Tag Archives: School Counseling

School Counseling

Increasing mental health access through school and community partnerships

By Jessica Holt August 5, 2022

In 2014, I shifted from working as a professional counselor in a mental health agency to working as a school counselor in the metro Atlanta area. I had experience working with adults and children who had emotional, behavioral and substance abuse disorders, so I thought that transitioning to the school system would provide a much-needed break and keep me from burning out.

I told myself, “This is going to be so much better because I’m going to have a regular schedule and lots of breaks. No more managing crises, being on call, treatment planning or dealing with severe problems.” But I was wrong. Although my role and job title changed, I was still seeing a lot of the same issues, especially self-harm, anxiety and depression.

In addition, working with middle school students requires a lot of energy, flexibility, patience and compassion. You are helping young people at a pivotal time in their personal, social and academic development. They are beginning to learn what is most important to them and create their identity. Combine that with peer pressure, hormones and more rigorous classes and your job as a school counselor seems never-ending.

The current challenges in schools

School counselors, much like teachers, were already suffering from high levels of burnout, fatigue and stress before the COVID-19 pandemic. And the last three years have only made the situation worse. At my school, more students are struggling with depression and anxiety and have less resiliency or grit. Many of our students’ families are also dealing with unemployment, homelessness and financial issues.

All these factors have the potential to affect students’ behavior, mental health and interactions with others. I have noticed an increase in the number of students who engage in self-harm as well as students presenting with suicidal ideations. My school district has a specific protocol for school counselors to follow if a student presents with suicidal ideation. This includes using the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale, communicating with parents and guardians, referring to crisis services and creating safety plans when students return to school. But this protocol only addresses part of the problem: the suicidal ideation and the need for a safety plan. It doesn’t address the presenting problems of depression or anxiety, nor does it help students develop coping skills to prevent future crises.

Kenny Eliason/Unsplash.com

My school also administers a survey to students in the fall and spring each year to assess school climate, student resiliency, social-emotional learning and other topics. The survey results from the previous school year help guide social-emotional learning curriculum the following year. The survey data from 2020-2021 revealed that many students at my school lacked coping skills and grit, so the school system has taken several steps to help students with these issues, including weekly social-emotional learning lessons, wellness campaigns and an anonymous reporting system that allows parents and students to report students who are at risk (e.g., engaging in self-harm, experiencing child abuse, being bullied). 

The Georgia Apex program

My school district was chosen to participate in the Georgia Apex Program during the 2021-2022 school year. This state-wide program, which is funded by the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, promotes collaboration between community mental health providers and schools to make mental health services accessible to students and their families.

The program’s goals include early detection of adolescent behavioral health needs, increased access to mental health services for children and youth, and coordination between mental health providers and local school districts. This is a wraparound (comprehensive) program that includes behavioral health assessments, psychiatric/nursing services, individual and family therapy (school-based and community), and community support services (e.g., case management).

My school district partnered with two local mental health agencies so that three schools, including mine, could have a school-based professional counselor onsite to help students who present with a variety of issues, including anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Kasey Ross, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) who is employed by a mental health agency in north Georgia, is one of the two school-based therapists my school district hired. She works two days at the middle school, two days at the high school and one day at her mental health agency (with the option to come to the school that day if needed).

“When we can detect behavioral health needs early, we can help reduce admission to higher levels of care, reduce unexcused absences and reduce disciplinary actions as well,” Ross says. “Additionally, the program is available at schools, homes and other community places, which makes it flexible and convenient for many families.”

The Apex referral process

School counselors often have large caseloads and limited time to work with each student. This can make it difficult to help students with more severe issues. In addition, school counselors are seeing an increase in students who need mental health services.

This is where the Apex program comes in. The school counselor can gather more information about the student’s personal needs and can give the student and their parents/guardians information about the Apex program. With the parent’s/guardian’s permission, the school counselor can then refer a student to the Apex therapist who has partnered with the school. The referral includes student demographics, presenting problem(s), insurance information (if they have any) and contact information for the parent/guardian.

The program is primarily for students who have PeachCare (Georgia’s version of Medicaid); however, students who do not have insurance are also able to receive services for up to 60 days, and the Apex therapist helps to connect them with local resources to obtain insurance. The school counselor can also refer students who have private insurance, and the Apex therapist can also help connect them with providers who accept their insurance.

Having a school-based therapist in our building, who is accessible four days out of the week, has been a game changer. This program allows school counselors such as myself to help students who might not otherwise receive the care they need because of our high caseloads. Even if we were allowed to provide therapy to students, we simply don’t have the time because our work is solution-focused and brief. Now, after meeting with a student who is in crisis, I can refer them to the school-based therapist, which is often a huge relief for the student’s parents.

And the process is quick and easy. I can give the student the information packet for Apex and do the online referral while they are in my office. The school-based therapist typically reaches out within 24 hours to set up an intake appointment, where they will do a behavioral health assessment and then develop a treatment plan. The therapist discusses with the student and parent/guardian when they will provide therapy and how often, and because the therapist is connected to the school, they can access the student’s school schedule and arrange counseling sessions so they do not affect students’ academic performance. For example, I have several students who meet with our Apex therapist during their electives. In addition, the Apex therapist can also meet with students and families in the community, including at the library, at the therapist’s clinic or in the students’ homes.

The benefits of the program

The Apex program appealed to several parents of my middle school students because it made counseling accessible, convenient and affordable. The community-based mental health provider, Ross, was able to help these students in some way.

One student, for example, reported feelings of depression and anxiety because her parents were going through a divorce and her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. As her school counselor, I was able to meet with her and gather more information about how this had been affecting her at school and home. After meeting with the student, I called her parents to tell them about the Apex program and how it could benefit their daughter. They agreed and asked me to send the information home with her and to also go ahead and do the online referral.

The next day, Ross contacted the parents and scheduled a first session with the parents and the student for later in the week. I continued to check in with this student throughout the year, and she said that the counseling sessions had helped her to feel less depressed and anxious.

There are many advantages to the Apex program. According to Ross, “the benefits of school-based mental health services include increased access to mental health services, improved attendance and academic performance, increased engagement at school and a reduction in mental health stigma. In addition, there are typically fewer classroom disruptions, less disciplinary referrals, less course failures and a decrease in inpatient hospitalizations.”

Three schools in our district currently have an Apex therapist. Ross, the therapist working with my middle school and the connected high school, has a caseload of 32 students. Our district also plans to expand this to two elementary schools next year. Ross notes that her agency also provides Apex services to six other counties and has helped 294 students so far. “We are growing and will be able to help even more students and their families next year,” Ross says.

I hope that the funding for this program (and others like it) will continue because it has made a positive impact on the climate at my school and the lives of my students.

 

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Related reading: See Counseling Today‘s August cover story (in which Holt is quoted), “Responding to the youth mental health crisis in schools.”

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Jessica Holt is a licensed professional counselor and has been working as a counselor since 2010. She is starting her ninth year as a school counselor. She primarily works with middle and high school students to help them meet their academic, social and emotional needs.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Responding to the youth mental health crisis in schools

By Bethany Bray July 25, 2022

Late last year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory to call attention to what he described as a “youth mental health crisis.” Depression, suicidality and other mental health challenges have been on the rise among American youth in the past decade, but Murthy believes the stressors and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an already alarming situation.

In a June interview with ABC News, Murthy acknowledged that the crisis is ongoing, saying, “Ultimately, we will know when we’ve reached the finish line when they’re [American youth] doing well and they tell us they’re doing well and when data tells us that as well.”

Murthy’s advisory called attention to a concerning situation that school-based counselors continue to witness firsthand. American students are experiencing an increasing severity and prevalence of mental health challenges that range from self-harm and disordered eating to underdeveloped social and emotional regulation skills.

Students are trying to learn among a multitude of storms. America continues to struggle with the ongoing dual crises of racial injustice and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic. And on top of that, divisive issues related to schools have been making news headlines lately, including laws created to target transgender youth, arguments about critical race theory and school curriculum, and despair and finger-pointing after the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 elementary school students and two teachers. 

It all adds up and is affecting the day-to-day lives of children and families. 

With a problem so large, it’s going to take more than school-based counselors to reverse the concerning trends in youth mental health. School counselors are on the front lines of this storm, but they also need buy-in, support and collaboration from school administration and staff, parents, community mental health professionals and the community at large.

Distress in students

Jennifer Akins, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) and president of the Texas School Counselor Association, noted that schools across her state are seeing both increased prevalence and severity of depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidality and eating disorders among students. This has prompted statewide agencies to collect and track data on student mental health, including self-harm, to inform interventions and programs to be deployed in the public schools, Akins says.

“These are not new issues for us, but the thing is the numbers are so much greater,” says Akins, the senior director of guidance and counseling for the McKinney, Texas, public schools. “A huge area of need right now is emotional regulation. They [students] are just not as skilled right now at managing strong feelings. … Students who are experiencing thoughts about self-harm are more often advancing those thoughts into action. They now have thoughts, plus a plan, plus action.”

Texas school counselors are also reporting an increase in self-harm in young students at the elementary level, Akins adds.

Akins is far from alone in what she is seeing. The school-based counselors interviewed for this article report similar rises in self-harm, depression and other mental health challenges among their student populations. Many of these issues were present before the pandemic, but the isolation and lack of social interaction the students experienced while learning remotely during the first years of the pandemic weakened students’ social skills and their ability to regulate their emotions and cope with distress. According to several of the school counselors interviewed for this article, students’ social media use is also a factor that often makes these issues worse.

Jessica Henry has been a high school counselor for 15 years in the Akron, Ohio, area, and she says she’s never seen so many students struggling with suicidal ideation, self-harm, depression, anxiety and panic attacks.

Students are experiencing a lack of resilience and continue to struggle to adjust to in-person school, and for some, this includes developing unhealthy coping mechanisms such as self-harm, Henry says. Small problems that could otherwise be overcome often spiral into “the end of the world” for students, adds Henry, a licensed school counselor in a seventh through 12th grade school in Ashland, Ohio.

For some students, home can be a tumultuous atmosphere and a source of stress, so school functions as a safe place, which they lost when schools switched to at-home learning during the pandemic, notes Henry, a licensed professional clinical counselor and supervisor.

Jessica Holt, an LPC and counselor at a middle school in metro Atlanta, has noticed that in addition to self-harm, depression and anxiety, interpersonal problems, such as bullying and conflict with peers, have become more prevalent recently. Her school has seen an increase in the number of students requesting one-on-one counseling on their own, as well as referrals from teachers and school staff for students who need someone to talk to. There has also been an increase of students who are struggling with sexuality or gender identity issues or who feel like they don’t fit in, she says.

Even though most schools have returned to in-person instruction, the effects of being out of the school environment continue to affect students’ mental health, particularly their self-esteem, social skills and anxiety, says Holt, a member of the American Counseling Association. They are still out of practice with navigating classroom dynamics and making friends.

In Holt’s experience, many parents overcompensated and became more involved in their children’s lessons while they were at home for virtual learning. Parents would log in during virtual learning and check their child’s grades, monitor their work and send messages to teachers. As a result, Holt has noticed that students are struggling with autonomy and self-esteem now that they have returned to in-person classes. Parents are more likely to be the one to message the school when a student is failing, she notes, rather than the student being proactive and asking to make up missed assignments or for extra help.

“Kids don’t have problem-solving skills because things have been done for them. They don’t know how to cope when they are in distress,” Holt says. “One thing that has come out of the pandemic is [problems with] accountability. Students are not taking responsibility because their parents have taken everything on. … That self-advocacy piece is not there for a lot of students.”

Early intervention

Derek Francis, manager of counseling services for the Minneapolis Public Schools, says that his district will be doubling the number of elementary school counselors this fall. Counseling staff at the elementary, middle and high school levels in Minneapolis have also been leading more small groups for students to focus on social-emotional learning, managing stress, anxiety and other mental health challenges.

Minneapolis students are struggling not only with self-esteem, peer conflict, anxiety and other mental health issues but also with discrimination and bias based on racial, sexual and other identities, including negative interactions on social media, says Francis, who co-authored a chapter on proactively addressing racial incidents in schools in the ACA-published book Antiracist Counseling in Schools and Communities. In response, Francis’ school district has enhanced counseling services (including small groups) and weaved mental health discussions with a cross-cultural focus into classroom lessons across grade levels. It’s powerful when students hear that their peers are feeling some of the same anxiety and distress they are experiencing and are able to talk about it openly, says Francis, who works in the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Department of College and Career Readiness.

The Minneapolis schools are also taking an early intervention approach to mental health. Recent years have shown that elementary students can benefit from learning coping skills that help them regulate and calm themselves and deal with strong emotions, Francis says. So the district has been teaching young students how to identify when they’re becoming overwhelmed, name their feelings and use skills to calm themselves, such as breathing techniques, as well as letting them know whom they should contact within the school for additional help.

Self-regulation in a young student can mean the difference between moving on from a negative interaction with a peer on the playground or remaining upset the entire day, says Francis, an ACA member. Teaching young students these skills during elementary school may keep them from carrying over or forming difficult or unhealthy behaviors, such as skipping class, into middle or high school.

“The younger we can help kids know how to regulate their emotions and talk about their feelings, the better,” he stresses.

As manager of all the school counselors in the Minneapolis Public Schools, Francis often goes into classrooms to speak with students. During a recent session on “the power of words” with third, fourth and fifth graders, he sparked discussion by asking students for examples of incidents when they’d heard an “ouch” (hurtful) word and ways to respond when they are the recipient of or witness to an ouch word. The students had plenty of experiences with ouch words, including one kid who had been ridiculed for his lisp.

Francis then focused the conversation on social skills, empathy and ways to connect with people who come from different backgrounds. His overarching message to the students was that school should be an inclusive place, says Francis, a professional development specialist with Hatching Results, a company that provides training and continuing education for school counselors, administrators and school districts.

Francis says his district intentionally approaches hate and bias incidents in the same way they treat fire drills: It’s something for staff, students and parents to prepare for. That way, when something does happen, everyone knows how to talk about it, respond and connect with resources. 

The Minneapolis schools have also focused on the negative implications that social media use can have on student mental health. It’s become clear that students are saying hurtful things to each other online, not only on social media platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat but also via the chat feature on video games, group text messages and other avenues, Francis notes.

Adults don’t often realize how much of students’ lives are spent in the digital world, he says, and parents and students alike are not often aware of the connection between social media use and how a person feels about themselves. Many students do not have a parent or adult who monitors their dialogue on social media or helps them know when to log off or disregard negative comments, he adds.

“[Students’] brains are not developed yet to know how their words impact other people. It’s an area that needs a lot more development after the pandemic,” Francis continues. “The [effects of the] isolation of the pandemic, when paired with the negativity of social media, can really distract them from seeing positive things about themselves. We have to be mindful of the impact of screen time on students’ mental health. … It really impacts the school environment when it’s unaddressed.”

Forging connection

Holt and the other school counselors at her Atlanta-area middle school coordinate their schedules so they can visit and speak to the classrooms each fall. These visits serve as an opportunity to survey students on their mental health needs, and they also allow students to meet the counselors and learn more about the schools’ counseling programming.

The survey data they collect during these classroom visits informs the counselors’ focus for the year (e.g., the need for small groups to help students with anger, parental separation, grief or other issues) and also helps them identify and connect with individual students who are at risk, Holt explains.

Tracking student concerns and tailoring an appropriate counseling response are even more vital as mental health difficulties are on the rise.

Three students at Holt’s middle school have taken their own lives in the past five years. Part of the district’s response to the suicides, as well as to the overall increase of mental health needs, has been to establish a program that installs school-based therapists to provide long-term therapy for students. This year, Holt’s district has increased the number of school-based therapists to meet  the demand.

Holt’s school has also adopted several peer-based programs, including one that pairs established students with peers who are new to the district and another that trains students in suicide prevention and how to respond and connect a peer to appropriate help when they notice suicidal ideation (e.g., observing evidence of cutting in a peer as they change clothes for physical education classes).

The peer programming, counselor classroom visits and other recent initiatives are aimed at preventing students from falling through the cracks and help the counselors keep their finger on the pulse of the school, Holt explains. And it’s had a positive impact on school culture.

Like Holt, Henry feels that counseling staff need to be more visible and involved in their schools to respond to the recent rise in mental health needs. Now more than ever, school counselors need to get creative and set an example for other school staff by taking the first steps to forge connection with students, Henry says.

Long hours and heavy workloads leave teachers and counselors prone to burnout, but students also suffer when teachers and school staff focus on just getting through the school day and lose sight of the emotions and issues that students are dealing with beyond academics, stresses Henry, who is co-author of the 2019 book Mental Health in Our Schools: An Applied Collaborative Approach to Working With Students and Families. School staff who don’t take the time to connect with students, she says, risk not being able to recognize when a student is having an “off” day or exhibiting uncharacteristic behavior that indicates they need extra support.

School counselors can take steps to prevent this by encouraging teachers to spend time bonding with students at the start of the year, rather than diving into rigid topics such as classroom rules and expectations, Henry says. She notes that icebreaker activities, such playing bingo or prompting discussions about students’ favorite television shows or rides at a local amusement park, can make a big difference in fostering connection.

“And with that [activity] comes so much more dialogue,” she adds.

Henry also encourages counselors to be proactive and make their services known during team meetings and trainings among school staff. By emphasizing that their “door is always open” for collaboration when a student is struggling behaviorally or academically, counselors can help remind teachers that they are an important resource that can help address the underlying reasons for disruptive behavior or failing grades, such as anxiety, self-esteem issues or food insecurity at home. 

Henry says that improving student mental health and school culture is about school counselors “being present, being around [the] teachers and being around students as much as possible,” including in the hallways and at lunch. “And invite teachers to collaborate with you when a student seems ‘off,’” she adds. “When an adult reaches out, little things like that can change a kid’s life and make them feel like someone does care.”

Henry often offers to serve as a mediator between a teacher and a student when behavioral issues or conflict arises in the classroom. “I sometimes meet with a teacher behind the scenes to say, ‘Have you tried this?’ or ‘When I worked with this student, here’s what worked, here’s what he responded to,’” she explains. “It’s just like a [counseling] treatment plan; if something is not working, we move on and try something else.”

It’s easy for school staff to focus on what a student is doing wrong, she notes, but it’s more helpful to focus on what they’re doing right and emphasize their strengths. Offering students creative options beyond discipline and exploring the reasons why they’re struggling is key.

“We need to meet kids where they are,” says Henry, who counsels individual clients part-time at a private practice in addition to working as a school counselor. “Some of these kids just want to be heard. Just listening to what they have to say and not judging them makes a big difference. They need to feel like people [school staff] care.”

Barriers to behavioral health care 

School counselors are often the first mental health professional a student who is struggling with mental illness comes in contact with, notes Stephen Sharp, a school counselor at a middle school and coordinator for K-12 school counseling services in the Hempfield School District in the suburbs of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

However, many students need long-term outpatient therapy that would not be appropriate or feasible for school counselors to offer. When students and families face barriers to access behavioral health care, it only adds to the increasing student mental health needs that schools are facing, notes Sharp, a member of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) board of directors. 

The issue that Sharp says he finds most challenging is that for many of his students, all of their mental health support “begins and ends at the school walls.”

Sharp says he’s seen students go months without needed treatment because they were put on a waiting list for an appointment with a local mental health provider or they lack insurance or the ability to pay for treatment not covered by insurance. In some cases, undertreatment or lack of preventive treatment has led to student hospitalizations, he adds.

The biggest need for my students is access to ongoing behavioral health services,” he says. “The reality is that it [the gap in services] creates a disproportionate burden on the schools. Not just on school counselors but teaching staff as well.”

Sharp’s school district has a strong partnership with a local behavioral health provider who provides school-based services for students. However, he says that many students are not able to take advantage of the service. Both lack of insurance and limited coverage are barriers to treatment for students, he notes, but the latter is more pervasive. Students may have health insurance, but their plan may not cover certain services such as school-based therapy or virtual therapy, he explains.

There is also a shortage of behavioral health care providers just at a time when there is an increased demand for services. Sharp says that his school struggled this year to find a qualified school-based therapist to hire in addition to school counseling staff.

Sharp’s district is not alone in this phenomenon. Francis says that community mental health agencies in Minneapolis are also full and have waiting lists. In Texas, community resources that would otherwise provide support for families outside of schools, such as social service organizations, civic centers and nonprofit programs, are declining — and in some areas are nonexistent, Akins notes.

The pandemic revealed the cracks and flaws not only of our education system but also the health care and mental health care systems, Sharp notes.

“We are in a behavioral health care crisis, not just in the state of Pennsylvania but nationally as well, and it leads to a lack of access to care. Certain areas (e.g., rural) have always had a lack of care, but it’s gotten so much worse,” Sharp says. “All of this is really disheartening and challenging, but it’s also something that we absolutely as a profession and a society need to be talking about. What level of advocacy and coordination are we going to do to address these concerns?”

Sharp says the past year has been the hardest year yet for him professionally. But at the same time, he sees opportunity ahead.

One of the lessons gleaned from Hurricane Katrina, Sharp notes, is that a coordinated response works best in times of crisis, especially when there are financial strains and staffing limitations. There is an opportunity for national-level organizations such as ACA and ASCA to offer guidelines, training and other programming to address the rise inyouth mental health concerns, he says. And there is also opportunity for multidisciplinary collaboration. For example, the Pennsylvania School Counselors Association (PSCA) is working with the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics to address the barriers to care in their state, he notes.

Support from professional organizations as well as collaboration among and across helping professionals at the local, state and national levels “makes things better but also makes us [individual counselors] feel like we’re not the only ones pushing against a brick wall,” says Sharp, a past president of PSCA. “The more innovative that we can get and share stories of success, those are the types of things that will lead to something better after this.”

All hands on deck

As a school counselor, Holt says that she sometimes thinks of her role as a “connector” between students and families and wraparound resources that can help meet their needs outside of school, including mental health services. However, she advises school counselors to only share resources that they are familiar with and have vetted to ensure that they offer quality services.

It’s helpful, Holt says, when a professional counselor contacts her school to let them know they offer group or individual services that are well-matched to their student population. She also recommends counselors have a list of local providers that they can offer to teachers and school staff who, like counselors, sometimes find themselves overwhelmed and in need professional support.

Holt encourages community counselors to connect with their local school counselors, and vice versa. “Having that connection from community mental health to the schools is very important,” Holt says. “The more resources that we [school counselors] know about, the more referrals we can do for our parents and students. If we don’t have connections in the community, it makes it harder. Being able to know that we have partners in the community and knowing what’s available is helpful.”

Akins agrees that partnerships between school and community resources will be key in addressing the recent increase in youth mental health needs. However, community counselors need to recognize that establishing helpful collaboration takes time and patience.

There are a lot of practical components that have to fall into place before a school can adopt a new program or resource, Akins notes. “Instructional minutes are very precious,” she says, so school officials cannot always justify using class time for mental health programming.

Akins suggests that community counselors get to know the unique needs of their local school district, as well as what has and hasn’t worked for other schools, before contacting their school to offer help.

In times of crisis, “sometimes people who are coming from the [nonschool] mental health community think ‘we don’t have time to waste.’ That’s true, but processes are in place for a reason (i.e., student safety),” Akins says. “Taking the time to really connect with your district and plan and develop a formal partnership will be a lot more successful than emailing a principal to ask, ‘Can I come in and do XYZ?’”

Sandi Logan-McKibben, a clinical assistant professor and school counseling program director at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, asserts that counselors have an ethical responsibility to know what mental health and other wraparound resources are available in their area for clients and students.

She believes in this idea so strongly that she assigns her school counseling students a community mapping project each year. The students are charged with finding resources within the school district where they are working as a counseling intern and then overlaying those resources on a Google Maps image of the area. Students’ maps include not only mental health services but also after-school, tutoring and mentorship programs; organizations that help with food insecurity, homelessness or immigration services; nonprofit or faith-based organizations; and other institutions. 

This mapping project can be helpful for community and school-based counselors, whether they are students or not, adds Logan-McKibben, an ACA member.

She also recommends counselors find and help fill gaps in needed services. This can include anything from advocating for funding at a school board meeting or partnering with an existing nonprofit to expand services to contracting with a local university to offer pro bono counseling services for school students.

“It only takes one person to enact something and prompt change,” says Logan-McKibben, a former school counselor who lives in Florida and teaches virtually at Sacred Heart. “Find out what the actual needs of your community are. Don’t make assumptions. You don’t know unless you reach out.”

Counselors in all settings have a common skill — resourcefulness — and they need to draw on that skill to meet students’ needs in this time of crisis, Logan-McKibben says. This calls for counselors to work with a preventive, proactive and collaborative focus.

“The most important thing for all professional counselors to know is that we’re all in this together. Any kind of school crisis is really a community crisis,” she says.

Sharp agrees that counselors have a role to play in advocating for support for mental health care “both in and beyond the walls of the school.” This is a time to be concerned, he admits, but it’s also a time for meaningful work to be done.

“We also need to acknowledge the work that is being done and was done before [the situation became a crisis]. That work mattered before, and it matters now,” Sharp says. “Whether it’s school counseling or clinical counseling work we’re doing, it’s a sensitive time for the profession, … but [it’s] also a time to be mindful and reflective of victories and lessons learned. Also, [counselors should] take the time to celebrate. Celebrate the work our clients and students have done and use that to make the profession better.”

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The influence of social and political issues on youth mental health 

Adults have been making a lot of decisions lately that not only create news headlines but also affect youth mental health, including a law aimed at making it easier for teachers to carry firearms in Ohio schools and the controversial Florida law — dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its opponents — that banned classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity.

For school counselors, these issues are more than soundbites on news programs. They affect their students and families and add to the already complicated work school counselors are doing to combat a rise in suicidality and other mental health concerns in American youth.

Jessica Henry, a high school counselor in the Akron, Ohio, area, says she’s had coworkers who have refused to use a student’s preferred pronouns. “Not only is that unethical and has legal ramifications, it’s [also] very difficult to hear when a teacher says, ‘I’m not doing that,’” she says.

Henry, a licensed professional clinical counselor, feels that schools (and school counselors) should take a proactive role to address controversial issues rather than avoiding them. Students, parents and educators need to hear about topics such as racial injustice and LGBTQ+ inclusion, she says.

“We have to address the bigger picture of what is going on in our world. It’s about getting your administrators and superintendent to understand that inclusivity is vital — and in turn, will affect academics,” Henry explains. “It goes back to [asking], ‘Does every kid feel safe in their school?’ ‘Does every kid feel like themselves in their school?’ If even one student says ‘no,’ we’ve got work to do.”

Part of this work also involves the need for counselors to have the humility to recognize their biases, says Derek Francis, manager of counseling services for the Minneapolis Public Schools’ Department of College and Career Readiness. The majority of the counseling profession is white, yet the majority of many school populations are not, he notes.

“We need to be mindful of our biases. … It takes laying down your privilege and learning, open listening and connecting,” says Francis. “Ultimately, we’re trying to build trust when we’re doing counseling. We want all people to know that we have positive regard for them, and we need to come in [with] the right [unbiased] mindset to help the person in front of us.”

The growing polarization of political and social issues in America has also led to distrust of public institutions such as schools, says Jennifer Akins, a licensed professional counselor and president of the Texas School Counselor Association. She’s seen this mistrust spiral into parents equating terms such as “social-emotional learning” with critical race theory.

“We [school counselors] have been working on mental health issues and school safety for a long time, and many districts have integrated mental health and social-emotional learning [into the curriculum]. There is a segment of the public that has developed a mistrust even of those words, ‘social-emotional.’ They feel that things like mental health don’t really have a place in public education or are inappropriate. That stigma adds to some of the [mental health] needs we’re seeing in students. It’s disheartening,” says Akins, the senior director of guidance and counseling for the McKinney, Texas, public schools. “There’s very little disagreement that parents want to send their child somewhere where they’re cared about and where they’re safe. But the initiatives and programs that help enhance those things are the very things that they are scared into thinking are harmful and terrible.”

One way to reduce these patterns, Akins says, is for school counselors to make transparency and communication with parents about programming a priority, as well as involving parents in the creation of programs as much as possible.

She suggests that school counselors focus on messaging that emphasizes common ground: We all want children to feel connected, to belong and to feel safe, she notes, so open communication about what a school is doing for student mental health — and why you’re doing it — can be helpful. “It’s just a matter of peeling back some of the layers of misinformation,” Akins says.

 

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Bethany Bray is a senior writer and social media coordinator for Counseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

School counseling and COVID-19: ‘We can’t go back to normal’

By Bethany Bray December 22, 2021

Meeting students’ mental health needs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic has been and remains a moving target for school counselors, says Dodie Limberg, an associate professor of counselor education at the University of South Carolina. However, one thing has become clear: School counseling will never be the same.

“We can’t go back to normal. We shouldn’t go back to the way things were. We need to have our hand on the pulse of what’s needed and how our role addresses that,” says Limberg, an associate editor of the Professional School Counseling journal. “We started the [2021-22] school year in hopes that it would be better or ‘normal,’ but COVID is still occurring and school counselors are trying to adjust as it’s happening. … We are not in a place where we have clear solutions, and that’s a hard thing to come to terms with because we’re helpers.”

Although most school districts have returned to in-person instruction, the environment is not the same as before the pandemic. School counselors are still navigating the unknown in many ways, Limberg notes, such as the challenge of making students feel included when they are quarantined or taken out of class because they may have been exposed to the virus through travel or contact with a family member who has it. School routines and structure have returned in fits and starts for students this year; uncertainty remains an ongoing theme.

“We need to have some grace with ourselves and our students and meet them where they’re at,” says Limberg, an associate editor of Counseling and Values. “We’re still working with students — we have to be — and at the same time, figuring out ‘What does that look like now?’ I really admire how our field as a whole, all counselors, is coping with this. We’re trying what we can, doing what we can in our ability to help people. It’s a lot, and it’s not over.”

School counseling is one of Limberg’s areas of expertise. She, along with teams of researchers, recently conducted three different studies on COVID-19’s impact on school counselors and their work with students throughout the pandemic. The research — two national studies and one involving school counselors in South Carolina — also focused on school counselor burnout and the ways COVID-19 has heightened disparities among students and schools.

Limberg and her co-researchers heard many examples of how school counselors have gotten creative and proactive to support the mental health needs of students, particularly during the 2020-21 school year when many students were learning from home. In cases where families didn’t have internet access, school counselors contacted parents via text message, personally checked on students in the community or helped transform school buses into mobile Wi-Fi hotspots.

School counselors also wielded technology to support students, such as creating a “quiet room” in Google Classroom that students could visit virtually when they needed a break or a moment of calm.

Now, in year two of the pandemic, school counselors continue to meet challenge after challenge, says Limberg, a past president of the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision.

“A school counselor’s role is ideally more preventative. But it’s shifted to become more reactive [during the pandemic],” Limberg says. “We’re functioning in a state of crisis and doing triage work, while still trying to do classroom guidance, running small groups and other school counseling tasks. We are helping [students’] needs on an individual level and struggling to do so [on a] comprehensive [level].”

The pandemic revealed just how much students get out of school besides academics, including social-emotional learning, regular meals and physical activity. It also highlighted the disparities among students, Limberg adds. For example, some parents found ways to augment remote learning  and non-academic aspects of school, whereas others couldn’t because they were working and maxed out themselves or because they couldn’t afford it.

The pandemic also illustrated the importance of mental health. Teachers and school administration turned to school counselors to draw on their much-needed expertise in fostering wellness and mental health, and they realized the pivotal and skilled role school counselors play in a school community. The downside, however, is that many school counselors are now constantly “on demand” by both school colleagues and parents, which has led to them being overworked and, in some cases, burned out.

“We’re just beginning to understand COVID’s impact and how it changes our roles,” Limberg says. “We’re still experiencing COVID-19 and haven’t even scratched the surface of what this will all lead to. How do we prepare and adjust our services while we’re still in the process of understanding what this is? But at same time, it’s hopeful that school counselors are being recognized as an important role for mental health in schools.”

The key to maintaining student mental health and wellness in school settings in the wake of COVID-19, Limberg stresses, is for school counselors and mental health counselors in the community to work together. Viewing all mental health professionals (including school counselors, mental health therapists, rehabilitation counselors, and marriage and family therapists) as all on the same team is an important part of this collaborative approach.

“We need to collaborate, community-wide. We need to not operate in silos. There’s so much need and not enough services,” she says. “Recognizing each other’s identities while working together is the way forward. … We’re all counselors, [so] how can we work together to help?”

 

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Contact Dodie Limberg at DLIMBERG@sc.edu

Find resources for school counselors at the American Counseling Association’s School Counselor Connection page: counseling.org/knowledge-center/school-counselor-connection

FamVeld/Shutterstock.com

 

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Bethany Bray is a senior writer for Counseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Feeling the strain: The effects of COVID-19 on children and adolescents

By Laurie Meyers April 23, 2021

One of the most contentious — indeed, at times, vitriolic — public health debates of the COVID-19 era has revolved around the safety of opening schools for in-person classes. For some politicians, the push to open seemed to be influenced by optics — a signal that states were “open for business.” At the same time, parents have struggled to help children and adolescents with their schoolwork and other aspects of distance learning and have longed for a safe way to get back to a less chaotic educational experience. Some parents were forced to leave their jobs to take care of children and still cannot return to work. Teachers and other school staff have expressed concern for their own safety and the safety of their families and students. 

Everyone agrees that online learning is not ideal for most students — and can be virtually inaccessible for marginalized populations — but in many areas, it seemed like the safest option. However, mental health professionals, educators, parents and community activists remain apprehensive about the negative effect that the lack of in-person instruction and interaction with peers is having on the mental, emotional, social, developmental and academic well-being of children and adolescents.

There has been much confusion about how often children and adolescents get COVID-19 and how likely they are to spread the coronavirus. Recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that while fewer children than adults have had COVID-19 in the United States, the number of cases among school-age children was rising. Not only can children and adolescents be infected and get sick, but they can also spread the virus to others. At the same time, the CDC revised its guidance for physical distancing in schools in March, saying that 3 feet of distance (as opposed to 6 feet) is sufficient in elementary, middle and high schools where masks are worn and where community transmission is low.

In many states, teachers and other educational system personnel have received vaccinations. School districts are implementing physical distancing protocols, and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 passed by Congress in mid-March includes money to improve building ventilation. With these developments, many schools that weren’t already open were planning a return to in-person education, either full time or on a hybrid basis. 

Amid all the debating and planning, one group has been noticeably silent: the students themselves. Many children and adolescents are struggling with a feeling of powerlessness, says Adam W. Carter, a former school counselor who is currently the coordinator of the trauma-informed counseling graduate certificate at Northern Illinois University’s Department of Counseling and Higher Education. “We’re not asking children if they want to go back to school, if they feel safe,” he says. “We’re making decisions as adults with [the needs of] children almost as an afterthought.”

The lack of agency in decisions regarding in-person schooling is not the only area in which many children and adolescents feel voiceless, say the sources Counseling Today spoke to for this article. Like adults, children and adolescents miss their friends; are frustrated by the inability to get together with others without fear of infection; mourn the loss of celebrations and the marking of milestones; are afraid that they, or a loved one, will get sick; and are tired of spending so much time in front of a computer screen. 

In other words, they have all of the stress but not as much control as adults do, notes Carter, an American Counseling Association member. Children and adolescents often don’t know how to talk about — or, for that matter, recognize — how the pandemic is affecting them. 

For example, “Children may not know how to talk about how they miss getting together at school or with friends,” says ACA member Barbara Mahaffey, a licensed professional clinical counselor and executive director of the Scioto Paint Valley Mental Health Center in Ohio. They might ask often about visiting others but not recognize that they’re having stomachaches and other psychosomatic effects because they’re lonely, she adds. “Children may not ask for help, and parents may not recognize a child’s distress,” Mahaffey says. 

Many parents are experiencing significant worry and stress about their finances or how they can keep their family safe from COVID-19. They may also be grieving the loss of friends or family members who have died from the coronavirus. Parents often believe that it’s best to shield their children from these concerns, but the reality is that kids pick up on the underlying fear without understanding its source, say Mahaffey and Carter. 

The strain on children and adolescents is showing. According to the Nov. 13, 2020, issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, child and adolescent emergency room visits related to mental health began increasing in April 2020 and remained elevated through October 2020 (the latest date for which statistics were available). Compared with the same period in 2019, emergency room visits related to mental health rose 24% for children ages 5-11 and 31% for those ages 12-17. 

Missed connections

Children and adolescents want to be with each other, Carter says. Absent in-person classes and social activities, it is difficult for them to figure out how to interact. This generation is used to socializing through social media platforms and chat apps, but after spending six to seven hours online each day for school, interest in electronic gatherings has diminished throughout the pandemic, he says. Being in the company of others all day virtually but rarely if ever getting the opportunity to interact in person has produced a particular kind of loneliness for children and adolescents.

Counselors are also finding it difficult to connect with these clients online. Once the pandemic began and counseling shifted online, Sarah Zalewski, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) who specializes in child and adolescent counseling, knew she needed a new way to engage her clients. At the time, in addition to her private practice, Zalewski was working as a school counselor in a Connecticut middle school. 

“When they come into my office, I always have toys,” she says. “They love to play, [and] I do too.”

The toys functioned as an icebreaker, with students and young clients finding it easier to open up while their hands were busy, explains Zalewski, an ACA member. But with that icebreaker gone thanks to the abrupt end of in-person sessions, she had to start thinking of alternative ways to connect. “I didn’t want to do the traditional grown-up thing, like, ‘How was your day? What was school like?’” Zalewski says.

Zalewski thought about what she had been doing herself to cope with the stresses of the pandemic. One of her favorite coping mechanisms: playing video games. Given the popularity and ubiquity of video games, she decided they might offer a great way to bridge the gap with young clients.

In the beginning, Zalewski mainly discussed the games with her clients, asking them what games they liked and why. Whenever role-playing games entered the discussion, she explored what characters her clients typically chose to inhabit. Did they pick a warrior or a priest? How was the character similar to them? How was it different? In what ways did the character reflect who the client wanted to be in real life? “Why do you want to be a druid?” Zalewski might ask. “What is it about druidism that is really cool?” 

Zalewski emphasizes that counselors who try this approach need to know or learn the language of the games. “Gaming is a culture,” she says. “Use cultural humility. If you don’t know, for example, what a druid is — [because] it’s different in different games — ask. They love to talk about it.”

Eventually, Zalewski began playing the games with her clients. They start in Google Meet, where they do all of their communicating. They then use an online link or gaming platform. Zalewski has multiple screens, and clients often use tablets. 

Sometimes the games are relatively simple. For example, Zalewski recently began playing Connect Four with a young client as an exercise in frustration tolerance (because the client doesn’t always win). When a client expresses frustration during the course of a game, Zalewski probes for the source. Is it truly about the outcome of the game itself or is it frustration at a person in the client’s life that is coming out during the gaming session? Sometimes the frustration is really about the situation that children and adolescents find themselves in with the pandemic, including feeling like they no longer have the ability to do the things they once enjoyed.

Game-based problem-solving helps clients build coping skills as they are playing, Zalewski points out. In addition, she often directs young clients to use relaxation techniques that she has taught them, such as square breathing (breathing in for four counts, holding for four counts and then breathing out for four counts).

Zalewski also likes to use Roblox, an online platform that features various games and also gives users the ability to create their own games (a function that she likens to sandbox therapy). By creating games or even leading Zalewski through a virtual obstacle course, young clients can develop a sense of leadership, she says. 

Children and adolescents are struggling with the lack of social contact during the pandemic, Zalewski says, and this is often manifesting in anxiety, depression, anger and withdrawal. The isolation is particularly difficult on clients who have depression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, she adds. 

Because physical activity helps with mood levels and basic functioning, Zalewski tries to get her young clients moving through games such as Just Dance, Ring Fit Adventure (a fantasy adventure world that uses physical exercise to navigate in-game movement), and other virtual reality games.  

To keep clients moving, Zalewski will often give clients “homework” (with parents’ permission), asking them to play a game a certain number of times between sessions. Zalewski also encourages clients to engage in social interaction. Just like any other skill, social skills will atrophy if you don’t use them, she says. 

Many role-playing games enable users to communicate with each other in chat boxes. Zalewski says there are also “clans” and “guilds” that gamers can join. Another resource she likes is Discord, a platform that allows users to discuss games and other interests on secure topic-based text channels. 

Zalewski says her clients laugh at her for her enduring love of Pokemon Go. Still, she feels it is an encouraging way for children and adolescents to get outside with parents and interact with others in a safe, physically distanced way as they collect Pokemon.  

School daze

Although some children and adolescents are doing well with virtual learning, in general, it’s not developmentally aligned to child and adolescent needs, says ACA member Jennifer Betters-Bubon, an LPC and former school counselor. “We know young kids need to move,” she says. “They thrive on environments that provide sensory stimulation and movement. Even in traditional high school, kids get to get up and move through hallways and can interact with friends.”

“We have kids who are on Zoom for hours and not necessarily getting up,” continues Betters-Bubon, an assistant professor of counseling at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. “It’s fatiguing for their brains and bodies, [and] it doesn’t lend itself to building relationships.”

When adults feel the fatigue of too much screen time, they can usually disconnect, at least for a little while. “When children get tired, adults are still in charge,” Carter points out. And if a child asks to take a break, parents or caregivers may think that the lack of structure will cause them to fall behind. “They may not understand that children have the same need to disconnect,” Carter says.

Betters-Bubon is noticing a lack of motivation in the children and adolescents she sees in her practice. She believes that’s in part because schoolwork isn’t as engaging without the connection to other people and the school itself. “It can feel like ‘What is the point of doing this work?’” she says. Betters-Bubon points out that on top of COVID-19, students are dealing with the impact of racial trauma and other significant stressors, all of which influence their view of whether their current math assignment is really relevant right now.

Betters-Bubon says some of her younger clients are so disengaged that she has shifted the focus of her work to their parents. She has sought to keep middle and high school students engaged by asking them to create things between sessions such as a vision board of how they’re coping with their anxiety and then sharing their creation with her.

Now that many schools are opening up, at least on a hybrid basis, Betters-Bubon and other counselors say they are witnessing excitement among students about reuniting with friends, mixed with a lot of trepidation. Many of Betters-Bubon’s clients are experiencing anxiety — about the possibility of getting COVID-19, about catching up academically or, in some cases, about starting at a new school without the normal transition. Betters-Bubon has been doing a significant amount of exposure therapy work with child and adolescent clients. This involves having them imagine a list of scary things that they might encounter and working up to doing each one in ascending order. In some cases, she has been able to reach out to school officials to ask them to allow her clients to at least see the inside of their new environment before classes start. 

Betters-Bubon acknowledges that it’s a strange new world for students returning to school. Even the nature of recess has changed. Because of the need to maintain physical distance, her son’s elementary school no longer allows balls on the playground. Students just kind of stand around and concentrate on keeping themselves separated, Betters-Bubon says. As a result, they’re not engaging those gross motor movements essential to healthy growth that they used to engage when they could run around, climb on equipment and toss balls. Betters-Bubon wonders what the implications might be if this scenario becomes normalized. 

Some schools have implemented sensory paths in hallways with different obstacles to run and jump over, Betters-Bubon says. She’d like to see more of those, particularly outdoors. Noncontact games that involve actions such as students moving to different parts of a circle can also be an excellent way to keep children moving while still remaining physically distant, she says.

LPC Melissa Brown works with an Atlanta-area community behavioral health center as a mental health counselor in a local school district with a majority Black student body, most of whom live in poverty. The community has been hit hard, both by COVID-19 itself and by the economic devastation of the pandemic-induced recession. 

The school district has been on a hybrid schedule since January. Brown has tried to give students a sense of normalcy by providing that one thing that will be consistent. “When we meet, this is going to be your safe place,” she tells students. “We can talk about anything and do anything you want.”

Many of the children still worry that they or their loved ones will get sick, so Brown holds family sessions to help students and their families develop a plan to stay safe. The children are used to having a plan for what happens if there is a fire in the school, so the idea of coming up with something similar for home seems natural to them, she says.

In sessions, they talk about teaching kids how to wash their hands, come up with examples to demonstrate what 6 feet of physical distance looks like, and discuss why they can’t see their grandmother, uncle or friends today. They also look at alternatives, such as driving by a friend’s or loved one’s house or mailing them a picture.

Brown also tells parents that they have to be honest with their children. They can’t hide information that they think might be harmful because their children are likely to be exposed to it anyway through social media, the news or friends. Instead, parents can be their children’s first source of information, Brown says.

Grief and trauma

Brown has encountered a substantial amount of grief connected to the pandemic, particularly in elementary school settings. After attending a funeral every Friday for a month, one little girl asked Brown if it was wrong that she didn’t cry anymore. 

Brown frequently uses play therapy and art therapy to help younger children explore their feelings. Eventually, the little girl was able to process her feelings and contextualize them, such as, “This person who died was a friend of my mother’s, and I didn’t really know her” and “This was my grandfather, but he was sick with cancer, and I know he’s in a good place now.”

Zalewski has helped young clients process the loss of grandparents and pets. She notes that furry family members have become even more vital companions during the pandemic. 

One child particularly liked the idea of creating a memorial for a beloved dog. So, with Zalewski’s help, the client created a space on his island in Animal Crossing, a social simulation game that gives players the ability to build and create things. Zalewski and the child found a virtual dog and gave him a red bowl to drink from. The child’s real-life dog had enjoyed being outside and sniffing flowers, so they also created a fenced-in area with flowers, the drinking bowl, a sofa (in case the dog wanted to curl up) and a radio for the dog to listen to. Players in Animal Crossing can pick the radio’s music, so the child chose happy songs because they wanted the dog to be happy.

“Creating it was very powerful, and then [the child was] able to visit [the memorial],” Zalewski said. She suggested that the child share the memorial with their mom and dad, which ended up being an emotionally significant experience. They discussed how losing the dog felt to each of them and were able to mourn together, Zalewski says. She believes the process helped to normalize grief for the child. Mom and Dad were sad too, but they were getting through it, and the client could as well. 

“Now Mom and Dad and the kid can talk more comfortably about the dog,” Zalewski says. “It’s OK to be sad. Sadness won’t break you. It’s OK to share the happy stuff too.” 

Zalewski has also helped child and adolescent clients navigate the loss of loved ones such as grandparents. Many kids are hesitant to share some of their feelings about loss because they are afraid it might be painful for the people around them, Zalewski says. She helps young clients express their grief by inviting them to have a conversation with her about the things they remember about their grandparents or other loved ones who have died. “Everyone has loss,” she says. “I help them access the good memories.” 

These memories are often funny, such as how the grandparent always made the client a cup of coffee or tea, and the client always drank it, even though they thought it tasted terrible. Or they might remember a unique sweater that their grandmother made for them. 

“Many times, kids haven’t grieved before, and they don’t know how to do it,” Zalewski says. She provides a safe place to explore the feelings of being really sad and missing a loved one.  

Moving forward

“We are not holding space for children to be scared to return to in-person learning, especially with the increased safety protocols in place,” Carter says. “Masks, no touching, no singing, playground shut down — all of these things can be scary, yet we expect children to be able to turn that off and learn as usual.”

As schools continue to open, Betters-Bubon believes that a trauma-informed approach with a schoolwide focus on relationships is essential. “Integrated within a trauma-informed approach is social-emotional learning, embedding sensory strategies into the classroom and allowing for voice and choice,” she says. “It also would include a focus on staff wellness. School counselors would focus on teaching and assisting all staff in understanding the impact of trauma on the brain and on student learning, including helping schools carve out specific ways to build relationships.”

Betters-Bubon would also like to see more collaboration between schools and outside mental health counselors to focus on building resiliency in children and adolescents. This may involve taking a wider systemic view and working with the critical adults in students’ lives, she says. “I could see an increased need for family counseling in an effort to create systemic change within families that ultimately helps children and adolescents.”

 

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Laurie Meyers is a senior writer for Counseling Today. Contact her at lmeyers@counseling.org.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

School counseling in the time of the coronavirus

By Laurie Meyers September 28, 2020

“School counselor” is a deceptively simple title. In reality, school counselors play many roles, including social and emotional educator, academic adviser, conflict mediator, wellness coach, mental health therapist, student champion, educational collaborator and family liaison.

Now, with the advent of the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, many school counselors have become connectors and comforters-in-chief — not just to students but to parents and school staff.

Last spring, schools began closing in response to the pandemic. According to Education Week, 48 states; four U.S. territories; Washington, D.C.; and the Department of Defense Education Activity eventually ordered or recommended school closures affecting at least 50.8 million public school students. Suddenly, students, families, counselors, teachers and administrators all had to find a way to virtually re-create their in-person school routines. This already-challenging shift was complicated by the significant number of students who lacked access to high-speed internet or desktop, laptop or tablet computers.

Even before the pandemic, civil rights and education groups had been decrying what they had dubbed the “homework gap” because many teachers were increasingly assigning work that required internet access. Already at a disadvantage, these disenfranchised students — many of whom were Black, Indigenous or people of color (BIPOC) — now faced being completely locked out of school academic activities for the rest of the year.

According to “Students of Color Caught in the Homework Gap,” a recent report by organizations that include the Alliance for Excellent Education and the National Urban League, when the wave of school closures occurred, 16.9 million children lacked high-speed home internet access (a number that included 1 in 3 BIPOC families), and 7.3 million did not have a computer or tablet. Many schools spent the spring and summer scrambling to provide devices and internet access to students — a task that was still incomplete going into the new school year. Stories of students struggling to keep up with online instruction on cell phones are still not uncommon.

In addition, when the economy took a nosedive as the coronavirus spread, it made it hard to focus on anything but survival for many families. But even financially secure families found it challenging to provide the ideal learning environment as — in many cases — parents working from home with multiple children wrestled with carving out a physical space and a time for each person to be online. Students missed getting to see their friends and participating in extracurricular activities. Sports seasons were canceled. The theater curtains never went up on school plays. Rites of passage such as prom and graduation ceremonies largely fell by the wayside.

And now it is fall, meaning a brand new school year. Even so, in many parts of the country, the football fields and stands will remain empty, the marching band instruments will stay silent and there will be no homecoming dances. Things are decidedly not back to normal. For that matter, there is relatively widespread belief that “normal” will never return. No one knows what the future will hold.

So, it’s not surprising that parents, students and school personnel are all feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Continuing to hold classes online while simultaneously ensuring that students and families have the needed technological resources — or, in some cases, the absolute basics, such as enough food to eat — continues to be a team effort.

Because safeguarding the mental, emotional and physical welfare of students is the essence of what school counselors do, these professionals have typically been at the center of the problem-solving process since the arrival of the coronavirus. They have conducted check-in phone calls to make sure students had the necessary equipment and internet access; helped parents (or grandparents) with technological troubleshooting; arranged for families in need to receive gift cards and community resources; responded to requests from teachers to find out why students weren’t showing up for online class (and then worked to resolve whatever the barrier was); reassured stressed-out parents; coached families on how to set up a structured school day; made mental health referrals for students in crisis; and provided moral support to teachers, administrators and each other. All while finding ways to continue offering academic guidance, focusing on students’ emotional and social learning, and giving specific support to children who were struggling with various personal and school-related issues.

Counseling Today spoke to several school counselors at the end of the 2019-2020 school year and as they prepared for the new 2020 fall semester to learn more about the challenges of performing their jobs in the midst of a pandemic.

 

Linda Colón
Counselor for prekindergarten and kindergarten students, Bancroft Elementary School, Washington, D.C.

Bancroft is a Title I school (i.e., a facility that receives financial assistance due to a high population of students from families with low incomes) with a majority Latinx student body that also includes children of Ethiopian immigrants. Many of the families in the district live in poverty and often share relatively small living quarters with extended family.

Under normal circumstances, American Counseling Association member Linda Colón gives Bancroft’s youngest students their earliest lessons in social and emotional learning. By observing (and joining) students at play, reading aloud to them, incorporating toys, conversing with puppets and showing self-produced videos, Colón teaches prekindergartners and kindergartners basic social skills and how to recognize and regulate their emotions.

Getting to know students’ families and getting them invested in their children’s learning has always been an integral part of Colón’s counseling approach. She says that she’s “planting a seed” of awareness about the importance of education and attendance from an early age. Colón meets with parents to answer questions and, if requested, gives them advice on how to reinforce the social and emotional lessons that their children are learning.

Another benefit of establishing a relationship with families — and checking in regularly via phone or in person (during nonpandemic times) — is that Colón can get a better sense of the problems with which the families might be struggling. If they trust the counselors and teachers, she says, they will be more likely to reach out if they need help addressing emotional or mental health problems or accessing vital resources such as food and shelter.

Colón has been finding new ways to stay connected to her students and their families since March, when schools across the metropolitan region shut their doors and transitioned to online learning to finish out the school year because of the coronavirus. Schools in Washington, D.C., opted to begin the new year virtually as well, with an option to reevaluate in November.

“We can’t just say, ‘This isn’t going to work,’” Colón says. “We have to figure it out. We owe it to the kids.”

Before in-person learning ceased completely in March, Colón, knowing that the children were feeling anxious, created a lesson centered on “claiming strategies.” She reminded the children that when they were really afraid, it was helpful to talk about it, and she provided them with some age-appropriate safety information.

But the most important piece was the practical activity: washing hands. “We want to keep the germs away, so we wash our hands for 20 seconds,” Colón told the children, reinforcing the statement with videos and puppet demonstrations of hand-washing.

Colón also made videos so that the children’s social and emotional learning could continue virtually. The videos covered topics such as keeping a positive mindset, practicing breathing techniques and exercising mindfulness.

Colón also spoke to some of her students and their families one-on-one, either on the phone or via Microsoft Meetings, to find out how they were coping, to offer a sympathetic ear to stressed-out parents and to provide a reassuring presence for anxious children. She has given her phone number to parents and encouraged them to call or text her if they need help. As distance learning continues, she has been encouraging teachers to reach out as much as possible too. In addition, Colón has worked directly with parents to help solve technological problems.

This year, one of her initiatives is to help parents find a way to provide a space for children to take a break from their surroundings — a relaxation bubble. Many of her students live in small spaces, so the “bubble” might be something as simple and small as a blanket draped over a chair to make a mini tent.

Even at a young age, children are more aware of what is going on around them than most people realize, Colón says. They know that people are sick and dying, and at this age, children are less able to process the fear, which leaves them at risk of getting stuck in fight-or-flight mode. When they are at school, they can see their friends on the playground and have other opportunities to get away, but at home, exposure to trauma — even if only through the television — may be inescapable.

Activities such as drawing, watching a fun video or escaping to their relaxation bubble can help relieve the agitation, Colón says. The staff at Colón’s school has requested that markers, crayons and paper be sent to all the families.

Research also shows that when people are experiencing trauma, simply making a connection with a sympathetic presence can help, Colón says. So, she believes that keeping in contact with students and families is one of the most important things school staff can do right now.

“It’s finding a way to establish that connectedness,” she says. “When you’re in school, you’re waving to them [students and families], saying ‘Hi, good morning,’ singing a silly song. You’re doing something to make a connection that doesn’t have anything to do with academics.”

“I think our [school counseling] services are needed more than ever,” Colón says. “We’re the ones who are getting the pulse [of the community].”

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Natasha Griffith
Counselor for first through sixth grades and homeless coordinator, Dorothy I. Height Elementary School, Washington, D.C.

Height is also a Title I school, with many of its families living at or below the poverty level. Most of the students are Black — primarily first-generation Ethiopian. Approximately 20 to 30 percent of students are Latinx.

“I think this year, I’ll feel proud and accomplished if I can master Microsoft Teams and have whole class sessions,” says ACA member Natasha Griffith, whose school — like Colón’s — will be all virtual until at least November. She has modest goals for kicking off the school year, including holding a few smaller group sessions with students in fourth through sixth grades. Griffith’s role as the school’s homeless coordinator — which involves helping families in transitional housing find financial and community resources — can make that goal challenging. “I have to focus on the barriers that children and their parents face,” she says.

Griffith says she and her co-workers “hit the ground running” last spring when school buildings closed, distributing gift cards from the city’s public services department and money from a GoFundMe campaign to the neediest families and making sure that students had computers. But there will be an ongoing need for assistance during the current school year. In fact, although Griffith wasn’t officially working over the summer, she heard from families in search of additional gift cards and did some interpreting for the school’s technology contact, who doesn’t speak Spanish. Most of the students received computers or iPads in the spring, but stable internet access was a persistent problem, so the school has been setting families up with mobile hotspot devices (routers connected to a cellular data network that provides Wi-Fi connectivity).

Griffith will also continue to call families to check in on students who aren’t showing up online. If their absence is due to technological problems, she will make sure they get the resources they need. If the absence is because the students and families aren’t adapting well to virtual learning, then Griffith will do her best to help them navigate the unfamiliar territory and highlight how important it is for students to participate so that they don’t fall behind. “So many students weren’t participating [last spring],” she says. Even if families aren’t experiencing technological difficulties, many of them still aren’t sold on virtual learning, Griffith says.

Unfortunately, as is the case in many communities across the country, there will be cases in which Griffith isn’t able to get in touch with families. The counseling staff at Height does work closely with a social worker from Washington’s department of public health who is responsible for connecting families with resources, and Griffith says that she has been able to accomplish a lot. Even so, the reality is that educational continuity is incredibly difficult for schools to provide during the pandemic.

As she did last spring, Griffith will continue to help bridge the gap between parents and teachers. Many parents are feeling overwhelmed, and coping with online learning is yet another source of frustration for them. Griffith provides a listening ear and works toward helping families see that the school staff is there to help, not to judge. She is also concentrating on developing lesson plans that help students navigate the virtual landscape and encouraging them to ask for help when they need it.

Another challenge Griffith is facing is that she has no designated “classroom time” online. To present lessons, she has to be flexible and grab any spare time that teachers have in their class schedules. To supplement, she is planning on developing videos covering the social and emotional learning topics that make up the core part of her counseling curriculum, including managing anger, building self-esteem, learning to identify emotions, developing resilience and using tools for academic success. She has been rearranging her apartment to carve out a space for filming. The videos will be posted on Microsoft Teams for the students to access on demand.

In the spring, Griffith created a few virtual “lunch bunches” for small groups of students. She and the children would play games such as self-care bingo; squares included actions such as taking a shower, eating breakfast, listening to your body, taking a break, meditating, calling a friend and saying something good about yourself. She would also ask students about what they were doing outside of their classroom lessons. “It gave them a place to talk about missing their friends,” she says. “It was also something social that wasn’t related to school.”

Griffith is starting up the virtual lunches again during the current school year. She would also like to find a way to virtually re-create the in-person restorative circles that she used to hold in school. The activity, which usually involved 20-22 students, was focused on building community. Griffith would ask open-ended questions (usually focused on having respect for fellow students) and present students with a talking piece to pass around the circle. Students could choose to keep the piece and speak, or pass it on.

“I think restorative circles work well because they allow students to express their feelings about various social and emotional learning topics,” she says. “It allows students to take ownership and be an involved participant in the classroom community.”

Griffith will continue to connect with students any way she can while her school is held online, but she believes there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction. “Especially for these kids,” she says. “Saying in person, ‘You’ve got this. You can do this.’ That’s what I live for as a school counselor … [to] make a difference and tell them they matter.”

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Judy Trigiani
Counselor for kindergarten through sixth grades, Spring Hill Elementary School, McLean, Virginia.

Spring Hill has a large population of international students, many of them the children of diplomats and business people from around the world. Some of these families temporarily relocated to their home countries to wait out the pandemic and have not yet returned to the U.S.

The plan for ACA member Judy Trigiani’s school district is to operate exclusively online through at least the first quarter of the school year and then to reevaluate. But as Trigiani noted at the end of the prior school year, one of the biggest burdens of the pandemic for people is not knowing when it will end. Or, in the case of schools, when bringing students back in person will not carry the threat of widespread community spread. “We are trying to plan for the unknown. We don’t know when we’ll go back yet,” Trigiani says.

In the meantime, Trigiani and the rest of the staff at Spring Hill continue to try to keep things as “normal” as possible. Traditionally, the school’s year starts with an open house and a new family and student orientation. This year is no exception; however, the events will all be virtual. Families and students will connect via Blackboard Collaborate, where staff will introduce themselves and talk about the school community, scheduling and resources available to parents. A question-and-answer session will follow. The school is also hosting town hall meetings and a kindergarten orientation to present new resources and answer questions.

This year, there will also be a technology orientation to demonstrate Blackboard features such as the icons for accessing the microphone and video and “raising” your hand; how to magnify the screen; agreeing, disagreeing and reacting to the teacher and fellow students with emojis; and where to find the chat box, Trigiani says. The technology orientation will also cover some of the other programs the school will be using. Blackboard Collaborate enables staff to post videos and PowerPoints and share their screens. The tech session will also demonstrate how to access the website and the asynchronous learning area (video sessions that students can watch on their own schedule). Trigiani has also been preparing PowerPoint presentations for parents on topics such as setting up their children’s workspaces and how to talk to children about COVID-19.

Trigiani and the rest of the counseling staff will continue to visit the virtual classrooms every morning to check in and say, “We’re here if you need anything.” There are 18 classrooms per counselor, and counselors go into one classroom each day, she explains. Sometimes, they conduct a lesson. Other times, Trigiani will show up early just to chat with the kids, asking them to use the emojis to let her know how they are doing. If a student expresses distress or Trigiani hears or sees something that causes her concern, she meets with the student individually online and works to address the issue.

Individual counseling, social skills instruction, school counseling programs, parent meetings, the identification and sharing of resources — all of the normal work of school counselors also continues virtually. In addition, Trigiani works with parents who are struggling to cope with their children’s behavioral, social and emotional issues. If necessary, the counseling staff makes referrals to outside mental health resources.

The key, Trigiani says, is something that one of her former bosses used to say: “Keep your community and people informed, and stay as positive and flexible as you can.”

Trigiani believes that technology will continue to become more and more critical to school counseling, even after schools decide to return to the in-person model. Not only will retaining a virtual element allow medically fragile students better access to education, but it will also help counselors prepare students for 21st-century jobs by enabling them to give students training in online social skills, Trigiani asserts.

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Randi Vogel
Counselor for sixth grade, Thomas Pyle Middle School, Bethesda, Maryland.

Pyle also has a significant number of international students, which means that the student population is somewhat transitory.

“This pandemic has really brought to light the social-emotional needs of our students,” ACA member Randi Vogel says. “Even students who we considered very solid are having difficulties.”

In the spring, several students who were already struggling with mental health issues deteriorated further with the loss of a structured school environment and ended up needing to be hospitalized, she says. But even students who had no history of mental health issues were experiencing anxiety and stress.

After school moved online, Vogel and her team put out an announcement on the school portal that they were available via email and Zoom. They also sent out regular surveys asking students how they were feeling, if they needed anything or whether they just wanted to share.

One girl replied that she needed a Chromebook laptop to keep up with her school assignments. Another student said, “I miss you — and I fell and broke my arm.” Some students expressed that they just really wanted to talk, so Vogel and her team connected with them individually via video chats.

The surveys also asked students what they were doing to take care of themselves and to whom they had reached out. Every time that Vogel spoke to a student, she would ask them what they were doing for themselves.

Vogel’s district is starting the new school year with virtual-only instruction and will reassess in November. Although many students may have initially enjoyed the novelty of learning from home, that sentiment generally seems to have worn off, Vogel says. “I have heard from several parents and students that they truly miss the school experience — chatting in the halls with their friends, switching classes, the cafeteria, after-school activities, the bus rides to and from school.”

Although her school can’t re-create those experiences, the days will be more structured and organized for students this year, she says. There will be more live and interactive instruction, in contrast to this past spring, when teachers primarily gave lessons via “asynchronous learning,” which involved using previously recorded videos that students would watch on their own. Teachers then offered online “office hours” to field follow-up questions.

“Parents definitely want more ‘live’ instruction and for more of the day to mimic what occurs in the building,” Vogel says. Although this may help virtual lessons to feel more like regular class, she anticipates that students will have difficulty being on their screens for so many hours, despite the breaks that have been built into the schedule.

“We, as counselors, will continue to reach out to our students to see how we can help them virtually,” she says. “This might look like lunch bunches or initiating one-on-one Zoom calls as check-ins.”

Vogel says her counseling department really prided itself on always being available to students during the day. In fact, they had several students who were issued “flash passes” so they could come to the counseling office anytime they needed a break. “Once we are back in the building, I expect that to resume,” she says. “However, it is much more challenging to establish relationships with middle schoolers via Zoom.”

Because so many students are struggling or just need a little extra help coping, Vogel and her colleagues will be incorporating more mindfulness and stress-reduction activities and class meetings into the virtual day for students. “I think it will be very beneficial to have the students hear from one another how they are managing and that they are not alone with their feelings,” she says.

 

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Additional resources

To learn more about the topics discussed in this article, take advantage of the following select resources offered by the American Counseling Association:

Counseling Today (ct.counseling.org)

ACA School Counselor Connection (counseling.org/membership/aca-and-you/school-counselors/school-counselor)

ACA Mental Health Resources (counseling.org/knowledge-center/mental-health-resources/)

Books & DVDs (imis.counseling.org/store)

Books

  • A School Counselor’s Guide to Small Groups: Coordination, Leadership, and Assessment edited by Sarah I . Springer, Lauren J. Moss, Nader Manavizadeh and Ashley Pugliese
  • Critical Incidents in School Counseling, Third Edition, by Tarrell Awe Agahe Portman, Chris Wood and Heather J. Fye
  • Developing and Managing Your School Guidance and Counseling Program, Fifth Edition, by Norman C. Gysbers and Patricia Henderson
  • Solution-Focused Counseling in Schools, Third Edition, by John J. Murphy

DVDs

  • Acute and Severe Behavior Problems presented by Dave Scott
  • Bullying in Schools: Six Methods of Intervention presented by Ken Rigby
  • Managing Conflict in Schools: A New Approach to Disciplinary Offense presented by John Winslade
  • Quality Circle Time in the Secondary School presented by Jenny Mosley

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Laurie Meyers is a senior writer for Counseling Today. Contact her at lmeyers@counseling.org.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.