Reflection: Crisis

As we all have been, I have been deeply saddened and shocked by the events of Friday morning.  As school counselors, we all tend to be fairly empathetic, and so my thoughts have constantly been turned to the parents of those children who have been lost, the families of those school staff members who died, and to the larger community of Newtown who will need support long after the media trucks and national focus have left as the depths of grief, loss, and trauma begin to manifest themselves in the months to come.

Many years ago, when I was still teaching, I was at a school where, for the first time, I had to go through a lockdown drill with my students.  In going through the procedures of covering my window and trying to keep 30 energetic 7th graders quiet as security came by to check that our door was locked, the thought flashed through my head, "What if this was real?"  Instinctually, I immediately knew that I would put the kids into the instrument storage closet (I taught this choir class in the band room) and would put myself outside if need be to protect those kids.  This was not a question I wrestled with, this was not something where I thought about all the possible consequences.  I knew what I would have to do in the breath of an instant.

Perhaps for this reason, I keep thinking the most about the principal and school psychologist who attempted to stop the gunman as well as the 1st grade teacher who hid her students and gave her own life to protect them.  When you go into education as a career, you do not necessarily think that you may have to give your life as part of your profession.  Yet, that is what the six adults who died on Friday did.  I think all of us who work in schools know that when it comes to the safety of our students, dare I say, "our kids", that chances are pretty high that we would do the same.  Our educational professionals have taken quite a few hits in the public arena in the last decade.  However, the vast, vast, vast majority of adults in schools that I have met in the last thirteen years are highly committed individuals who work excessively long hours, nights, and weekends, often making difficult choices between their own work and personal lives.  They are in education because they love kids, they love watching kids learn, and they love helping to facilitate that process.  They would do anything for their students, and I think we should take a moment to really acknowledge just what that could mean.

I have been inspired in the last several days by the school counseling community and their quick response with regards to sharing resources so that we all have support in working with our students, families, and school communities through this time.  The mother of all school counselor bloggers, Danielle Schultz, began to collect resources at School Counselor Blog and share them with her followers.  I am inspired by this, and believe that all of us who are school counseling bloggers have a responsibility, as collectors and sharers of information, to have these resources at hand to share with our followers whenever they are needed.  As such, I have created a page on my blog dedicated to crisis resources, and would love if other bloggers did the same, so that no matter where a school counseling professional turns, they find information to support them in their work talking to students, staff, and families in these difficult moments.  In this way, as school counselors we can continue to be prepared to lead in times of great challenge.

Resource: Children in Poverty

The PBS documentary program, Frontline, takes time to really go in-depth and explore topics, often filming over months or even a year to get a more thorough view of an issue.  A few weeks ago, they aired a program about poverty amongst American children.  Did you know that:

• 1 in 5, or 21.6%, of America's children were living in poverty based on Census figures
• Federal spending on children in 2011 fell for the first time since the 1980's by $5 million 
• 47.6% of children living with a single mother live in poverty
• The poverty rate for White and Asian children is below the national average (21.6%), while the rate for Black children is at 38.2% and Hispanic children is at 32.3%
• 45% of those who spent at least half of their childhood in poverty were still in poverty at age 35 (source: 2011 Census Report)
• Only three other countries in the developed world have child poverty rates higher than that in the United States (source: 2011 OECD Report)

The documentary, Poor Kids, follows six children and their families in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois.  Through the program, you follow their struggles with housing, food, clothing, unemployment, and depression.  Additionally, there are some themes that emerge that directly pertain to our work as school counselors:

• Loss: In the documentary, one family has to take their young girl's dog to the pound as they can no longer afford to keep her, plus they are moving from a house into a hotel room where they can only have one pet.  Children in poverty are constantly having to say goodbye, whether it is to their home, friends in a neighborhood they are leaving, pets, or even family members.
• Hunger:  Almost every child talks about being hungry at points in the program.  We know that children who are  hungry do not perform as well in school, thus we have a national school breakfast and lunch program.  However, those programs only go so far, and are not always able to address meals outside of school and on weekends.  Thus, while a student may be full and able to focus in school, homework to be done on the evenings and on the weekends may be more of a struggle, as children need a lot of nourishment through their growing years.  One program that is highlighted is a backpack food program where kids get food on Friday that can fit into their backpacks to take home over the weekend.
• Educational Impact: They do not really get to this until the end, but if you have worked in a school long enough, you have probably observed this directly.  Kids in poverty are often moving around, as they are able to get into a house but are then evicted, move into a hotel, back into a house, then an apartment, etc.  Thus, they can be in one school or school district's boundaries one minute, then in another one the next.  One of the young girls in the documentary does not go to school for a few weeks, knowing that they are in a hotel for only a short time and will be moving into another housing situation, which puts them in a different school district.  Thus, kids in poverty run a higher risk of missing pieces of their education while they move around, even if it is within the same general area.  It is vitally important that you check with your school system to see what provisions have been made for students that may fall into the category of homeless.  There are Federal guidelines for homeless students that clearly define what constitutes a student as homeless as well as guidelines for specific concerns such as registrations, transportation, and looking out for the "best interests" of the students in these particular situations.
• Educational Aspiration: Several of the kids in this documentary speak to the fact that they know, even at the young ages of 8 or 9 years old, that education is their ticket out of poverty.  They look to school and good grades as a pathway to college and a good job.  As school counselors, we are tasked with helping all of our students succeed academically and move on to a post-secondary option that is congruent with 21st century skills and careers.  This is reassurance that our children in poverty expect and deserve no less from us than any of our other students.

You can watch the documentary for yourself below:

  

Watch Poor Kids on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Watch Poor Kids on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Watch Poor Kids on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Watch Poor Kids on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Poetry and Grief

Hello there, blogosphere.  I hope this post finds all of you counselors well, and for school counselors that you are getting some much needed rest and rejuvenation over the summer break.

I am currently attending a Grief and Loss Summer Institute at the George Washington University and we just finished with day one.  It was filled with excellent information, time for reflection, and some wonderful tools for all of us to take back to our work with our populations.

One of our presenters today was Mary Azoy, a therapist in the DC metro area with a lot of experience not only in crisis counseling but in life transitions.  Further, she is a Certified Poetry Therapist, using poetry and writing as a means of helping people to find and express their feelings and thoughts as well as work through the situations and challenges that bring them to her office.  One of the activities that she walked us through today was to give us a poem to read by Denise Levertov entitled:

Writing in the Dark

It's not difficult
Anyway, it's necessary.

Wait till morning, and you'll forget.
And who knows if morning will come.

Fumble for the light,
and you'll be
stark awake, but the vision
will be fading, slipping
out of reach.

You must have paper at hand.
A felt-tip pen, ballpoints don't always flow,
pencil points tend to break. There's nothing
shameful in that much prudence: those are our tools.

Never mind about crossing your t's, dotting your i's-
but take care not to cover
one word with the next.  Practice will reveal
how one hand instinctively comes to the aid of the other
to keep each line
clear of the next.

Keep writing in the dark:
a record of the night, or
words that pulled you from the depths of unknowing,
words that flew through your mind, strange birds
crying their urgency with human voices,

or opened
as flowers of a tree that blooms
only once in a lifetime:

words that may have the power
to make the sun rise again.

(source: www.allthingshealing.com)

Then, she asked us to pick one line that spoke to each of us, one line that we felt was most applicable to ourselves, and then use that as the first line in our own writing, whether that be poetry or prose.  We had five minutes--this short amount of time can help motivate people to move quickly, overcome any writer's block they may have, and can help to insure that what hits the page is what has entered the mind first, avoiding a lot of over-thinking.  In our larger group of today, you had people choosing all sorts of different lines from the original poem, and even those of us that may have chosen the same line had different reasons for our choice, and wrote entirely different pieces based on those variations.  For our students who may sometimes have a challenging time being able to verbalize and access their feelings of loss or the many emotions that come with any major life transition, this exercise could be one way to help them access and express those affectations.  You could even give students choices, allowing them to either write, develop a rap, or draw a picture about the line in a poem that particularly spoke to them.  This may be an activity to try with your next group you run on grief and loss, or it could be applied to any group of students you are bringing together to work through a major life transition--middle school to high-school, high-school to post-secondary, moving, changing families, etc.  Further, this activity and variations could work with elementary students through high-school age.  There are a variety of poems and prose available on this topic everything from Shel Silverstein to books in your personal or school library.  Additionally, Mary recommended The Sun Magazine, an ad-free publication that is available by subscription but also has some  materials available online for free that are searchable by topic.

Here was my writing based on the line I chose from the poem above, "Wait till morning, and you'll forget":

Wait till morning, and you'll forget.

You'll forget the vivid dreams that contain real conversations with those you've lost.
You'll forget the new things that you will do together.
You'll forget the words of wisdom they still have to impart to you.
You'll forget the laughter that you both will share over the most bizarre of situations or the most trivial of details.

Wait till morning, and you'll forget.
The feeling, though, of their presence will still linger.

VCA Conference 2011: Reflections

You've fielded your 10th phone call from an angry parent for the day.  Yet another student wants to talk to you about a class change because they don't like the teacher.  You've received 5 e-mails in the last 3 hours from a teacher wanting you to address problems he/she is having with a student.  You have three classroom lessons you are supposed to lead about 9th grade transition at the same time you are supposed to be immediately responding to all of these other situations because the people involved all simultaneously believe that their concern is the most important.

Calgon!  Take me away...

Sometimes it can be a challenge to think about the big picture when you get caught up in the day-to-day workings of your job as a school counselor.  Who has time to think about marketing their school counseling program or pulling together resources for a much needed grief-group?  Half the time you are just trying to make it through the day by addressing the needs of your various stakeholders and making sure you have things ready to tackle the next day's challenges.  This is why professional development and conferences are so important--they give you a much needed break to recharge your batteries, provide inspiration, and connect you with resources to help better serve your population. 

This was definitely the case with the Virginia Counselor's Association conference this past week in Portsmouth, Virginia.  In two days I was able to gain some new insights into several topical areas, make some wonderful new professional connections, and have time to ponder ways to implement some of these concepts in my own program.

Marketing Your School Counseling Program

I attended a session on how to get the word out to your stakeholders about what you do as a school counselor, led by Donna Dockery from Virginia Commonwealth University.  If you want to get everyone on board, you have to educate your community on several things.  First, your role as a school counselor--what is it?  What is it not?  This seemed to me to be key, and was one of the biggest takeaways I had from the whole conference.  Dr. Dockery talked about how counselors, administrators, and teachers do not necessarily fully understand each other's roles, and how this can have an especially negative effect on counselors.  Thus, she did a study at VCU in which teachers-in-training were given a short video and some information about the role of the school counselor as defined by ASCA.   When compared to teachers-in-training who did not receive the same information there was a significant difference in their perceptions of what school counselors do.  If our administrators and teachers do not have a clear idea of the appropriate duties of school counselors, is it any wonder that we are asked to discipline students or supervise in-school-suspensions?  Perhaps there need to be meetings or in-services before the school year begins or right at the end in which all three school entities--teachers, administrators, and counselors--sit down and discuss their various roles, both the similarities and the differences.  The adults in our buildings have grown up with the idea of the old "guidance counselor," so even while our students often see that we are actively engaged in working with all students in the areas of academic, personal/social, and career/college, our teacher and administrative peers may not have that same understanding.  Try getting time at faculty meetings, department meetings, subschool meetings, etc. to give some brief information about our role and how it benefits all people in our communities, not only our students but our parents, teachers, and administrators.

Additionally, I was unable to attend any of his sessions but I did meet Neil McNerney, LPC, an adjunct professor in the graduate counseling program at Virginia Tech, Northern Virginia Campus, as well as a counselor with a great deal of experience working with adolescents and their families.  He was kind enough to give me some great handouts, including tips on how to boost attendance at your parent presentations.  However, I think that his ideas are not only applicable to parent presentations but also to helping to establish your counseling program with your school's parents, in general.  I'm not going to publish all of his information here (I would recommend attending a session of his or e-mailing him if you want more information), but basically it's not just enough to do the robo-calls and the blast-out e-mails.  We need to be engaging influential parents to help guarantee that people are attending the programs we spend a lot of time and staff putting together--have them go out into the community and work their parent-connected magic.  Further, we need to let parents know what the benefit will be to them for attending our programs--what ideas, tips, or information are they going to be able to take away and use immediately from that presentation?  In a busy world many parents need to know that it will really be worth their time to attend that session on homework help, substance abuse issues, or college-application preparedness.  Neil does presentations to schools and parent groups in the Northern Virginia area--I would recommend checking him out.

LGBT Considerations

Edward Andrews, LPC, NCC, CT is an up-and-coming expert on LGBT issues in counseling.  He practices both with Kaiser-Permanente as well as in his own private-practice in DC and Alexandria, Virginia.  What I found fascinating about his workshop was that it was looking at recently released health-data that now includes LGBT statistics.  I won't go into all of the details, but the one I found the most interesting is that most health professionals (doctors, nurses, counselors, psychiatrists, psychologist, etc.) do not ask about clients sexual orientation, history, etc. when working with their patients.   You're probably thinking, "We're school counselors--how does this really effect us?"  It makes me wonder how comfortable school counselors are in working with their LGBT students?  If students are struggling with their sexuality, how comfortable are most school counselors, in general, discussing this?  Is there enough training being given to the issues specific to LGBT youth (higher incidences of bullying, higher incidences of suicide, more difficulty socializing and making friends) so that school counselors are not only able to address the concerns when they happen but be proactive in helping their schools be welcoming and comfortable environments for this population?  Worth some consideration.

Grief

Ed also did a workshop on grief counseling, focusing on making meaning with a loss.  There were two things that I think would be helpful considerations for any school counselor looking to do a grief group.  First, he gave an example of a group run using narrative therapy, all online, that in a study proved to be highly effective.  Perhaps using Blackboard or some other similar program, would it be useful to have an online-component in a school group?  Students would answer prompts and post these narratives, perhaps inviting feedback from other group participants.  Secondly, there are a great many kinesthetic techniques that can be used to help facilitate working with the process of grief--personal journals, letters to the lost, biographies, musical memoirs, memory books, poetry.  I think that often we go to our comfort zone as counselors--talking.  For many kids (and adults, for that matter), talking may not always be the most comfortable mode for them to be able to express deep emotions.  Just as teachers try to teach to different modalities when presenting classroom information, we should try to hit on several ways for students to be able to work through grief--consider having them create items such as memory boxes or collages, or have them write stories in an online format.

Overall, it was a wonderful conference--I cannot recommend enough getting involved with national and local professional organizations and making a point of attending conferences, even if it is only once a year and local.  We all need the time to meet with colleagues from other schools and collaborate on ways to better serve all of our students.