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, group counseling in schools can be a real challenge. Groups with kids can be a lot of work to plan – because you have to have a…
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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 of course we have to…
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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 have the needed computer/typing skills…
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Dear new 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. But you’ve got this. In my experience, first year teachers are well supported and wrapped around by a…
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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 and so I had a…
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Several years ago, school districts across the country adopted Response to Intervention (RTI) protocols for academics. Now schools are working to develop RTI-B; a systematic tiered approach to student behavior problems. One component of this that many schools are incorporating is a universal screener (just like is used with academics!) for emotional/behavioral concerns. I was at one of 15ish schools…
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