Health & Wellness Counselor

Position Title: Health & Wellness Counselor (HWC)

Reports To: Director of Health & 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 prefer candidates with experience living in or working with similarly diverse communities. 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 radical approaches and welcome ideas and efforts to improve our practices. If you are passionate about supporting others in their journey toward well-being 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 utilizing a MTSS for case management

Substance Use and Addictions Licensure or Certification (LADC/CADC) preferred

Bilingual preferred, with ability to provide services in English and Spanish

Formal or informal teaching experience preferred

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 school nurse, clinical interns, and the director of H&W to support students’ holistic wellbeing (beyond mental health)

Consult and collaborate across the school staff team - residential and academic staff and the leadership team; facilitate student support meetings

Coordinate the treatment and continuity of mental health care with various constituents inside and outside ERS (including family supports at home)

Assess students throughout the day; identify psychological, emotional or behavioral concerns, and coordinate appropriate interventions

Provide individual counseling sessions, monitor student progress

Complete necessary clinical documentation

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 for clinical interns (while direct supervision is not an expectation of this role, we would like candidates to have the capacity to provide this type of support and potentially grown into a supervisory capacity)

Oversee Personal Growth and Rights of Passage curriculum and celebrations

Support the coordination of a community-wide, week-long wellness experience each trimester

Provide support for the admissions screening process, and for students who leave the community due to mental health needs

Teach a wellness class (sexual health, coping skills, or other related classes)

Facilitate wellness and mental health professional development opportunities for staff

Support the ongoing development and revision process of the ERS H&W manual

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 Director of Health and Wellness

Create and deliver programming opportunities as part of an evening residential program team

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: $50,000-$80,000, based on education and experience

Signing bonus $1,000

Annual Bonus

Medical/dental/vision plan

Vacation/sick time/additional paid time off

401(k)

Attractive vehicle lease and purchase program

Educational assistance program available

This job description is subject to change at any time.

Hiring Timeline

We are hoping to fill this position immediately - with a start date as close to December 1 as possible. 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: Dec 15 (then rolling deadline until filled)

Phone and Onsite Interviews: Early January

Start Date: as soon as feasible

To Apply

Interested applicants should submit a cover letter, resume, and 3 professional references (phone number and email address) as ONE document submitted through this form. Clarifying questions can be sent to Christi Kelston, ckelston@eaglerockschool.org. No phone calls please. We will ONLY accept electronic submissions through the link above.

Eagle Rock is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer and does not tolerate any form of unlawful discrimination. All employment decisions at Eagle Rock are based on merit and to the principle of equal employment opportunity. In keeping with both the letter and spirit of this policy, Eagle Rock will continue to recruit, hire, train, and promote into all job levels the most qualified persons without regard to race, color, religion, genetic information, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic. Members of racial/ethnic minorities and other protected classes are encouraged to apply.