Fine Lines and Touchy Conversations: Differentiating School Counseling and Behavior Intervention

Clear Roles in Behavior Intervention Advocacy

Hey , hey , school counselor . Welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast . Steph Johnson here to continue our series on behavior intervention . Last week we kind of talked through the theoretical foundations of why school counselors often get pulled into acting as behavior interventionists on campus , the skills and knowledge and expertise we can contribute , and why that is most often completely inappropriate for the work we do , as well as some thoughts about avoiding imposter syndrome . When you're working through some of these behavior situations on campus which , by the way , you were probably never trained to handle and feeling like you just can't get the results you need , like perhaps you're failing the student , those kinds of things , how do we avoid feeling that way ? How do we remember what a great school counselor we are ? That's all in this past episode , so if you missed it , go back and give it a listen .

This week I want to take a little bit of a different tack on the behavior intervention piece . I'm going to try to make this super quick , but I want to talk about how you begin to have these conversations about behavior intervention if you're one of those people who just gets bombarded with behavior all day long when you feel like you can't get to your roles and responsibilities on campus , where you're having to let things slide , where you're not getting to see the students you plan to see because you're dealing with behaviors all the time , those kinds of things . How then do you begin to advocate to have some support in the behavior arena , to have some extra folks on hand to help work through those , to have some people who really take initiative and leading the charge , where you can just play a supporting role , instead of having to be the emergency response all the time . That gets really wearing . It gets really draining . And when we're called upon to implement primarily Tier 1 and Tier 2 initiatives , the Tier 3 emergency response really shouldn't be part of our universe all the time .

So we need to be able to really fluently and efficiently explain the differences between school counseling and behavior intervention and , as I said in the last episode , I think a lot of people think that those two are pretty much the same thing , because we talk all the time about social emotional learning . Right , that's a big buzzword , a big keyword for everybody these days , and folks think , well , behavior is social and emotional , so school counselors got it . I mean , that's what they do , they should be a rock star at this and they don't understand that in behavior intervention there are specific initiatives for specific things we need to try . There's functional behavior analyses that can be done . There are behavior intervention plans that can be written , behavior goals all this other stuff that we typically are not trained in . We want to help , we want to empathize with students . We can deescalate them like nobody's business , but that doesn't mean that we should be responsible for the behavior intervention . So how can we have these conversations without appearing confrontational , without appearing like we're just trying to pawn this off on somebody else ? We know we're not doing that , but often that's not the way it's interpreted right . How can we emphasize our distinct focuses , our purposes , the methodologies of school counseling as compared to behavior intervention ? And well , here's your list for that Number one you have to be really effective in clearly defining your intended role on campus .

That does not mean printing out the list of appropriate ASCA duties and non-counseling duties . That's not what that is . If you have that list , go shred it right now . You don't need it . That's not part of the conversation . We do need to really emphasize the academic , social , emotional and career realms . We really need to get intentional about having those conversations and we really need to get upfront about .

We are working proactively to promote student success . We're looking at prevention , guidance and support . Okay , prevention , guidance and support , as opposed to behavior intervention . We've got to get really good at talking about our key responsibilities , that we are responsible for Tier 1 initiatives on our campuses . We need to be providing counseling services to all students , not just our Tier 3 behavior kids . It's a conversation about forsaking the needs of the many for the needs of the few and we need to be able to differentiate the services we provide from a behavior interventionist . We look at preventing things before they escalate right . We look at building positive school climates so students feel supported , they feel engaged , they feel wanted at school and we give students the essential life skills they need to be effective , not isolating particular behavior incidents and trying to provide interventions for a tiny subset of our school population .

We can explain that we can be collaborative in behavior intervention . We can work to help develop plans . We can work to help identify different accommodations that might be used in behavior intervention , but that we have not been trained to conduct functional behavior assessments . We've not been trained to develop BIPs or behavior intervention plans . We typically have not been instructed on how to write behavior goals within IEPs , those kinds of things . Those are all very specific skill sets , most usually within special education , and while we're familiar with special education , we know about how to work with students with learning disabilities and developmental disabilities .

That's not the primary component in our wheelhouse , because we're looking at our student population at large and so we can emphasize that we can work together with behavior intervention personnel , with school psychologists , with all of the behavior support people that we have either on our campuses or in our districts to provide support for students , but that we cannot be the primary ringleader in this . That's not our scope . We're not trained to do it and we're not going to be effective . We're going to see a lot of students falling back right . We're going to see lots of students perhaps not making a lot of progress . We have a lot of people scratching their heads wondering what's going on . It was just like if you take a high school English teacher and put them in a calculus class to teach it , you're probably not going to be very successful . That's what we're looking at here , and really guiding your campus toward articulating the different roles and functions of the personnel on your campus will go such a long way If I had a dollar for every school counselor I heard say you know well , we have this person and that person and this person on campus and I'm really not sure what the differences are or if I should be doing this or if they should be doing that . We all just kind of help each other , which is great . We all need to be helping each other . We all need a strong team , but at the same time , everybody needs to find roles and responsibilities .

I think this is where a lot of this gray area and behavior intervention arises from , because no one's quite sure who should be handling that . One thing that can really help us in these conversations is , of course , our data , our data driven programming , things like our use of time data . How much time are we utilizing to respond to behavior crises in the classroom ? How much of our time is spent in consultation on these behavior interventions because we're the leader of that committee or the leader of that team ? We've got to have some good hard stats on that . We've got to be able to really show in a black and white manner the amount of time that's being spent on behavior intervention . Now there are some nuances to having those conversations constructively . That's something we talk about quite a bit in our School for School Counselors Mastermind , we're working within what we call our data discussions cohorts right now , identifying best data pieces to collect on campus , how to collect them , what to do with them once we have them and then , ultimately , what kinds of conversations we want to have about those at the ends of each semester . It's a super powerful experience . So if you don't feel confident and competent with your data driven initiatives yet , I would encourage you think about hopping in that data discussions cohort . It's not too late to get in there . It's transformative what it can do for your school counseling program and we are consistently developing new tools to guide all of our members in their best data collection efforts . But anyway , you want to make sure that you really have some clear stats on where your time is going with behavior intervention . You need to be showing data on your campus at large as well .

What percentage of your students are considered your heavy hitters ? Where are they located ? What grades are they in ? How many times were they sent to see you before things escalated ?

I like to keep something that I called my what I missed list , and my what I missed list is anything that I had on my calendar that I wasn't able to get to because I was called to something unplanned . Think about that for a minute . So I have my pre-determined schedule for the day . I know a lot of people think that is pure folly , right ? Because of the nature of our work it's really hard to plan ahead . It's really hard to plan a day . But if I can plan these things out , if I can schedule all of the kiddos that I need to see for tier two concerns , if I can't get all my meetings in there , if I can get lessons in there whatever it is . And then let's say , for argument's sake , I get called away for some behavior intervention . Anything that I missed during that time goes on a spreadsheet and I'm logging the time I missed that I should have been providing true school counseling services in lieu of providing behavior intervention .

It's my what I missed list . I compile that every year and it's been kind of an eye-opener for a couple of administrators that I've had throughout my career for them to go oh , I do see that that is a problem , but unless they're able to see it in black and white , it doesn't exist right . We've got to be able to see that problem and , as I've said often , data is the love language of your school administrator nine times out of 10 . So speak the language they understand and start compiling these lists . It sounds like so much to do . It sounds overwhelming , and I get it . But I promise you , if you'll make the effort to do this and we can make it exponentially easier through our Mastermind Data Cohort , you're going to see a return on that investment that is absolutely going to blow your mind .

All right , I'm gonna leave this here for this week . So far , we've walked through kind of the basics of behavior intervention , all of the nuance surrounding that , and now today , how to really advocate if you're stuck in one of these behavior intervention roles , how to have that powerful conversation and disclaimer . It's gonna take more than once , I think . Often we romanticize this idea that we're gonna walk into our administrator's office , we're gonna have our data printouts , we're gonna have this great explanation and argument for why they should take these responsibilities off our plate , and that the administrator is just magically gonna say oh my goodness , thank you so much , I've seen the light . I'm totally going to make this change .

Building School Counseling Expertise and Respect

Often that's not the way that works . Hate to burst your bubble . It is definitely a concerted effort over time , but it will pay off . It will pay off , I promise you , and if nothing else , you're building respect and an appreciation for your expertise and your program . In the meantime , all right , I'll be back soon with another episode . I'm gonna jump into functional behavior assessments , behavior intervention plans all of that good stuff in the next episode of the School for School Counselors podcast . But in the meantime , I hope you have the best week . Take care .