- Counselors would always respond to teachers who referred students.
Understanding the confidentially issues involved, this could simply be
a form response: “The student you referred [name] was seen by me on
[date]. If you have any further issues with this student, please contact
me immediately.” The counselor could add other information, such as
“The student’s parent was contacted and will be meeting with me,” if
she so wanted. - The organization of counseling services would switch from one of grade
counselor (a counselor for the ninth year, tenth year, etc.) to one of om-
nibus counseling. Each counselor would follow a class from arrival in
the school to graduation, taking full responsibility for the students from
acceptance to graduation. This would add accountability, improve the
accuracy of student programs, and allow counselors to get to know each
student for his or her entire high school career. This was phased in over
a four-year period. - In addition to working with their own caseloads, each counselor would
conduct small groups for students with similar issues. Thus, a counselor
who had expertise helping students deal with grief would conduct ses-
sions for students dealing with the loss of loved ones; another counselor
would work with students exhibiting signs of eating disorders; another
would work with students dealing with issues of abuse from a family
member or boy- or girlfriend. - Counselors would move outside their offices into classrooms for whole-
class counseling sessions. In this way, classroom teachers would see
what counselors did. Counselors could convey basic information in an
efficient way and remind students that they would be seeing each of
them at least once each semester. - Counselor-conducted workshops would become a regular part of staff
development days, allowing each counselor to train staff in an area in
which she had expertise and helping staff to see when they needed to re-
fer students for counselor support. Through these counselor-facilitated
workshops, the teachers would gain a respect for what counselors did
and learn a great deal about the issues their students faced: peer pres-
sure, parental neglect and abuse, eating disorders, depression and sui-
cide, and grieving. - Counselors would become featured presenters at selected Parent As-
sociation meetings. The first meeting of each year, for example, would
Remember the Support Staff 147