Timely Insights for New (And Not-So-New) School Counselors

Building Relationships and Boundaries in Counseling

Hello , hello , hello . Welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast . Steph Johnson here back with you another week , and this week I want to bring you a little bit from a wonderful event we just wrapped up a few days ago , called our New Counselor Academy . We had such a great time . Everyone there just happened to be within the first one to three years of their school counseling journey , and it was so fun to talk through all the things that were on their mind , all the things they were wondering about planning for and , of course , some things they hadn't even thought about yet . So I wanted to bring you just a few little excerpts of the things that we talked about in our Academy , not only to give you a feel for what our events are like and the kind of information that we love to give you , but also because they're great reminders . If you're an experienced school counselor , these are going to be some things that are going to make you think , oh , my gosh , yeah , I had forgotten about that , or that's a different way of looking at it than I've done before . And if you're a new school counselor , well , you're in for a treat , as we have lots of great information , lots of great insights for you and ways of looking at your job that almost no one else ever tells you .

So we're going to start this podcast episode off with a quick little excerpt from almost the beginning of the new Counselor Academy . Take a listen , all right . So the first thing that I would like to jump into , if I may take the liberty , was not on anybody's chat list question , but I think it's something that's really important . It's something that is not talked about in grad school often and really should be , and if you listen to the podcast , you've probably heard me talk about this off and on , where I talk about this perfect world scenario that you're presented with when you're in grad school and this idea that once you get hired in a school to serve as a school counselor , you're going to be able to serve with this ultimate autonomy right . You're going to be able to make decisions about your programming , you're going to be trusted as the expert on your campus , you are going to be deferred to , and that's not the case . Not to sound discouraging , but I think it's something we need to be prepared for . It's not a bad thing that those don't happen , but if we go in with that mindset and that expectation and then it doesn't end up being that way .

Often we feel really let down , we feel really discouraged . Sometimes I've even heard counselors wonder what's wrong with me . What did I do wrong ? What am I not doing ? How can I better collaborate with my administration , whatever the case may be ? So we've got to be really careful on walking into these programs with this perfect scenario . We've also got to be this kind of goes hand in hand with this . We've got to be really careful of a savior complex and it's very easy to slip into .

Some of you are sitting there probably thinking that'll never be me . I will never . That will never be me . But we all do it . We all do it , especially when we're either first getting started overall or we get started on a new campus and everything's fresh and it's exciting and new . We slip into this role where we appoint ourselves the savior of the students and it's our job to go in and rescue everybody from all the problems that are going on all across the campus . And because we're on fire , we're motivated , we really want to just get in there and do the best that we can do . And then , when we hit these roadblocks like I just talked about , then we start to feel discouraged , we feel maybe a little disenfranchised by it and it really starts to bring us down . So number one , remember most programs are not going to be the ASCA model that you were taught , if you were taught school counseling programming at all . Second thing be careful as you're being mindful of this , not wanting to come in and be the rescuer , being the one that's going to turn everything around . You've just you've got to keep some really good boundaries in place .

But when I'm talking about boundaries , I'm not talking about them . We typically think of boundaries , and when we usually think of boundaries , we think about time right , making sure we're not staying too late , we're not getting there too early , that we're still taking care of ourselves . When we think about boundaries , we think about self care and managing our own well-being , and then we think about advocacy right in our role , boundaries in what we're called to do on campus , why we should do them or we shouldn't do them . Those boundaries are wonderful , but we have to have some boundaries too with ourselves about the kinds of services or solutions we're going to offer . Oftentimes we get really invested in again , hoping with all the things , doing all the things , and when the year starts sometimes it can start at a little bit slower pace than the rest of the year . Either that or your campus is going to say , yippee , somebody new is here and they're going to start calling you to everything . In both of those scenarios it's going to be really important to self monitor your time and your effort to make sure that you've got good boundaries between what is really a school counseling specific role and what is more of a long term counseling therapy role . Those are really easy to slip into those long term counseling roles . It'll happen before you know it . Because you love these kids , you want to help them , you want to make a difference .

I think every single person I've ever talked to when we've been preparing for school counselor interviews , when I asked them what led you to be a school counselor , almost every single one says I want to build relationships with students . How many of you have said that I want to build relationships with students ? Say yes in the chat . If you ask , we get really invested in that . I see tons of yeses coming out right now . We get super invested in that idea . We want to build these relationships , which is awesome . We need to be doing that . But then we start letting our boundaries slip a little bit and we start slipping into that role of the savior , and we don't want to do that . I'm here .

Our conversation in this session shifted just a little bit and you'll hear me open this portion by reading a question someone had typed into the chat box in our Zoom room talking about instant gratification and how we work with and against that in our school counseling role . Take a listen , let's see . I struggle with that because I feel I'm not successful without the instant gratification of being the problem solver . That might be one of the most insightful things I have ever seen in a Zoom chat in my life . I think you're a thousand percent on target and I think that is extremely common .

Delayed gratification is hard for everybody . As much as we hate to admit it , it's very difficult for school counselors also , even as adults , because we do want to be able to show up and say , hey , buddy , what's wrong ? And 20 minutes later have them walking out with a smile on their face and all is right with their world . We could give anything to be able to make that happen , and some days we get lucky and we do , but other days it's a little bit more of a challenge and again we get down on ourselves about it . We wonder what could I have done better , differently , was it me that kind of stuff ? Don't fall into that trap , don't do it . Just remember your most fundamental , most primary element of everything you do beyond the worksheets , beyond the curriculums you see my air quotes right now Beyond the activities and the games and the books and the crafts , beyond all that stuff , it's relationship , and you guys know that from your grad studies . You remember all your Carl Rogers and all that kind of stuff , and relationship is that fundamental element .

Importance of School Counselor Relationships

Our students are people and relationships are paramount to them , and I really believe that a lot of the dysregulation that we're seeing on campuses is due to lack of relationship . I think a lot of our families are struggling to make connection right now . I think that and this is just personal opinion , this isn't empirical in any way but we all turned toward things to occupy ourselves when we were in quarantines and shutdowns and we lost some of the magic of the connection if we weren't careful , and I think we're seeing the result of that in our schools . We've really got to work on relationship and I know some of my toughest kids when I let go of planning counseling sessions and creating activities and let's do all these things . When I stopped trying to do the to-do list with them and was just real with them in the moment , that's when things started to change . So if you don't feel like you're the problem solver in the moment , if you feel like you're struggling with things , I would say lean into that relationship hard . Lean into it hard . It will never , ever steer you wrong . Even with your toughest kids that act like they want nothing to do with you . They would rather poke themselves in the eye than talk to you . Those are the ones you need to work with the most .

Oh my gosh , this was the best conversation y'all , and this Zoom session for the new counselor academy night one went well over an hour and a half as we talked inside , outside , through and around all of the things all of our participants were wondering about . We shifted gears a little bit here from talking about our students and our roles on campus to talking about how do we begin developing the types of relationships with our administrators that we need to not only be able to advocate for our roles , but to be able to enjoy going to work every day . So here you're going to hear me talk about not only building relationships with your administrative team , but also my best advice for your first few years on campus . I think that the secret ingredient is patience , which sounds kind of cliche and I hate cliche , but these things take time . A lot of conversations we see with folks talking about developing programming , turning programming around , building new school counseling programs on campus , anything like that . It always sounds like bing , bing , boom , it's done Within one school year . We've got it locked down , we're ready to go , we're ready to sail , and typically that's not how those are built .

My advice to new school counselors is always to spend the first year to two years not really getting super I don't want to say super motivated , but you don't want to get in and change a lot . You don't want to go in and introduce a lot of new initiatives . You don't want to go in and do a lot of I don't want to say extra either , because I don't want it to come across as you shouldn't be working hard , because you're going to be working hard , but you also don't want to come in as I'm the rock star counselor of all time and then you start to burn out . You're overwhelmed , you don't even know the extra things they're going to give you . As the school year goes through , there is inevitably those things where they go oh yeah , we forgot to tell you you're in charge of that . Oh yeah , we forgot , you're in charge of that .

It happens with everybody . So if you walk in with a thousand initiatives and you implement them all and then you get all this other stuff coming on top of you , that's when we start to lose people . That's when we start to see people saying I don't know if I'm kind of out for this work . This is too much . Nobody's listening to me , I can't do my job because they're just overwhelmed with all the things . It also takes a lot of mental bandwidth to be able to do that , to keep all these new ideas in the air .

Learn all the people on your campus . Try to learn all the kids names . Try to figure out where the copier is and how do you get a hold of the custodian if you need paper towels and all just a little minutiae that you encounter on campus . That's a lot . That's a lot . So my advice is always to spend the first year to two years watching , listening and learning . You'll find out a lot doing that Listening to your administrators and really listening , a lot of active listening , a lot of deep listening with the people that you're working with , because that's going to tell you more about that campus than anything and it's going to allow you to really invest in those relationships so that you can build that social capital on campus that you're going to need to have those big conversations later .

A lot of people think they know how schools work because they went to school right , and then you get into school and you realize it's nothing like what you thought it was Teaching . Same way , a lot of people become a teacher because they have teacher and they saw what the teacher did when they were there . So they figure they know all about teaching . And then you get into it and you realize it's nothing like what you thought . Administration is much the same . You think you know what they do all day because you see the kind of the outer elements of it . Unless you've been privileged enough to work really closely with somebody , you don't ever get to see the inside pieces of that , and it's a tough job .

I have trouble wrapping my mind around why anybody would want to do that job . God bless them . We need good school administrators . We also know there are a lot of administrators out there that aren't so great , right , we just got to be careful with that . But just keeping in mind that if they say something that doesn't feel right , if they do things that you're like I hate that . I don't know why they do that . Why are they asking me to do this ? They don't understand my role . We tend to slip into the blaming mentality because we're so invested in our work and we've got to remember their job is hard . They have the hardest job on campus and that often they're not taught what their school counselors can do for them . Nobody sits them down in their certification programs or their PhDs or whatever they have and say this is what the fundamentals of a good school counseling program look like . These are what the components are . If you can't let them implement , this is what it's going to do for your campus . Your attendance is going to go up . You're going to see achievement Go up . Let us show you all these studies that prove that they can help . Nobody ever does that . So they may be acting or speaking out of ignorance , and I mean that in the best way possible . They just don't know , and so we've got to really work on the advocacy piece . I'm going to take a liberty here and just get into advocacy from the inside out . That is something that we talk about a lot in our mastermind and we're talking about the typical way that people are instructed to advocate for their programs when things get tough .

You guys can watch this happen in social media in real time . It's about to gear up . Give us about another one or two weeks and you'll start to see tons of posts with people going . I just learned I'm in charge of 504 . I can't believe it . That's not a school counseling role . I've been assigned 47 hours of lunch duty every week and I'm working as a special education aide and I'm running every behavior intervention and I'm expected to mop the floor after PE or whatever it is .

And then everyone gets outraged . Everyone in the comments gets outraged . I'm making fun of this . It's really not funny , but everyone gets outraged . And then one of the probably first three or four commenters will say let's print out this handy list from ASCA that shows the counseling duties and the non-counseling duties and give it to your administrator .

All done , have you guys ever seen these conversations go on in social media ? It's like wildfire , or maybe more like a virus , and then so we have a lot of and let me back up , people are well-meaning when they give this advice . They truly do want to help , they truly do want to provide the resource and I truly believe that everyone in our field just wants to help lift each other up . I truly believe that . I do think that a lot of that kind of advice is misguided . I have never seen a principal be handed a list like that and go oh my stars , I wish I had known this sooner . Let me change it now . This almost never going to happen . How they're going to interpret it 99% of the time is oh , you think you know how to do my job , oh , you want to tell me how to run my school , and it's going to come across as antagonistic a little bit potentially . So we got to be really careful about how we have those advocacy conversations .

Advocacy and Patience in School Counseling

We compare that to someone in a house . You walk up to their house . You believe that something needs to be changed . You have a deep , resonant , overwhelming feeling that something needs to be changed in that house for the better . You cannot run up and start banging on the doors and windows , screaming and shouting Let me in . I have to tell you I have to do this . If you do that , they're going to be like go away , you're crazy , leave us alone . You're not making any sense and eventually , if you don't stop , they're going to figure out a way to remove you . But that's the way most of us are taught to advocate . Just give them this list . Just tell them this thing . Tell them that's not your responsibility . Tell them , show them the ASCA model . Do all the things . It doesn't come across .

Well , the folks that you're telling about this probably don't have the time or energy to invest in learning what a comprehensive school counseling program looks like and they don't know what's in it for them . So they're not going to be willing to have that conversation , especially when you're beating on doors and windows and trying to tell them what they need to change . Nobody wants to change . When you advocate from the inside out . You are building these relationships so that you can get invited in the front door , so that you are given a place at the table . Let's sit down , let's have a cup of tea , let's visit , and then somewhere in the course of that conversation , you have the opportunity to say you know what , I've been wondering about something and you're able to have a constructive and a stable conversation about whatever . It is Much better way to get your thoughts across than jumping on the roof , beating on the window panes , all that kind of stuff . It's just a different style of advocacy .

I think people are more likely to tend toward the first type , really aggressive type , because it feels like it's going to be faster and it feels like you have the weight of an organization behind you . Right , you feel like if you can invoke the name of ASCA , they'll listen . Most people don't know what ASCA is . My friends , we here , we talk about it all the time because we all know what it is . Nobody else knows what ASCA is and they don't care . But they don't , they do not care . So that approach is typically not fruitful .

And when we're advocating from the inside out , we're getting that place at the table , we're building those relationships , and that takes time . You're looking at probably , in my opinion , probably a good three to four years to get that seat at the table . Sometimes faster , sometimes a little slower , depends on the campus situation , but typically about three to four years to do that . So don't feel discouraged by it . There are other things that can still happen in the meantime . It doesn't mean that nothing can change in that time span , but your big changes , your vision of what school counseling is on your campus , a lot of your larger program duties , those kinds of things . For those to change it's going to take a little bit and , my friends , I mean that with every tiny fiber of my soul .

I think these are things we often overlook as we're training and mentoring new school counselors in our field , and I think that the value of patience , paying a few dues , biding your time and listening and learning to make discerning judgments about advocacy on your campus are way underrated . So I encourage you to really reflect on that . You always need to do what feels best to you . You always need to use your best judgment in your unique circumstance . But at the same time , take these words to heart , because I truly , truly believe that we don't lean on these kinds of ideas enough , and that's how people end up frustrated , overwhelmed and confused .

As we began to wind down session one , of course we had to talk about data , data-driven programming , data-driven advocacy and the way that we look at data as part of our job functions . Let me let you in on a little piece of that data discussion . You think there's anything else I'm going to tell you about data . I will also tell you . If you're keeping data remember and even have a podcast episode with this title , your data does not define you . When you start keeping this use of time data and you're watching percentages and ratios go by , it's really easy to see that you're not hitting those recommended numbers and you start to feel really down about it . And I can tell you that from firsthand experience , as well as the people that I've worked with , even though it may be your first year on a campus . You've just walked into this program and you're just following what you've been told to do . It still feels disheartening because we don't have that long-range plan in mind . We're still thinking very short-term that just as human beings , that's just what we do we have to be really careful to not carry all of that on your shoulders . You have to remember that if you were given complete autonomy to build your program the way you wanted to , it would be very easy to meet those percentages , probably . But because you are not and you're probably doing other things maybe you're doing 504 , you're doing testing coordination , you're doing lunch duties , you're doing all the things it's going to be a little bit harder to meet those . That doesn't mean that you're not a good school counselor . All that means is you're in a system that's not yet set up to facilitate that . And that brings us back to our advocacy piece For this last little snippet from the New Counselor Academy .

Challenges and Connections in School Counseling

I really debated about whether or not to include this in a podcast episode , but I knew that if I left it in , so many of you would kind of chuckle to yourselves . You might giggle and say , oh yes , I felt the same way . I know exactly what you're talking about , steph , so I decided to leave it in . It was a little piece of a story that I told about my very first official school day as a school counselor on campus , and you're going to hear one of our participants chatting with me a little bit about getting in and getting started on their campus . It was just a fun conversation and it was so great to remind not only the both of us but everyone that was in the New Counselor Academy with us that we all have these similar experiences . We all share the same frustrations , the same fears , the same imposter syndrome when we get started , and it was a great point of connection for all of us in the Zoom room . Take a listen , you're having total culture shock right now , aren't you , Jenny ? I totally resonate with that .

I remember my very first counseling job , oh , and so vividly . First day of school I was sitting in my office and I was like on the end of a hallway with all the fifth grade classes and a bell rang and all the kids are out like switching classes in the hallway and I was sitting in my office and there was no one in there with me and it was very quiet . And I remember just looking at the walls , going what am I supposed to be doing right now ? And it blew my mind that no one was telling me what was supposed to be happening , because , especially when you come from a teaching background , it's teach bell to bell . We expect this , we expect that . We need all these components in your lesson . Go , bell rings , next grade comes in , let's do it again . That's your day . That's just how it is , and I was a teacher for a while too .

I remember staring at the wall , going I can't believe that . Nobody knows what I'm doing in here and everybody's cool with it . It really wigged me out and I had no idea what to do with that . So I totally get where you're coming from with that for sure . It's a completely different world . Luckily , I have a great social worker and psych that I work with , but like the first couple of days , I was like I asked them am I supposed to be doing something that no one's telling me ? Because I just felt like no , it's like a slow start . Yeah , I thought I was forgetting something . Yeah , and nobody tells you like this is what you need to do at the beginning of the school . You don't know . You don't know and that's a good point to bring up too is that it typically for most of us it is a slow start . We have that little honeymoon period at the beginning of the school year . Everybody's on their best behavior . Adrenaline's high , endorphins are high . Everybody's excited about the beginning of the school year and then when that stuff starts to wear off , that's when we really start to find out what our job is going to entail for sure .

What a fun , fun time we had at the New Counselor Academy . I'm telling you it was a phenomenal group of beginning school counselors there , with the smartest questions , the greatest comments and guys . You didn't even get to hear the half of it in this podcast episode . I love talking off the cuff with all of my school counselor colleagues and friends , and I just felt so , so honored to be in this New Counselor Academy with so many amazing up and coming school counselors . Yeah , I hope you enjoyed listening in on this and I just can't tell you enough about how much we love bringing you these types of events , this type of information , whether it's in our School for School Counselors Facebook group , whether you're a member of our Mastermind program or whether it's through podcast episodes just like this . We want to continue inspiring you , empowering you and leading you toward advocacy in your program , so that we can work toward best outcomes for all students . I can't wait to talk with you again in the next episode of the podcast , but until then , I hope you have the best week . Take care .