I don't know about you, but keeping up has been extremely difficult for me personally and professionally. In the fall, I decided to leave my comfortable life of retirement and take a full time position as a counselor/college advisor at a private school. You may ask why I decided to do this in the middle of a pandemic???? Good question. Well, this is due to the fact that all my family members were now home from school and work and I was tired of them screaming my name constantly. My name being called a thousand times a day was not something I personally found comforting, so when I received a text from a friend that an opening was available for a counselor, I jumped on it. Although I love being a counselor, the job entailed more of college counseling than personal-social counseling. Students and parents were extremely worried about college admissions for the upcoming term and this left little time to deal with any mental health issues that students may have been facing due to the pandemic. And, believe me, there were many obstacles this past year. Students were sick, students lost loved ones, students were out due to quarantine, students lost instructional time, students were stressed, faculty members were out for extended periods of time, and on and on. In March, I eventually contracted COVID-19 and I was out of school for several weeks. The physical and mental toll of the virus left me feeling fatigued and lethargic for over three months. Some of my colleagues, who have had the virus, informed me that their symptoms lasted for up to six months. These physical and mental symptoms have negatively impacted so many areas of my life and my blog. At one point, I was writing on my blog two to three times a month, but now, I am lucky to write on it every two months. Why I am telling you all this? I find myself to be a pretty driven person. I work a full time job at a private school, I teach a peer leadership class part-time, I volunteer for several organizations, and now, I found myself just wanting to sit in front of the television and just zone out. If I am feeling this way, I know many of our faculty and students are going to be facing similar challenges as they arrive back in our buildings in the fall. According to the experts, as school counselors we will be facing one of the greatest mental health challenges that we have ever seen. This blog is to help you think about what you can do when the students return.
My goal in this post is not to tell you things that you don't already know. You know that before the pandemic that depression, anxiety, and suicide rates were on the increase. You know that many students were not utilizing counseling services. You know that there is an impending mental health crisis on the way. Urggghhhhh! So, what can the school counselor do to prepare for this mental health tsunami? One suggestion, by researchers is to adopt an identity that you are not just an educator, but you are a mental health provider as well. Often, as school counselors, we tend to compartmentalize our jobs. For instance, this past year, I was only serving in the capacity of academics and not really assisting with mental health services. At the end of the year, I realized that I am going to have to be pro-active in the area of providing mental health services for my students. Although, I am comfortable providing mental health services, I realize that the majority of school counselors do not feel as comfortable with providing these services. I totally get that many school counselors do not feel that their counselor education programs have adequately prepared them for providing mental health services; however, studies have shown that school counseling and clinical mental health students share the same CACREP competencies. Although there may be differences in our field experiences, studies show that school counselors are able to handle the mental health crises that arise in schools. I know, you may be thinking, I don't have time to handle these situations...there is testing, transcripts, scheduling, and the list goes on and on. Well, I would love to tell you that you are off the hook, but the reality is that schools that do nothing to assist students in crisis can be liable for negligence, especially in the state of Colorado with the passing of the Claire Davis Act of 2015. So, doing nothing is not really an option for us...
Maybe you are thinking that you are pretty effective in helping a student during a crisis. I am with you as I feel this is one of my greatest strengths. I can identify a student in crisis, get that student help, and make a referral in no time at all. However, here is one area in which researchers feel that school counselors need more training and this is in the area of postvention. Postvention is defined as strategies employed following a traumatic event, like COVID-19. The question for us, and for me, is are we ready for students arriving back in our buildings in the fall? In fact, professors Vasti Holstun and Joe Maldando, believe that in order to be effective in helping students in the upcoming mental health crisis, school counselors can be most effective in helping students grow from this trauma event. The idea of growing from a trauma event is known as Post-traumatic growth (PTG). Founded by psychologists, Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun in the 1990s, Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is the transformation following trauma and holds that people who endure psychological struggle following adversity can often see positive growth afterwards (source: American Psychological Association).
There are five areas of growth:
- Appreciation of life.
- Relationships with others.
- New possibilities in life.
- Personal strength.
- Spiritual change.
I found this article insightful for school counselors preparing students for college. It's essential for counselors to guide students effectively. Additionally, services like "Do my assignment" can offer valuable Assignment Help, ensuring students excel academically and manage their workload efficiently. A great resource for both counselors and students!
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