Advocacy for School Counselors

BRIEF SUMMARY

Advocacy for school counselors is focused on sharing with others in their school, district and the larger community, as to their unique training and role and their contributions to student achievement and success. School counselors are encouraged to advocate for themselves as leaders within the school, their department, their school counseling program and their profession. One way counselors can advocate for their profession is by joining their state and national professional associations, who advocate on behalf of school counselors and the school counseling profession, on a wide scale.

KEY POINTS

  • Advocacy can be done with one person, such as a principal, or more people, such as the wider school community.
  • Advocacy can be done directly, by speaking to someone or sending them information, or indirectly, by informing the school community of your role through through writing a newsletter article, or with something as simple as a bulletin board focused on what a school counselor does.
  • Advocacy can be joining school, district, and local committees and informing these groups as to the role and responsibilities of the school counselor.
  • Advocacy can be acting as a leader within the school and school community.
  • Gathering data on your duties, responsibilities, programs, and your time use and sharing this information with stakeholders is an advocacy strategy.
  • Visibly displaying your credentials is also advocacy.
  • National School Counseling Week, an initiative of the American School Counseling Association, is designed as a week for school counselors to advocate for themselves in their school and school community (https://www.schoolcounselor.org/school-counselors-members/about-asca-(1)/national-school-counseling-week).  National School Counseling Week is held annually, in early February.
  • Indiana traditionally celebrates National School Counseling Week as a time to focus public attention and recognition on the role of the school counselor and their unique contributions to student success (http://www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/student-assistance/natl-school-counseling-week-2015-memo-doe-dialogue.pdf).

SHARED WISDOM

  • Q: A principal of an Indiana elementary school informed us last week that his central office is moving his full-time elementary counselor to another school.  Any ideas on what he can do to advocate for keeping his current counselor?
    • A: Use improved student academic performance and attendance data to show the need, case studies, and a petition.
    • A; Use data to show all the students that will be missing those services, show all the programming and services offered by the counselor to show what will be lost.
  • Advice for time logs:
    • When I started the RSC process, I attended a conference and they provided us with some examples about what fits in each category. This info comes from the American Student Achievement Institute:

    Guidance – activities that enable ALL students to learn information and skills in 3 areas (career, academic, personal/social) and use that info to make sound choices

    Counseling – activities that help SOME students address personal/social problems that interfere with learning (individual counseling, group counseling, crisis counseling, consultation)

    Advocacy – activities that support environmental changes to meet the needs of all students or a group of students; activities that support the needs of an individual student *this is how I categorized 504 meetings – you’re advocating for a specific student and making changes to help support their needs *reporting abuse is also an Advocacy activity

    Management – activities that enable the school counseling program to run smoothly and efficiently (program development, professional development, networking/meetings, student or program evaluations or assessments) *this is how I categorized things like emails, phone calls, attending certain meetings that involved school counseling. I think sending out newsletters would count for a Management activity

    Non-Program – activities that do not help students learn info that will enable them to make sound career, academic, or personal/social choices or that does not help students address an issue that’s interfering with their learning (administering ISTEP or other assessments, state reports, book rental, attendance, supervision, report cards, transcripts, GPA, class rank, honor roll, master scheduling, creating class schedules, balancing class sizes, discipline, etc.)

  • How to categorize specific activities: For emails, it depends on what kind of emails you are checking/responding to. If the emails deal directly with managing your program, then yes it is management; however, if it does not then it would be considered either Advocacy or Non-Program based on the content of the emails.504s and IEPs meetings are generally Non-Program task. It would be considered Advocacy if you’re attending the meeting as an advocate for the kid. However, if you are there the par or run the meeting, then it is non-program.Advocacy is generally anything that would be speaking up for the good of the kids. Examples of this would be sitting in a meeting concerning a student who cannot be there and representing their POV in the matter or their best interests.Creating newsletters is a management task. Sending them is advocacy.

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This post was created by ABCD ContentManager on August 5, 2016.