What I'm Using Most in My School Counseling Office These Days

Transcript

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Well, hey there, school counselor, Welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast.

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I'm Steph Johnson, your host, a full-time school counselor just like you, on a mission to make school counseling more sustainable and more enjoyable.

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We want to be able to love our jobs, to feel like we can stick with them and to feel like we are capable, competent and empowered, and that's my wish for you.

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It feels great to be back talking with you again this week.

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I took a little hiatus last week for the Christmas holiday, just needed a little bit of time to reset right, and I thought I'd better put my money where my mouth is and I'd better follow my own advice, because it felt like we slid into the Christmas break throwing gravel in the parking lot and it was time to slow down a little bit.

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I hope you've had a wonderful holiday season, no matter what you celebrate in your home.

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I hope you're having some rejuvenating rest, that you're feeling a little bit more centered, and I hope that you've been able to be surrounded by friends and family and lots of good food, good company, laughs and love.

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That's my wish for every single school counselor I know as well as, frankly, every single human being.

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It's one of the things that I love most about this time of year.

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I wish we could aspire to be like this all year long.

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And it makes me think of something I heard today, actually, as I heard of the passing of former President Jimmy Carter, and one of the things he said was he thought that the United States could be a fundamental leader in caring for one another, in human rights and love and compassion.

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And one of the things he said was just imagine if everyone in the United States could have a best friend.

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How transformative that would be.

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And I think he was a thousand percent right.

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And this time of year is the time I think we feel that the most.

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Don't we, and it's something that I wish we could carry forward longer than just a few weeks or a month out of the year.

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But anyway, I digress.

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I'm so glad to be back here with you, even though I had kind of a hard time choosing a topic for the podcast this week, I was anxious to speak with you again.

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I didn't want to let another week go by without a visit.

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But at the same time I know you may not be ready to think about going back to work just yet.

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Some of my masterminders have told me that they are headed back to work later this week the first week in January and it feels like happy new year.

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Now get back to work, right, but it's a reality for so many of us.

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Personally, I'll be going back next week, but I'm looking forward to it.

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I'm excited to get back in there.

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I have new goals and objectives for the spring semester and I'm eager to try to start putting some of those into place.

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Speaking of which, this week, in my daily emails that go out to everyone on my subscriber list, I'm going to be walking you through some components of what I call the new year restart.

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Now I talked about some things you could do to prepare yourself for the beginning of the semester.

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A couple of episodes ago December 9th I believe I talked about prepping now for a stress-less spring semester.

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If you haven't caught that episode, you might want to go grab it.

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It's really quick only 20 minutes but it will give you a plan for preparing your spring semester for less stress.

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And following that, this week, I'm going to be providing my New Year Restart email series.

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It's gonna be going out to everyone who has subscribed to my daily emails and if you're not on that list, yet you need to get on it.

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So lots of things going on, even though we're not quite ready to give up the lazy mornings, the coffee and the blankets on the couch all those wonderful things that come with the winter break.

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And, like I said, I struggled with what I wanted to chat with you about this week.

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I have some really big plans and some really hard-hitting outlines, I think, for you coming up, but I wanted to keep it light this week.

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I know so many of us are just kind of coming out of this holiday hangover, if you will, not only with the merriment and the joy and the festivities, but also just with regard to our energy, right, it was so much, so fast.

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Some of us are experiencing a little bit of a financial hangover as well, right.

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So we need to keep things light, we need to keep things upbeat, and I thought I would walk through with you a series of photographs, actually and I know that sounds weird for a podcast, but a series of photographs I took my last day on duty in December, of some of my most used and most favorite supplies in my counseling office, and the reason I took these photos was to share them with my Mastermind members.

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I thought it might be fun to take a week or two and talk through all of these supplies and all of the different things I do with them.

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Because if you've known me long, you know that I don't believe in two things.

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I do not believe that you need a million materials in your school counseling office to be effective, and I also don't believe in using a lot of teachers, pay teachers materials, and so people ask me often what's in your office and what are you using?

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So I took some photographs of the things that were closest to me, as I said, at my desk, because those were the ones I reach for most often, and thought I would share them with the mastermind.

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But I know, as you're planning on going back for the spring semester, you may be sort of thinking about some things you want to do differently, but you're not ready to get really intense about it, right?

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Maybe you've got a few Amazon gift cards laying around.

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I know we sent many out to our mastermind members.

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We had a huge holiday celebration in our School for School Counselors, mastermind, and so I know lots of them have some really nice Amazon gift cards we sent out.

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So if you are in that position too.

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I wanted to share with you some of the things that I love most in my school counseling office.

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All right, so here we go.

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These are not in any particular order necessarily.

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They were just things I sort of grabbed as I was sitting at my desk and looking at my bookshelves.

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One of my newest and most favorite resources is something you won't see available commercially, something you won't see available commercially.

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They're called greatness cards and they are smaller than a deck of playing cards they're square shaped, but about the width of a playing card, if that makes any sense to you and they were created by a registered play therapist named Tammy Van Hollander and I'll tell you right now I get nothing for recommending this.

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She doesn't even know I'm recommending this, but I've been a follower and a fan of hers for a long time.

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These greatness cards are just a simple deck of cards with wonderful adjectives written on them and some really compelling artwork.

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The picture of the first cards that I pulled out of the deck were joyful, fun and smart, and there are tons of things that you can do with these cards.

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But I find often I get students in my school counseling office that are so far removed from their own self-identity.

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They haven't even stopped to think about what makes them amazing, right?

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They're either constantly being told that they're not enough, they're not doing the right things, they're not a good kid, or they're telling themselves that.

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And so these neat little cards are a nice way to do some fun activities to really bring out some additional vocabulary.

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Fun activities to really bring out some additional vocabulary.

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Just like we have to build students emotional vocabulary and give them words for things beyond happy, mad and sad, we also need to be giving them some vocabulary for what makes them great.

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And so this deck of greatness cards right now is at the top of my list of my favorite materials, and if you're interested in checking them out, I would love to support and promote Tammy.

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I'm going to put a link to these cards in the show notes, so go, click that link and give her some love, all right?

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So secondly, I would say and this is probably no surprise, but my collection of board games hands down are some of the most utilized materials in my school counseling office.

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I don't have a ton in there.

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I don't find that I need a lot.

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I rely on three.

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I rely on Sorry, candyland and Uno, and a lot of what I do with these games.

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I know that you can adapt them and have different conversations and talk about different feelings and all of those things.

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But I think one thing that we miss, as we're talking about playing games with students, are the opportunities for connection, for a person-centered, child-centered connection to be made, with no agendas, no demands being placed and no requests needing to be met, and in students' lives and worlds, playing an analog game number one is huge for them, right?

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I've had several students over the past couple of years that had no idea how to play Uno and that just broke my heart.

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Right, because that used to be a rite of passage for kiddos at home is to learn how to play Uno with their families.

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That's not happening as much anymore.

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But two, just the opportunity to connect.

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But two, just the opportunity to connect, the opportunity to let students know that you're there with them, that you enjoy being with them, that they're worthy of your time.

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That sets the stage for some really important and compelling work later on.

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And then, if we can take that a step further and really sort of ascribe to some general kind of play therapy principles of not making judgment-based statements, not giving value-based statements, those kinds of things.

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So uno sorry, candyland I'm going to lump those all together in one.

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If you don't have those in your office, even if you're working with older students, uno and Sari are going to be great tools for you.

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Along that same line of thought, I also have another card game, and I'm realizing just now how much I rely on cards in my office.

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I have a card game called Mad Dragon, and Mad Dragon's pretty cool because it's played like Uno.

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So once students know and understand how to play that game, we can play Mad Dragon, which has some different prompts and information in exploring feeling mad, exploring anger and what those feelings do to us, how we can utilize coping skills to manage that and what it does to the people around us when we lose our cool.

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There's some really great conversation points in that card game as well.

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And again, I'm going to link to all of this for you.

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I have an Amazon storefront all of this for you.

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I have an Amazon storefront.

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I make literally zero dollars off of it because I never hit the minimum in a year, but that's not why it's set up there.

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It's set up there to make things easy for you if you want to pick up some of the things that we've been talking about, and so Mad Dragon is definitely linked in there.

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Another big hit in my office right now that would work for all ages are my sensory floor tiles.

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They're a plastic floor tile.

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They have kind of a felt-like backing on them and they are filled with goo of all different colors.

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I have green and yellow and red and orange and black and yellow and all different colors.

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But as you walk on them you can see the gel kind of squish around.

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It's a great visual.

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But it's also fun.

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If you get really really quiet and you step on these in just the right spot, you can hear them squish and you would be amazed how much students delight in hearing that noise.

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And it also works wonderfully if you need to help them ground a little bit, if you need to help them recenter.

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That's a way to get them really quiet, to be very attentive to that sensory stimuli and really search for that sound, and that's one of the things I love most about those sensory tiles.

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Okay, let's see, I'm going to give you just a couple more.

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Another amazing tool that I have in my office that was gifted to me by one of the most wonderful humans to ever walk the face of the earth.

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One of my best friends, who is a therapist here in town, gifted me a set of Feeling Buddies dolls from Conscious Discipline.

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They have a really cool holder that hangs on the wall and all of the feelings are identified and all the little dolls go inside the pockets and they're kind of like little gingerbread man dolls that's what the kids always call them and I just have them hanging on the wall.

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I don't really pick them up, do a lot with them, unless the students go to them.

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But especially my little ones are drawn to these little feeling buddies and they'll often point things out.

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This is how I feel right now.

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This is what I want to feel like tomorrow.

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This is what my mom looks like this morning when we were getting ready to come to school, and it opens up a lot of great conversations.

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There are lots more activities you can do with these little feeling buddies, but a really, really neat tool and that comes from conscious discipline.

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All right, let me give you two more.

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My next favorite would probably be my weighted lizard.

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He was expensive but, goodness gracious do.

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The kiddos love him and, interestingly enough, our office staff love him too.

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So we get that sensory experience of having that weight on our laps or over our shoulder when we need it.

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The kids like to kind of feel the beads inside.

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The little scales look kind of shiny and so that captures some attention.

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So there's lots of grounding and centering that can be done.

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Students can hold them in their laps while we're working on other things.

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But we have found also and this is so silly I can't even believe I'm admitting this, but we have found, as the adults on campus, if we put this lizard over our shoulder we can pat it and it almost feels like patting a baby's bottom, and if you're a mama or a daddy you know there is very little in this world that comes close to that feeling and it is just so calming.

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So we can always tell when one of our staff members is having a rough day and they'll come by and say can I pat the lizard?

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And I'm always like, absolutely, you sure can.

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They're kind of pricey, they're a little expensive, but totally worth the money.

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And then last, a new addition to my office and a solution to a problem that I've had for a long time and I think maybe you've had as well I don't want to have closed doors in my office.

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I don't want to be completely behind a closed door with the student just for safety reasons, but I also don't want everybody in the world walking past my window peeking in to see who I'm talking to.

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Have you had this problem too?

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I bet you have, and so what I ended up doing this year that I've really enjoyed is I got some lighted vines like faux leaves that kind of looks like ivy, I guess, with the little twinkle lights wound all through them, and I got some command hooks and hung them on my door over that window so you're still able to see inside.

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We still have a safety component to this.

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We're not completely cut off from the rest of the campus, but it's really hard to look in past those leaves and immediately see who's sitting in there.

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And then when we have the lights turned on because it's a little battery pack, right, so we just use a command strip to stick that battery pack on the door.

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When those lights are on, it gives even more of a visual obstacle, and so I have really, really loved having those on my door this year, and I think I will continue to do that next year as well.

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All right, well, that was just kind of a little quick tour through part of my office.

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I'm going to be posting these throughout the week in our Facebook group.

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So if you aren't in our School for School Counselors Facebook group, come join us.

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Right now it's a free Facebook group.

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We'd love to welcome you in there, and you can find us just by searching Facebook for School for School Counselors, where I'll be sharing all of these resources.

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Again, in case you didn't catch them all the first time, maybe you don't want to go sifting through the Amazon storefront.

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I get that.

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You can hang out in the Facebook group and watch them come through day after day, and when you join the Facebook group we ask for your email address if you want to give it.

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It's not required, but that's going to allow you to receive the emails that I send out.

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I aim for daily.

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Sometimes it's every other day, depending on what's going on, but I try to always give you some great information in the emails about things that are going on, ideas that I've had, tips or tricks or motivation.

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I put my heart and soul into those emails and so if you'd like to be a part of that, you can get involved with it by doing the same thing.

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Head over to Facebook and join our free Facebook group and we'll add you to that email list.

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Lickety split, all right.

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So we're going to wrap it up this week.

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I hope that that gave you some ideas or some inspiration.

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I'm going to have some additional materials running through the Facebook group as well as through my Mastermind Facebook group, and if you've been listening to the podcast for any amount of time, you know that the Mastermind is where the smartest school counselors hang out.

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If you are one of those school counselors that is not content to be mediocre you don't want to be like every other school counselor, just downloading random things and presenting them and wondering why your program isn't taking off the way you want it to you need to join us in the School for School Counselors, mastermind.

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There will be a link in the show notes here.

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I've got lots of great information for you links to resources, links to great card decks, links to the mastermind.

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I just wanna make sure that you're taken care of.

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I wanna make sure that you can be excited and inspired to go back to work in January to do your best work for the students you serve.

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We have so many students that are going to be coming back to us, who are going to be in a state of agitation, maybe in a state of sadness, maybe in a state of lack.

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Right, they haven't had the things that they've needed while they've been away from school, whether that's physiological needs, whether that's food, heat or even just human interaction.

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We're going to have a lot of kiddos coming back that are going to be eager to see us, who want to know that we're excited that they've returned to us, that we're going to pick up right where we left off, and we're going to support them and encourage them and love them throughout their educational journey on our campuses.

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And so, in order for all that to happen, you need to be your best self too, and so all of these resources that my team and I are creating are for you.

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If there's one thing that I believe beyond any other, it's that students deserve access to competent, capable and healthy school counselors, and that is the core of everything that we're doing here in School for School Counselors.

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All right, so grab those Amazon gift card codes, head on over, get some cool stuff for your office, and if you choose something different, let me know.

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I would love to hear about it.

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I'll be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast.

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In the meantime, I hope you have the best start to your new year, the best start to your spring semester, and that you are excited and ready to go for 2025.

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Take care, my friend.

What I'm Using Most in My School Counseling Office These Days

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