Need to make an (outside) counselor referral?

How many times has a parent asked you to recommend an outside counselor/therapist for their child, family or just in general?  Well counselor friends, I have a site for you!  Psychology.com is a website where you simply type in your zip code and the site will give you a list of counselors/therapists in your area.  You can also search the counselor list by specialty area.

Do you have any other counselor referral sites to recommend, please share. Pin It

Make A Back to School Counselor Wish List

Of course every school has a meet the teacher/open house event.  This not only is a great time to introduce yourself to parents and students, tell them why the school counselor is so awesome but also a time display your "counselor wish list".  All the teachers at my school have a wish list of items outside of their classroom door that parents can donate to the classroom.  Well this year, I decided to join in and make a "counselor wish list" for counselor things that will be used for students (not to mention that fact that our salaries have been frozen yet again, for a 6th year but that's another post).  On my wish list, I asked for gift cards (in any dollar amount) to stores where I can purchase many counselor goodies from (Target, Walmart, AC Moore & Michael's).

To make my wish list, I typed "JYJ Counselor Wishlist" in Word and made little tags of the items on my wish list, that parents can take off the board.  You could also just write your wish list items on post-it notes (several teachers do this at my school).  I put them on a piece of colored paper right outside of my door.  My office is in the main hallway and gets lots of traffic.

Wish list sign (made in Word)

Wish list take away tags (also made in Word)

Tags on colored paper

Finished Product

Having these wish list items will be a great way to have more supplies for counselor ideas and lessons that myself and the counselor intern can use throughout the school year.  This counselor wish list may or may not be ideal based on your school population (always do what works best for you).  I am very fortunate to work at a school where parents are extremely supportive with providing needed items and supplies for all staff. 

I'm so excited that I was able to have my own "wish list" this year and have the opportunity to bring new supplies to my school counselor program.

Do you use a school counselor wish list at your school?


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In Case You Missed It...School Counselor On Air (Back to School Chat)

Just in case you missed it....here's the School Counselor On-Air live chat on...Back to School!  I had a pleasure of being in great school counselor company:

Elementary
-Andrea Burston:  (JYJ Counselor) @andreajburston
-Rebecca Lallier:  (School Counseling by Heart) @SchCslByHeart

Middle
-Tabitha Panariso:  (Scrapbook of a School Counselor) @tpanariso
-Danielle Schultz:  (School Counselor Blog) @sch_counselor

High
-Jeremy Goldman (Pikesville High School Counseling Department) @MrJGoldman
-Darrell Sampson (From the Counselor’s Office) @CnslrDarrell

Here's the video of the chat:

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Exploring Middle School Options

Middle School is a big step for 5th graders and their parents (especially when it's their 1st child going to 6th grade).  In my district there are 36 middle schools and because I work at a magnet school, our students go all over the district to middle school.  Due to the variety of middle school choices, I like to keep both students and parents as informed as possible about "the next step".

 Here are some ideas that have helped with keeping 5th graders & parents in the know about middle school:

-I work with my school's magnet coordinator on scheduling recruiting visits to our school.  We've had several schools speak to our 5th grade classes.  Some visits have been for the entire grade, others have been small lunch info session with a representative from the middle school.  We've also had parent breakfast info sessions during morning drop off.

Middle school students speaking to the entire 5th grade

Middle school students showing elective & club options (African drum circle)

More options...African dance!

Lunch middle school info session

-Emailing middle school open house info to parent email lists.  I actually email the 5th grade team which they forward to their parent email lists.

-I asked the 5th grade team to link my counselor webpage with my middle school info (which I update regularly) to their class blogs so that parents can access the info on the web.

-I send a monthly paper copy of middle school updates (which is also posted on my website).

What ways do you keep your parents informed about middle news and events? Pin It

Parent Resources to Deal with Tragic Events

After last week's tragic events in CT, I'm sure many of you have been answering questions from students, parents and staff about ways to cope and handle the worries and anxiety that we've all faced. Most of the questions I've received have been from parents concerned about how to talk with their child about it.  Here are some parent resources that I've shared with parents at JYJ:

-CNN report:  Should you talk to your kids about Newtown?
-Talking with Kids About the News
-Talking to Kids About Violence (from Scholastic.com)
-Telling my Child About the Massacre in Newtown
-5 Helpful Resources for Talking to Kids About Tragedies 
-Should Children be Allowed to Watch TV News Reports?
-In a Crisis, Parents Must Be There, Be Aware for Their Children

Some other fantastic counselors (School Counselor Blog & Counseling by Heart) have provided some very helpful resources on how to work with worries and concerns also.





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Monitoring Student Attendance

Attendance seems to be a topic that comes up every school year and we as counselors always have to think of (creative) ways to decrease student absences, tardies and students leaving school early.  At my school, our Student Support Services Team (SSST) meets each month to discuss student concerns, attendance, who we need to keep an eye on, etc.  This team consists of myself, school psychologist, social worker, nurse, principal and assistant principal.  I actually look forward to our meetings because we always have great info to share and our team works very well together.

This year, our team decided to really put our focus on attendance and let both students and parents know that missing school quickly adds up to hours of lost instructional time in the classroom.  Here's what we're doing this year:

-When students miss 5 or more days of school (unexcused absences) we send home a postcard with the school district's attendance reminder & remind parents to send in a note when their child is absent.  I ordered these postcards from VistaPrint with a blank back.  I typed the attendance policy on a printable mailing label to stick on the back of the postcard.  I made my own labels because you can edit/update it as needed.

Attendance reminder postcard

-When students miss 7 or more days of school and/or have 7 or more tardies from school the school social worker mails a letter to the parents.  This is a common procedure, but this year we added in the number of hours of lost instruction the child is missing based on the number of absences/tardies.  For an example, if the student has missed 9 days of school, we put in the letter that nearly 45 hours of instruction have been lost (5 hrs X 9).  For a sample of the attendance letter click here.

-We decided to "broadcast" the number of tardies and early check-outs from school each day at the front entrance of the school.  I made these signs using Word, printed on brightly colored card stock and laminated.  I used velcro to attach to the wall and sign (easy to put up/take down each day).  Each afternoon, I check the tardy/check-out sign in sheet in the front office and count the number of each.  I use a dry erase marker to write the number for the day.  To print a copy of the signs, click here.  

Displaying the number of tardies/early dismissals  each day.

-I also created a spreadsheet to keep track of attendance numbers for each day for data collection (easier to create charts & graphs using Excel).

Spreadsheet of daily tardies & early dismissals

Create graphs and charts using Excel

 This plan is working well!  The number of tardies has decreased overall (but there's still room for improvement).  At the end of the grading period, we'll recognize students with perfect attendance on our school's tv news show (students LOVE seeing their names on the JYJ news).   I also think that a competition between the grade levels or classes to see who has the best attendance will be a great idea to decrease absences & tardies.  The grade level that wins could have an attenDANCE (get it, a dance) and a prize from PTA.

What ways does your school focus on decreasing student absences & tardies, please share!

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Recognizing parent volunteers

What would we do without our parent volunteers? At my school parents volunteer a lot (even for the counselor) and to show our appreciation of all their volunteer hours, we held a volunteer appreciation breakfast.  For this event, I was in charge of the entertainment and the party favors.  This year we really wanted to include our students in the celebration and here's a few things that we did:
-Staff donated money towards the volunteer celebration (food, favors, decorations, etc.)
-Student-made invitations to take home to their parents
-Student-made place mats that said "thank you" on the table
-Flowers from Trader Joe's ($2.99 per bushel) to decorate in tin pails (borrowed from the assistant principal)
-We have a stash of table clothes and serving bowls on hand at school ($0).

Tables decorated w/ student-made placements and flowers

Student-made placement

Food!

The entertainment piece was easy and I didn't have to look far to find it!  I recruited students that wanted to showcase their musical talents.  The students were more than happy to play a tune whether it was on the piano, violin, guitar, recorder or even in song.  Of course having local musicians gives the event a more personal touch and the students feel a little ownership in the event (plus more parents will attend to see their child).

Recorder players

Tickling the keys

Rocking on!

Strumming the strings

A violin soloist!

Piano

More piano

Thanks to Pinterest, the party favors were bottled water with a packet of Crystal Light On the Go packets.  I saw a lot of cute cards that were attached to the bottled water on Pinterest but I was short on time so I bought some round labels from Staples ($7) used the online template and typed "Thank you JYJ volunteers for quenching our thirst for student success". 

Avery Round Labels

Screen shot of labels in Word.

After the original packaging from the water bottles was removed, myself and a great co-worker friend put the new volunteer labels on (you can put the label over the glue from the previous label, no one will notice).

Water bottles w/ labels

We then used a very small hole puncher to punch holes at the top of the Crystal Light packets (be careful not to punch too low...potential to make a mess). 

Hole punched packets

After hole punching the Crystal Light, we added ribbon through each hole to tie to each bottle of water.  We chose ribbon in school colors (blue & gold).  I got the ribbon at Michael's for 50 cents each (bought 4 = $2). 

With blue & gold ribbon

Here's the finished product:

The parents really seemed to like the breakfast, water bottle and especially the entertainment.  What a great way to recognize how much we appreciate the efforts of our parent volunteers.

What ways do you recognize parent volunteers? Pin It