Kristen Davis is Western’s newest mental health counselor. Her job specializes in addiction, but she offers support to any and all students who enter her room. Davis is an employee of Region Ten, a mental health service board for several counties in Virginia.

WAHS has several mental health counselors already, but not one specializing in addiction and under the roof of Region Ten. While the WAHS counselors can provide mental support, Davis is able to provide direct help to students with addiction problems, such as with materials to reduce their usage, like decomposing baggies, etc… until they are able to stop, in addition to acting as a normal mental health counselor. 

Davis aims to make her face and name known this year, acting as a crossing guard every morning in the parking lot; she has plans to make her room and abilities known to the school’s student body.

Davis works under a state government–funded program called Region Ten, one of forty community service boards, or CSB’s, in Virginia. Region Ten represents the counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson, and the City of Charlottesville. Region Ten trains workers such as Davis in specialized counseling, allowing them to be more qualified for issues like addiction, suicide, or trauma.

Overall Davis aims to help students of WAHS and provide a place where they can feel safe, and  “minimize the impact of the trauma by doing these really wonderful things, to be good to one another, to really just kind of keep that in mind and in all that we do.”