*School counseling is NOT the same as mental health therapy! This is a common misconception about school counseling. School counselors provide support for students during the school day. The support focuses on students being able to access his or her education. If you feel like your child needs extra support and counseling outside of the school, I am more than happy to sit down with you and talk about additional resources in the area.

CONFIDENTIALITY

*School counselors do not always call parents if a kid chooses to come talk with us. Students need to know that there is a safe person in the building with whom they can connect with when needed. Trust and rapport is established between counselor and student and I always let the kids know that there is a level of confidentiality. These are the rules that we tell them:

*If a school counselor needs to break confidentiality, I typically let the student know that I need to let a guardian or other adult know what is going on because my number one job is student safety. Other times, if one of the rules of confidentiality is not broken, but a school counselor feels like a guardian needs to know about a situation, I will absolutely call home! But many times, what the student says in our office, stays in our office!

Below are some examples for why a student may seek out support from a school counselor:

Friendship -

Often times struggles with friendships can interupt learning time in the classroom. Students will often seek out a counselor's assistance in helping to navigate the ins and outs of making and keeping friends.

Transitions -

It can be scary to switch to a new teacher or grade at school sometimes. Students may feel nervous or anxious and like to work through these feelings one on one with a school counselor. School counselors will help ensure the transition goes as smooth as possible and help make the student feel safe in the new environment.

Changes in Family-

Families dynamics can change throughout a student's elementary school life. Though kids can be extremely resilient to change, situations can still be confusing and bring up a variety of emotions. Students sometimes need to talk about what is going on in their home lives (i.e. divorce, remarriage, new sibling, death of a family member, etc.) in order to better focus on their work at school. Having a safe person to share some challengesat home (both happy and sad changes) help students to become better students during the course of a school day because they can express feelings and develop healthy coping strategies.

School Success-

Tests, homework, classwork, activities, reading, writing, math....! Students can feel overwhelmed with the workload at school sometimes and school counselors can offer ways to help students remain organized and stay positive about school. Above all else, students should develop a love of learning during these formative years and acquire tools to become successful students!