LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - A program is training students to help others while teaching them lessons that will help them live their best lives.

Being a good person can boost your quality of life, but building character starts at a young age.

“We lost a student 11 years ago to suicide,” Sam Houston High School Librarian Sara Jolie said. “In fact, we lost four students in nine months – two to suicides and two to accidental deaths. Our students were grieving, they were hurting, and what we had in place for crisis management was not really working."

Instead, Jolie said, students were turning to other students for support.

“Kids consoling kids, kids supporting kids, and so we decided we needed peer counselors, which evolved into the peer support team,” she said.

The groundbreaking program

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