LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Kara Harrison was nominated anonymously.

Ms. Harrison has 25 years of experience in education and has taught for 19 of those years. She has a Bachelor's degree in elementary education, a Master's degree in intervention, and a Master's degree in School Counseling. She started her counseling job in the fall of 2020 and also began her Master's in counseling at the same time. It's a huge accomplishment to learn a new job, return to college, and face a pandemic head-on. She has also received Teacher of the Month from a local radio station, been deemed a Master Teacher when the pilot program started, and has helped implement credit recovery programs, mental health programs, and other student-led programs into her school.

It's a misconception that high school counselors only focus on academics, but that is just a small part of their jobs. Those academics also lead to stress, anxiety, frustration, and many other emotions in students. In everything Ms. Harrison does, she promotes positivity for her students, staff, and community. It's her job as a high school counselor.

She enters her school's ninth-grade classrooms monthly to complete lessons on goal setting, mindfulness, facing frustration, and many other topics. Three years ago, she pushed to implement Sources of Strength into her district's middle and high schools. This program helps students become peer leaders and promote positivity school-wide through campaigns that show positive friendships, good mentors, and healthy living, among other things.

Part of the Sources of Strength program requires students to run campaigns throughout the year, and those campaigns cost money. Last year, they did candy grams in October, and students were able to choose a "positive friend" to send one to, free of charge, so everyone had a chance to participate. A Find Your Strength campaign allowed students to write their strength (something they turn to when they are struggling) and post it on a wall within the school hallways. During November, Ms. Harrison completed a "thank you" event where students wrote thank you notes to staff members, and a small gift was attached (free of charge, so everyone had an opportunity to participate).

In September, the school hosts a "mental health awareness" football game where items are passed out at the gate (bracelets, stickers, etc.) to raise awareness about mental health and the 988 text line. The student section wears red and purple that night, and they participate in other activities throughout the game.

Dawson-Bryant High School is located in a rural southern Ohio county in the foothills of Appalachia, and many students are defeated before they even hit high school. Generational poverty is rampant, and the events hosted by Sources of Strength help spread positivity and encourage students to look beyond their school and envision their future, seeing everything they can be.