Overview

Overview of Counseling Services

The Counseling and Wellness Department at Rivers reflects the school’s relational approach to student development within a community in which students are known, valued, and understood. School counselors embody the Rivers Excellence with Humanity philosophy by getting to know individual students who seek counseling and then tailoring therapeutic treatment to meet each student’s needs. This may take the form of short-term support, ongoing therapy, student/family outreach and advocacy, and/or team collaboration. Counseling services are provided by trained mental-health professionals and comply with national standards of care. The Rivers School counselors take a proactive and preventative approach to both direct counseling services and systems-level interventions, as part of a comprehensive school-counseling program that both helps individual students build skills and enhances the emotional climate of the school environment. School counselors collaborate as part of a larger Rivers wellness team to promote student well-being at the individual, grade, school division, and community levels.

The Counseling and Wellness Department at Rivers works to enhance the many systems of support that are ingrained into the school’s culture, such as the advisory program, DEI initiatives, and student-life programming. At The Rivers School, wellness education for all students and voluntary individual counseling services complement one another. School counselors collaborate with the student advisory system, the school nurse, athletic trainers, and the deans’ office to promote student well-being at multiple levels within the Rivers school, student, and family communities.

The department, in partnership with McLean School Consultation Service, provides multi-tiered and targeted services to equip individual students with the skills needed to cope with the stresses and pressures of modern adolescence, while cultivating a school-wide culture of positive mental health in which all students can thrive. Please click here to learn more about Rivers’s partnership with McLean School Consultation Service, launched in fall 2021.

Overview of Wellness Programming

Research-based prevention programs promote healthy development by focusing on children and their main socializing environment, school. At Rivers, these “life skills” educational wellness programs are implemented in classroom settings, at school-level or grade-level assemblies, and through “opt-in” programming during students’ non-academic times. Regardless of specific content, all wellness programs encourage students to integrate accurate information with their personal and family values in order to make healthy decisions as well as to help students learn to access adult supports in appropriate ways.

Division-specific Wellness Programming

List of 2 items.

Middle School

Middle School wellness classes are woven into the grade-level curricula and are also taught through advisory programming and in grade-wide meetings. Middle school wellness education covers topics including social skills and healthy relationships (communication, healthy conflict, and boundaries and consent in the context of friendships and any peer relationships), individual biological development (puberty and hygiene, nutrition and body image), and substance use and abuse prevention.
Upper School
- Upper School wellness programs include:
  - A semester-long ninth-grade Wellness Seminar course
    One 75-minute class (single academic block) per week, through which students build a shared foundation of health, wellness, and life skills. The goal of this foundational course is to promote students’ physical, mental, emotional, and relational well-being and to minimize behaviors that put students’ health or safety at risk. By meeting once a week over their first semester as high school students, ninth graders share in learning the facts that they will need to consider in order to make informed decisions that align with their personal goals and values throughout adolescence.
  - Division-specific programming during non-academic times on topics including mental-health literacy and skills for navigating normative stress, worry, and sadness; athlete mental health; nutrition and body image; mindfulness and self-care; substance use and abuse prevention; healthy relationships.
  - Senior post-secondary transition programming aimed at ensuring all graduates revisit their understanding of risk and protective factors in the context of becoming legal adults and transitioning to living more independently.
    Topics covered include:
    Healthy vs. unhealthy relationships: consent, communication, boundaries, and power dynamics, in partnership with One Love and Speak About It
    Substance use and abuse prevention, in partnership with the Clay Soper Memorial Fund
    Mental health literacy, in partnership with Mental Health Collaborative, Workshops on anti-racism, redefining masculinity, restorative justice, gender violence prevention, consent, and sexual health facilitated by scholar, educator, and activist Duane de Four

Equitable Access to Care

The Counseling and Wellness department operates from a DEI framework in order to advance inclusion in the full Rivers experience for all students. To this end, the Rivers School provides equitable and confidential access to licensed school counselors during the academic day at no additional cost to families. This means that students have the autonomy to schedule appointments with our counselors for single sessions or on an on-going basis.

School counselors always encourage students to communicate openly and directly with their parents/caregivers, and will not mandate communication or break confidentiality unless there are imminent risks to the student's safety or the safety of others. The counselors work as part of a larger Wellness Team at Rivers. There are many times when taking a wraparound approach to care best serves individual students' needs. With the student's consent and permission, this approach may include working with families/caregivers, teachers, administrators and/or outpatient providers to coordinate care in order to best support students.

Information for Current Families

Current caregivers and students should visit RiversNet to find more detailed information about the department's confidentiality and collaboration policies, as well as an extensive list of external mental health resources. Individuals who would like to get in touch with a school counselor may utilize the "referral form" located in the "Counseling Forms" box at the top right-hand side of this page. They also are welcome and encouraged to call or email counselors directly.

Counseling Forms

Collaboration Release Form
Referral Form

Meet the Counseling & Wellness Team

List of 9 members.

Eliza Adler

Director of Counseling Services

339-686-4504

Middlebury College - BA
BU School of Social Work - MSW, LICSW

Bio
Eliza Adler joined the Rivers Counseling and Wellness department as a school counselor after six years as a mental health clinician at the Manville School at Judge Baker Children’s Center, where she was also the middle school clinical coordinator. In her time at Manville, Eliza also established and facilitated the Gender/Sexuality Alliance. A licensed independent social worker (LICSW), she has a wealth of experience in both clinical and school settings. Her counseling work in schools has ranged from the early-elementary-school through graduate-student levels. Eliza graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College and earned a master’s degree in social work from Boston University School of Social Work.
Megan Delano

School Counselor, Head of Wellness Programming

339-686-4511

Naropa University - MA
Lesley University - BS
Melissa Anderson

Head of Upper School, History

339-686-2346

University of California/Berkley - Ph. D
Princeton University - AB
John Bower

Head of Middle School

339-686-2281

Haverford College - BA

Bio
John Bower joined the faculty in 2008 and has served as head of the Middle School since 2020. During his time at Rivers, John has taught Middle School and Upper School French and Middle School chorus and music-directed the Middle School and Upper School musicals. He also served as the school's director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from 2009 until 2019. In 2017, he received the Walter Family Community Award recognizing his "commitment to cultivating a caring community through extraordinary contributions to the school." John holds a BA in music theory & composition, with a minor in French language, from Haverford College.
Sarah Freeman

MS Dean of Students, Science, Varsity Field Hockey/Girls' Lacrosse Asst. & MS Nordic Ski Head Coach

339-686-4515

Bowdoin College - BS
Columbia University - MA

Bio
Sarah Freeman is the Middle School dean of students, teaches science in the Middle School, and serves as a Middle School advisor. She has a BS from Bowdoin College, where she majored in biology and minored in education studies, and a MA in independent school leadership from Columbia University, Teachers College. Sarah assistant coaches girls' varsity field hockey and coaches Middle School girls' lacrosse.
James Long

Assistant Head of School

339-686-2272

Harvard Graduate School of Education - Ed.M.
Bowdoin College - BA

Bio
As assistant head of school and director of student affairs for the Upper School, Jim Long is responsible for the Upper School co-curricular program, advisor program, and assembly program and oversees the Upper School class deans. Jim is also a Middle School boys’ basketball coach and ninth grade academic counselor. Jim has held a number of positions during his tenure, including dean of students for the Upper School, head of Middle School, acting Head of School, and varsity basketball coach. He graduated from Bowdoin College with a BA in history and government and later received an MEd from Harvard University.
William Mills

Upper School Dean of Student Life, History

339-686-2429

Connecticut College - BA
Harvard University - ALM

Bio
Will Mills joined Rivers in 2008 and teaches eleventh and twelfth grade history. He is also Upper School dean of students. He graduated with a BA in political science from Connecticut College and received an ALM at Harvard University. An avid rower, Will coaches boys’ crew at area high schools and rowing clubs. He came to Rivers from Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut, where he taught history, coached, and served as a dorm parent.
Tess Powell

Learning Services

339-686-4546

William James College - PsyD
Tufts University - MA
Fairfield University - BA
Claudia Silva

School Nurse

339-686-4480

Simmons College - BS

Bio
Claudia Silva is a registered nurse with more than a decade of pediatrics experience in a variety of settings, including schools, camps, home care, and hospitals. She has been on the staff of the Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton, Mass., since graduating from Simmons College with a bachelor’s degree in nursing science. She has also served as school nurse at both The Park School and Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. She has certification in CPR, CPI (Crisis Prevention), diabetes care in schools, and medication delegation.