6 Ways To Involve Teachers In School Counseling
One of the things I love about working with kids, and also find the most frustrating, is that they don’t exist in a vacuum. Our students are constantly being impacted and affected by the things going on around them. That is why one of the best ways to help our students make progress is by collaborating with the people who spend all day with the students - their classroom teachers. When we can involve teachers in our school counseling work, we can better support the students we serve.
When I think back on the most successful work I have done with students, it always involves working with a team of teachers and staff to support the student in every school setting. Keep reading to hear my favorite ideas for involving teachers in school counseling!
1- Work with students in the classroom
When feasible, provide support for the student in the classroom. This is a great strategy when working with individual students on social skills, executive functioning skills, etc. Teaching students important SEL skills in a real life setting can help increase carryover. This also involves the teacher in the counseling work you are doing so that you can better support the students together.
2- Send a follow up e-mail after your counseling lessons
After small group counseling lessons, it can be helpful to send a quick newsletter or e-mail to the teachers. This can also be done if the teacher is not present for classroom lessons. Use the e-mail to give the teachers a general understanding of the topics you are covering. You can also include practical ideas and tips that they can use to build upon your counseling lessons in the classroom, like using these SEL challenge boards. By sending a quick e-mail with an overview and practical tips, you can easily involve teachers in your counseling work.
3- Include materials that students can take home.
When giving lessons in a small group or even individual setting, I love to have the students create something that they can take home. This can be an interactive notebook page, a foldable activity, a bookmark, etc. You can then encourage the students to share with their teachers about the things they have learned. Depending on what it is, teachers can also use the work the students have done to make a display in their own classroom.
4- Provide visual aids for teachers to hang in their rooms
If you are using visual aids or posters in your classroom lessons (like the bullying posters pictured below) ask the teacher if you can leave them in the classroom for students to continue using after the lesson. This is a great way to help teachers support the work that you are doing because it keeps the students from moving on past the topic once your lesson is over. When the visual aids or posters are in the classroom, students will be more likely to remember the topics covered in the counseling lessons.
5- Involve teachers in your counseling lessons
While you are doing classroom lessons, involve the teacher by asking him/her to stay in the room. Even if the classroom teacher is working on something else, simply having them in the room can help them be more familiar with the topic you are teaching about. This can then give them more opportunities to build upon what you are teaching after the lesson is over.
6- Ask teachers what you can do to support them and then follow up
Just like we need teachers in our court, they need us in theirs. Taking the time to ask what we as counselors can do to support them in helping their students is such an important step. We truly are all in this together and we need to work together to care for the needs of our students.
As a school counselor, collaboration is a must if we want to truly make an impact on the students we serve. I hope these 6 tips will help you involve teachers in your counseling work to support students in the best way possible. While being on the same page as teachers and other school staff is incredibly important, don’t forget to involve parents in your counseling work as well. This can be more difficult, as you likely don’t see them every day. However, there are still many great ways that you can connect with the parents at your school!
