Last month, I wrote about group counseling planning AKA you have to have a plan, you can’t wing it. And then a bit after that, I wrote about measuring your group’s success through data. In addition to planning out your sessions and your data collection, it’s also key to intentionally plan out ways to build […]
School Counselor Gift Guide
Do you have a school counselor in your life that you love and want to get an awesome gift for? Hoping to knock their socks off with something? Wondering what to buy a school counselor? Here’s my school counselor gift guide! Or maybe you are a school counselor and you think your family may want to […]
Group Counseling Data: Measuring Success
This post is the second in a series about intentional group counseling in schools. Last time, I wrote about intentionality in developing the objectives and content of the group. Today’s post focuses on measuring the success in our groups. If we’re going to devote a lot of time to servicing students in small groups, we […]
I’m a school counselor but I don’t…
One of my biggest strengths (and weaknesses) is that I’m outspoken. There’s not much in the realm of school counseling that I don’t have a strong opinion about. That means there’s some things that are commonplace among other counselors that I don’t do – because they just aren’t in the best interest of my students. […]
Intentional Group Counseling
Small groups are an incredible opportunity for school counselors. They allow us to provide personalized intervention to multiple students at once. So why don’t we do them more? Or prioritize them more? Well, intentional group counseling in schools can be a real challenge in the elementary school setting. Groups with kids can be a lot […]
School Counseling Advocacy: Advocating for Our Students
You know how we always wear one million and one hats as school counselors? One of those hats is the advocacy hat. But it’s actually more like four hats because we’ve got a lot to advocate for! We advocate for our students. We advocate for our teachers. Sometimes we have to advocate for ourselves. And […]
School Counseling Self-Referral System
One of the questions I see pop up pretty regularly on IG and FB is “How do I set up a school counseling self-referral system?” While having students use google forms on computers in their class is an awesome idea, it’s not a great fit for schools with limited technology or with students who don’t […]
Dear New School Counselor
Dear new school counselor, You will tell the kids “you can do hard things” until you’re blue in the face. Tell it to yourself. YOU can do hard things. And there will be so many hard things, hard things you’ve never even imagined as a new school counselor. But you’ve got this. In my experience, […]
First Session of Individual Counseling With Kids
Even the best counselor prep programs don’t always include training for how to actually counsel children – it’s often times something that we figure out once we’re already working. Talking to mentor counselors, reading books, googling…and just plain old trial and error. I was lucky that my first position was actually as a school-based therapist […]
