Initials School Counseling Progress Report Made Easy

E sign school counseling progress report

is this your first year as a school counselor and you just feel like you don't know what to do life has thrown you a curveball and going into this school year has definitely knocked you off your feet well don't you worry because hopefully in watching this video it will encourage you and also just remind you that you're not by yourself and hopefully through the different things that we discussed today you are able to implement or take some different parts of it and apply it to your own school counseling situation and just make things a lot better for you all right so let's go ahead and get into it [Music] okay you guys so you will see me looking down a little bit just because i wrote down something so that i don't get off track but um thank you guys once again for coming to my channel the inspiring school counselor um i appreciate you guys for just taking out the time to watch also make sure you comment down below um maybe there are certain things that i'm talking about uh maybe it will resonate with you to the point where you might even want to give some of your um advice and different things that i might have left out or you might want to just add to what it is that i'm being that i am saying um feel free to comment that down below because this is a community where we are helping each other get through it okay so please feel free to comment down below so since we're talking about first year as a school counselor um i want to share with you guys just my school counseling career and believe it or not you guys this is my first year as well i actually graduated in december of 2019 with my professional school counseling degree and it was january is when i started um operating as a school counselor at a primary school and just to let you guys know i was only given three weeks to prepare lessons for the rest of the school year so it definitely um took me by surprise but i was so happy to have connections with the school counselor prior to her leaving she was able to kind of fill me in on some of the students as well as filling me in on different um lesson topics to do and things that she has already done so i don't have to really repeat it unless it is that i really wanted to so first time school counselor you are doing lessons one of the things that i have used and that is teachers pay teachers you guys that right there has been like my saving grace like it has truly helped me to be able to um gather lessons that is needed um and also being able to use the lesson plans that they have already written out to then present it to my principal and kind of get an idea of okay can i keep this lesson planned or do i need to change it to whatever lesson planning that they are using for that particular school or that particular school district so i actually had to gather 16 lesson plans and that was from january all the way to may so like i told you guys before i had to get all those lists and plan 16 lesson plans together within three weeks and i am so happy i was able to get that done as you guys know this world was flipped upside down when kova decided to invade the spaces of the united states and schools began to close down at least where i lived um mid-march and so all of that lesson planning and everything pretty much kind of like went out the window um we just had to instantly become virtual school i had to instantly become a virtual school counselor and you know kind of just change my whole approach to speaking with the students and i think that is so important and a highlight that i want to just bring out even more is that when you're a school counselor you cannot be afraid to kind of change your approach at some things especially when you're dealing with students um especially a pandemic this affects all of us especially young kids if you're in an elementary school setting it has affected them and so you know instead of me trying to teach a lesson on bullying you know during you know while we're doing virtual classes and school counseling and everything i'm morally going to address things like social and emotional needs and so because this is a time that it was scary for them fearful for them and that's what i did i have done many lessons as you guys can look at um the videos prior to this one um i think it was like boarding the plane and worry or something like that i did lessons geared towards that as it became closer to the um summer coming i've done even a run wild book and basically being carefree in the sense of having fun um and finding those things that makes you happy um even during this time like this like going outside in your yard playing in the dirt just having a good time um and so that was something that i just had to keep in mind is that sometimes as school counselors things might not go the way that you want it to go and you might have to change your plan but don't allow that to worry you or allow you to become overwhelmed by that but instead use that as an opportunity to just be able to impact students lives and meeting them where they are right then and there so lessons was a big thing like i said in coming into this um into this job however you have teachers pay teachers and i don't know if there's another platform that that also allows for you to use um your content as like teachers pay teachers do where you're able to download it and use it as long as you like um you don't give it out to other people or sell it like it's your own um but you're able to use theirs and you're able to come up with lessons so on there they have curriculums that you can use as far as curriculums for a whole school year um and then or you can kind of build your whole curriculum through using the uh teachers paid teachers lessons so another thing that was beneficial to me when starting out as a school counselor is getting something that is going to track my time the things that i needed to do um and so and also putting down like my lessons and different things like that so i actually first invested in just a really good um calendar uh which is really what i paid 25 for off of amazon but i mean it was just something that i needed to um just be able to track everything that i needed to do so i just got a notebook and that had like the calendar and everything in it i began to just hand write things in um and that actually became beneficial for me the first maybe couple of weeks but then i began to realize that i began to really utilize my calendar that is used through my work email and so that's what i begin to do and that's more beneficial for me however you do what is best for you so if using a notebook that has of course your calendar and everything like that in it and you're able to see it feel it you know then by all means do that but if you're someone that does not really need that and you rather just do everything digital um you can do that as well just keep in mind that you just never know what's going to happen if you are relying on ultimately on technology because at any time it can fail like really it really can i mean just look this pandemic that hit we never would have thought that that would come to the u.s right but um so yeah you definitely just want to keep that in mind there has been times where i would actually and actually i did do this where not only would i write it in my notebook but i will also put it um on my work email on my calendar so that is something that you can also do so i came right in the middle of the school year and so as far as a mission statement needing that school counseling program all that stuff like that i did not really need to focus on that i was pretty much just trying to meet the kids where they were i wasn't focused on trying to put a mission statement together i wasn't focused on trying to create this elaborate beautiful school counseling program i wasn't trying to do a needs assessment um i was just morally trying to just pick up with the kids right where the other school counselor had left them off um and that sounds really bad but i promise you i don't say that in a bad way i promise you because she was awesome and she definitely filled me in on the needs of the students and kind of the approach that they were going that year and i was able to pick up from that and continue it on and so maybe with you guys of course starting this school year um you're starting fresh so maybe you are wanting to focus more on a mission statement um a school counseling program send out a needs assessment i actually just finished my needs assessment um today and i sent it out to the parents to fill out for me on behalf of for their children and what it is that they think that their children their child need needed this school year and that is going to help me develop individual counseling sessions um small group sessions also focus on different um guidance lessons that i need to do as well so needs assessments are so important and you can actually go on teachers pay teachers to find a needs assessment that is going to be suitable for your environment that you're in whether you're in a primary setting an elementary selling setting which primary elementary is pretty much the same um a middle school in a high school setting so you can go right on there you can also do your own um needs assessment as well you can send a needs assessment out to the parents you can send these assessment out to the teacher as well as to the students um and also to the staff and um the administrator so what i say get as much data and everything that you need so that you can kind of have an idea of what it is that the school needs what is the student's needs you might be one that says you know what i want to have a whole counseling curriculum on if you're in elementary school setting on careers and on you know trying on goals even those are still good you know things to do and good information to get out to the kids however you might have kids that have needs more help with social and emotional skills and that's what i find at the school that i'm at um i have a lot of students um my population is more you know there are trauma they've been through a lot of trauma especially the area that i'm in low socioeconomical status and so i am morally doing lessons towards social and emotional needs and meeting the kids you know right where they are at and then of course intertwining other things like careers and different things like that um to make things even more fun for them so that is something that you can keep in mind so with that being said you want to come up with lessons that are going to be beneficial to your students and that is also why you send out needs assessments to the teachers because they are even the more building relationships with those students and they kind of know what those students need now for many of you guys you're going in virtually you know i'm a virtual school counselor starting off this year so far it's going to be until i think september 11th or something like that before we actually have kids come in um and so right now i am morally focused on doing individual counseling in small groups and that's when i send out my needs assessment um for that so really just figure out what it is that your your school needs so find those needs assessments create your own if you have to um they are beneficial and that is like also the foundation of your school counseling program those these assessments are essential another thing that is so important to have is something that you're going to be able to track your time you guys i cannot say this enough but school counselors for some reason always have to we always have to validate why we are here we always have to make known like we are not just sitting behind a computer looking up things on amazon or shopping or you know watching movies right we are actually advocating for the students making sure the students are have their needs met academically socially emotionally and even behaviorally some of them you know students have behavioral issues and so you are needing to you know be there for them in that sense as well so we have to make sure that you know if it is that somebody is questioning our position and what it is that we're doing we're able to say you know what let me just show you the data data is so important and that is what um my professors had instilled in all of us that when we were in graduate school it's just having data and because the data don't lie data does not lie you show them the numbers and they are forced to see the truth so with that being said i actually use a program now please excuse me for looking away i actually lose use a program well it's not even a program uh i use excel spreadsheet and i'm so grateful for my um school counselor uh supervisor when i was doing my internship she is the one that has get gave me this um the spreadsheet and let me tell you guys all i have to do is just set my schedule and i can just plug in different things so that is so beneficial and with the calculating everything for you it's easy to read and you know it is definitely something that is needed for us as school counselors also if you go to asca you know and you they have actually a um spreadsheet as well that you can you know change different things in there that's going to fit your schedule and what you're doing and you can plug in numbers as well um i'm not that familiar with it so if anybody's familiar more with that if you guys could like to explain it even more in the comments down below or maybe you want to say that is something good to use or if you feel like that's not something good to use put that down in the comments below like let's start a conversation okay so i don't know too much about that um like i told you guys and share with you guys you guys know what i use and it has been such a benefit for me so you're going to want to track your your your day-to-day things of what you are doing you want to put in your um if you went to a conference put that in all right um you also want to track your your individual counseling your small groups you want to track any crisis that arise that you had to go and facilitate you want to track your lessons if you're teaching lessons everything that you're doing and so um that's important so important for you to do um and i'll probably even do a video with showing you guys how that looks like maybe showing you guys um earlier this year of how i felt that and making sure that there's no name so i don't break any confidentiality so but yeah so that is another thing that i use um to help me with my first year as a school counselor another thing i must say is it is so important for you to be communicating with your administration communicating with your the faculty basically communicating with the faculty and staff talking to the principal talking to the vice principal if you have one talking to the teachers talking to even the you know custodians let everybody know who you are don't just be someone that is just in their classroom you know minding to themselves and nobody even knows that you exist in the school you do not want to be that school counselor but you do want to be that one that is out you know and just being allowing people to know that look i am here for whatever it is that you need me for in the sense of you know for the kids and if it is that you need any guidance with any of them or whatnot you know you want to make sure that you are showing yourself you know available in that sense um and when i say that too because you have so many times where uh school counselors are put in positions where they are doing a lot of things that is not school counselor related so you also want to make sure that you are advocating for yourself and advocating for your role because if it is that you are not advocating for your role and what is that you're supposed to be doing you're going to find yourself doing a lot of things that you're not supposed to be doing which is going to take time away from your school counseling program take time away from your students and it's just going to cause a lot of things to just be crazy for you so don't be afraid to communicate talk to your administrator that's what i loved about my um a principal she just made it so easy for me to talk to her and you guys please talk to them in a professional way um it is so important you don't want to tell your administrator what they're going to do and how they're going to do it but you want to just you know come to them and just say look i have a couple ideas what is it that you think about this um do you think that this is something that can help out the school in any way and so you want to make sure you come to them the right way and not just telling them what to do um so that is something to you know keep in mind as well one of the things that was beneficial for me as well was just making sure that the parents knew who i was and so because the students they're going to know especially when you are in the classroom with the students you know but even virtually they're going to know because then you're going to have to make yourself known to them right hopefully you are if you are virtually like me i've already showed them my google cloud my a bitmoji classroom i've created google classroom for all the students in the school that can join it so that is you know something that i have done to make known to the students however i want to make myself also known to the parents so what is it that i did i had created a newsletter and i had actually posted it on the we use a like class dojo and so uh there's a lot of the parents that is hooked onto the class dojo so i uploaded a newsletter that talked to the parents um that told the parents who i was what it was that i do here at the school and how happy i was to be a part of the school and be a part of their children's life their child's life and so it's so important that you make yourself known once again even if it is that you have to print off the newsletters and send them home um to the to the students do that um and like i said you know it will just even more help you to build relationships not only with those that's in school and the students but also those that are outside of school so the parents so you want to make sure that you do that as well if you have not already one of the important things for me also as being a first time school counselor or first year school counselor is to just figure out everything that i'm supposed to be doing at the school that i was at um and this was essential for me so once again i was so grateful for the school counselor before because like i said she already pretty much filled me in on the things that i had to do um but maybe you don't have that opportunity so it is for you to talk to your administrator about that and seeing what is it that you need to do as a school counselor in the sense of um is there anything that you need to make sure you get done so just to give you guys an example i had to make sure that i um organized the cte on wheels and that deals with more of career and technology and bringing that into the students at my school and that allowed for high schoolers to come in and i had to make sure the rotation everything worked right but if i did not get that information i wouldn't have known it and so you have to ask another thing that i have to do here at the school is i have to make sure that i provide food bags to this to the students so there is a food um truck that comes in and they you know drop food bags to the students and i am responsible to get this food bags to all the students that need it i'm also in charge of making sure i keep like clothes and shoes and socks and different items for students that are in need so that's another thing that i had to make sure that that i did i also have to organize a safety day another thing that i had to do as a school counselor is 504s i'm the 504 case manager so i have to make sure that i follow up with the 504 especially with it being a new school uh school year um calling those parents that needs to be called so that we can have a meeting and kind of just see if we need to change any accommodations or you know leave them the same so and a lot of this stuff i am still learning you know once again just to remind you guys i was a school counselor for january february and mid-march then all of a sudden school had to close and though i was a virtual school counselor but still yet i mean i didn't really know i was i'm still learning and i'm coming back in you know now august and i'm still learning you can do this you can do this so i hope that i mentioned everything that i need to mention it if not you guys will see another video popping up here at some point letting you guys know some more information um as far as what can prepare you to be a first-time school counselor at your school so i hope you guys enjoyed this video i enjoyed telling you guys about my experience and hopefully you were able to learn from my experience and take something from it make sure you guys comment down below what year are you in is it your first year or is it your fifth year is it your 30th year i want to know so make sure you put that down in the comment below also make sure you like this video if you were able to get something out of this and also make sure you subscribe to my channel the inspiring school counselor i'm so excited once again and you know what you guys you have it don't you worry you are equipped this is just literally is really my to be technically technical is just my fourth month as a school counselor and look how much knowledge i was able to gain so if i can gain this much knowledge i promise you you can too thank you guys so much for watching and i'll see you next time bye