Counselor
Mission:
Education is the pillar of democracy and public education is the great equalizer. No matter your background or your education, you can bridge the gap. As your child's counselor, I am committed to maximizing your child's potential and dedicated to assisting each child to be successful in this part of their life's journey.
Vision:
To provide every student the encouragement, support, academic skills and interpersonal skills to reach their highest potential.
Counselor Role & Philosophy of Counseling
Philosophy
My approach to counseling is based on the premise that empathy, trust and collaboration between client(student) and counselor are a must for positive change to occur. I believe that we all need a purpose and to feel worthy and it is my goal to help your student with these things. We will work as a team, parents, students and counselor to help your child develop effective tools to help them both in and out of school.
ROLE
The counselor should be available and trusted by all students to serve them most effectively. One of the ways for the students to begin to know the counselor is through guidance lessons provided to the classes (Erford, 2015). Guidance lessons are a way for the counselor to teach life skills to help the students develop into their best self. Some lessons that could help achieve this goal are teaching lessons on suicide prevention, study skills, alcohol and drug prevention, anti-bullying, goal setting, career development and personal safety (Erford, 2015). These lessons can be taught differently according to grade level and with the teacher’s supplementing the lessons intermittently (ASCA National Model A framework for school counseling, 2012). Not only are these lessons important to help develop lifelong learners but they also help develop a rapport between the students and the counselor, so the students feel comfortable to address the counselor in times of need.
The safety of all students and the feeling of safety is an important role of the school counselor (Erford, 2015). We must teach the children about their safety and with that comes having respect and kindness for each other. Another way to improve safety is to have regular drills so when a real emergency occurs the students and teachers know what to do in the different emergency situations.