Helping Students Become

I read a lot of academic articles about school counseling in my current role as a doctoral student in counselor education. Recently I was reading an article that critiqued school counselors who unintentionally limited student options through college and career conversations just focused on jobs and "threaded with an anxiety about the future." Although I found most of the article to be missing an understanding of school counseling as a profession, I did like the author's vision for facilitating conversations about the future and postsecondary education.

Tieken (2016) suggested we "must ask not just What do you want to be? but also Who do you want to be? Where do you want to be? Why and how do you want to be? and, importantly, How can we support you?" (p. 220).

What powerful questions to guide all of us working with students and clients! I believe these questions are in the spirit of what we do as school counselors.

Playing at School

In October I attended the Association for Play Therapy conference in Atlanta. I love play therapy and believe it is a powerful tool for elementary school counselors to use in responsive services. Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) was the approach I learned in graduate school and that I practice from. I often used play therapy as an individual counseling modality with students, and I used group play therapy when conducting social skills groups with K-1st graders. I've heard from other school counselors that having the time, space, or training to use play therapy make it challenging for them to implement. I also believe one of the blocks to using play therapy in the schools is a misunderstanding from other educators of what it is and why it works. In my experience, the idea of letting a child (who was often getting in trouble in the classroom) come to play with me was difficult for other educators to grasp! But I have experienced the power of therapeutic play for children and want other school counselors to use this approach as well.

Here is some of the information that I shared at my poster presentation at the APT conference that offers research and evidence-based support for using play therapy in school settings.

Play Therapy Improves Social Functioning:

• CCPT helps children develop behaviors that benefit self and others
• Evidence of changes in self-esteem, self-concept, and self-control after CCPT
• Evidence of differences in externalizing problems (aggressive, hyperactive, or rule-breaking behaviors) for children who do and do not participate in play therapy (e.g. Flahive & Ray, 2007; Ray, Armstrong, Balkin & Jayne, 2015; Post, 1999;)
• Changes in social functioning and behaviors after play therapy for children with disabilities (autism, ADHD, developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities)

Play Therapy Improves Academic Functioning:

• Studies linking participation in CCPT with academic achievement for at-risk children (e.g. Blanco & Ray, 2011; Blanco, Ray, & Holliman, 2012)  
• Academic functioning may be improved through increased self-confidence and coping skills as well as increases in intrinsic motivation from CCPT

Implications for School Play Therapists:

• Build awareness of benefits and uses of play therapy for teachers, administrators, and stakeholders
• Provide Child Teacher Relationship Training to help teachers understand needs of students and respond to behavior problems
• Collaborate with special education teachers and staff for play interventions serving students with disabilities

“Play therapy, therefore, is an adjunct to the learning environment, an experience that helps children maximize opportunities to learn in the classroom” (Landreth, 2012, p. 86)

This link connects to my list of references for the presentation and further information about using play therapy in school settings.  

Adolescent Grief Resources

This past weekend I had the opportunity to spent two days with middle and high school teens at a children's bereavement camp. I served as a clinical group leader and planned activities and facilitated group sessions in the midst of ropes courses and arts and rappelling. It was a powerful weekend for seeing the resiliency and courage of kids who have experienced a significant death loss. In my planning, I found several resources to share with school counselors. 

Safe Crossing's Children's Grief Program has a guide specifically for school counselors that has been a go-to resource for me since finding it online years ago. This link takes you to the guide. 

The Behavioral & Emotional Grief Response Card Sort (pages 8-10 in the guide above) is a powerful activity that I have used in elementary settings with students 4th grade and up. I have students sort thoughts/feelings/behaviors they have and have not experienced since the death loss. For group processing with middle or high schoolers, pass cards around the group and have students make a dot on each card that matches their personal experience. Then ask students to share which cards have the most dots. Questions for processing this activity can include: 

• Which cards have the most dots? (For the “just want to die too” card, be sure to talk about this and steps they need to take if considering acting on this pain or wish to be with the person)
• What do you do when you feel that way? 
• What was surprising about the list of feelings or behaviors?
• What was it like seeing so many dots on these cards?
• Who in your life understands these feelings and thoughts? who are you talking about this with?

Another activity that can be used for individual or group processing is Skittles & Grief. I found a list of sentence stems on Pinterest and adapted them into this activity. Pass out Skittles fun packs and a half sheet of this handout. If using it in a group, have members get with a partner and share responses based on at least 3 skittles colors they pull out of the pack. Ask students to elaborate on their response or model partners asking for more details.

An art activity that can be used for individual or group counseling is altered books (also called art journals). I found hardback books at Goodwill that were appropriate for use with teens and had supplies (glue sticks, paper for collaging, and gesso and paint brushes for washing out words) to have group members begin their journal for their own story. This link gives some helpful hints on creating altered books. I also found guides on youtube and pinterest that were helpful in my planning. 

This guidebook has great information for caregivers on developmental grief responses and resources for supporting children and adolescents as they grieve. 

Have other favorite activities or resources that have worked well with adolescents? Share them in the comments! 

It's Been Awhile . . .

Somewhere in the craziness of last school year and life transitions, this blog was neglected. And right now life is a little different for me. I am no longer working in a school but have moved to Knoxville, TN where I am pursing a PhD in Counselor Education at the University of Tennessee. I read this interview with Julia V. Taylor earlier this week on pursing a doctorate as a school counselor and thought it was a great summary and perspective that I can relate to right now!

I do still want to update this blog with ideas as I have so many things I'd love to share with you! So please continue to check back here.

I know that there were numerous recap posts this summer after the ASCA conference in Orlando. (I tweeted from the conference if you want to check back some thoughts while there.) But I have continued to be inspired by the amazing work happening within our field and honestly have missed being in a school to implement ideas I heard about. I recently re-watched Michelle Obama's message from ASCA and was excited once again about the work happening with students every day to help them reach higher. I hope this school year is starting off well for you!

Technology for the Win!

I presented a breakout session earlier this week at the TN School Counselor Leadership Institute called "Technology for the Win!" targeted for elementary school counselors.

This is a copy of the handout that I gave out to a packed room! I also shared that I'd be uploading some lessons in Notebook onto SMART exchange for download. This should be the link to files I've uploaded onto this site. Will continue to add things to exchange so check back!

TN School Counselor & Leadership Institute Recap

I attended the TN School Counselor & Leadership Institute in Chattanooga earlier this week. It's always so energizing for me to be around other school counselors and educators and to see their passion for what they do for kids each day. Knowing that most of us are the only counselor in our building, I believe it is so important for us to connect with and learn from others. A few highlights that I'm continuing to think about as I return to my school this week . . .

Behavior Interventions that Work - Amie Dean
www.behaviorqueen.com
One of the best professional learning sessions I've been to in a long time. I love how she framed the purposes of behavior. She stated that all behavior traces back to trying to get or get out of something - to get attention, control, power, or revenge and get out of work, pain, embarrassment, or lack of confidence. She set up the foundation for successful behavior as kids needing to know where they stand, that the teacher will follow through, and that the teacher is on their side. She also shared lots of behavior intervention resources that I'm glad to have in my toolbox now.

Building Strong(er) Working Relationships - Rodger Dinwiddle & Teresa Whitaker
www.starsnashville.org
I've been to enough of Rodger's sessions now over the years that when I see his name as a presenter, I go! This session talked about school climate through healthy working relationships and working out conflicts. The presenters discussed their 24 hours to work it out office norm and the power of having crucial conversations. Some concepts I'll continue to mull over. They also referenced this video that I love on vulnerability.

Unlearning Helplessness - Motivating the Underachiever - Julia Cook
www.juliacookonline.com
Julia Cook's books are staples in my guidance curriculum. She is a dynamic speaker, and she read 3 of her books to us in the course of the session which I loved. She also talked about underachieving students being those who have a significant gap in their ability verses what they achieve at school. This can be the gifted student not reaching full potential to the student about to drop out. In order to achieve, students need to feel connected, to feel confident in their abilities, to have fun, to make choices, and to feel safe. I like this recipe for achievement and the emphasis on relationships as a foundation for achievement!

I also presented a session on technology for elementary school counselors that I'll be posting about soon!

Conflict Resolution Jeopardy

Just a quick link today with a Conflict Resolution Jeopardy game I found online (and edited the answers to make it work for me.) I'm using this in upper grades as a review game to see how well students can think through ways to handle conflict situations.

You can play this game using this link. The website https://jeopardylabs.com/ is an easy way to build your own Jeopardy board to play review games.