Healthy Choices Week '12 a Success!

posted on December 12, 2012

Red Cloud High School students participated in a number of workshops as part of Red Cloud Indian School's Healthy Choices Week. The annual series of events aims to support students in making healthy life choices, both on and off campus. A committee of faculty and staff led by principals and the counseling department at RCHS worked together to choose the topics for this year.

Facing students over the course of the week were two themes: what makes it particularly difficult to make healthy life choices when presented with this particular challenge, and what strategies can be used to surmount the particular difficulties that are raised by that challenge? The week’s events started on Monday, December 3rd, with a Lakota Flag Prayer Service led by spiritual formation teacher Russ Cournoyer followed by a sweat later that afternoon. Other opportunities included a talk entitled S.O.S. Signs of Suicide and presentations on bullying and healthy relationships from Catholic Social Service and Indian Health Services.

“I was very pleased with the programming this year,” says Joe Fleischman S.J., a counselor at RCHS. “The students seemed really engaged as they wrestled with trying to determine those decisions that would be healthiest for them.”

For over 25 years at RCIS, Healthy Choices Week has helped tackle many of the most pressing and sensitive issues on the reservation,