High ethical standards and strong professional boundaries
Responsibilities
- Serve as a Health & Wellness team member, collaborating with the healthcare coordinator, clinical fellows, Director of H&W, and Dean of Holistic Support to provide students’ holistic wellbeing (beyond mental health)
- Consult and collaborate across the school staff team - residential, restorative, academic staff, and the leadership team.
- Coordinate the treatment and continuity of mental health care with various constituents inside and outside ERS (including family supports at home)
- Communication, collaboration, and coordination with families/sponsors to support the care of their student.
- Assess students throughout the day; identify psychological, emotional, or behavioral concerns,
- and coordinate appropriate intervention and/or support
- Provide individual counseling sessions, monitoring student progress
- Complete necessary clinical documentation utilizing the school dashboard
- Develop and implement treatment plans, counseling processes, and student action plans
- Facilitate group counseling sessions, group activities, and meetings (substance use, relationships, etc)
- Occasionally accompany students to off-site medical and therapy appointments
- Utilize conflict resolution skills to successfully, respectfully, and positively resolve conflicts between students
- Create and maintain crisis preparedness, response, and recovery plans
- Respond to student and campus emergencies: coordinate emergency response and outline initial treatment objectives
- Support with medication distributions as part of the medication delegation team
- Provide mentorship, ideally direct supervision for clinical interns
- Provide support for the admissions screening process, and/or return plans for students who leave the community due to mental health needs
- Teach a wellness class (sexual health, coping skills, or other related classes) - preferred not required
- Facilitate wellness and mental health professional development opportunities for staff
- Stay current on current mental health trends, resources and practices to support evidence and data-based decision making
- Assess practices to ensure equitable access and support for diverse student populations
- Ensure practices are legal, ethical, and professional
School-Wide Involvement:
- Take on other residential duties as assigned by the Dean of Holistic Support and Student Wellness
- Participate and engage in Holistic Case Management during weekly staff meetings
- Engage in weekly staff Belonging in affinity and alliance spaces, commit to individual/alone DEI learning
- Perform other duties related to being an active community member at ERS, including community building, advisories, community meetings, service projects, house team participation, graduation, celebrations and other community events
- Be open to working as a residential Houseparent for student housing if the need arises
Work Environment
This job operates in a professional boarding school environment, on a gated campus in a mountainous area of Colorado, above 7,700 ft. in elevation.
Position Type/Expected Hours of Work
This is a full-time position with year-round responsibilities. While students are on campus each trimester, a typical weekly schedule will include evening and weekend hours, and an on-call rotation. In addition to position-specific duties, all Eagle Rock staff engage in community events and activities, which may fall outside their typical work schedule.
Physical Essential Job Functions
The person in this position will: constantly operate a computer, frequently communicate with students and staff, observe students in the classroom and during residential programming, and frequently move about campus grounds - including ascending/descending stairs. The employee must be able to remain in a stationary position 50% of the time, and may frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Occasional travel for work may be required.
Benefits
We offer a competitive salary and benefits package:
- Salary range for this position: $60,000-$85,000, based on education and experience
- Signing bonus $5,000
- Annual Bonus
- Medical/dental/vision plan
- Vacation/sick time/additional paid time off
- Additional benefits may be available
This job description is subject to change at any time.
Hiring Timeline
We are hoping to fill this position immediately. This timeline is offered to give applicants a sense of our ideal process. While we intend to do as much as we possibly can to stick to this timeline, we are committed to finding the right person; we realize that there might be a circumstance with the best
candidate that would require us to shift our plan. We hope the right person is not dissuaded from applying by incongruence between their commitments and our timeline.
- Initial Application Review: Within 1 week of receiving the application
- Phone and Onsite Interviews: Within 2-3 weeks (depending on location of applicant)
- Start Date: as soon as possible
Pay: $60,000.00 - $85,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
