Teen Depression from a Teen's Perspective

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 11% of adolescents will be diagnosed with a depressive disorder by the time they reach 18 years of age.

I came across this Ted Talk that looks at this topic from the perspective of a teen who has dealt with depression throughout his life.  He describes what it is and isn't, and what it feels like to him.  The statement that struck a chord with me, though, was when he speaks to the fact that as a society, we would treat physical illness in children and teens with the utmost sense of urgency, not resting until we had made the kid well.  However, with mental illness like depression, we can have a tendency to blame rather than support the person afflicted.

For more information, watch the full video below:

Hunger Games

We all have those teachers that we remember because they supported us in extremely important ways that we are really only able to fully appreciate now, as adults.  Mrs. Cooper was one of my 7th and 8th grade teachers.  I adored her--she was dressed to the nines every single day and it was always clear that she loved her students and really wanted them to do well.  She whole-heartedly supported my aspirations of someday becoming a fashion-designer, and constantly encouraged me to learn more about the field and to continue my drawing, which I had taken to doing during most of my classes.  I even remember that she called my mom one night to remind her that there was a 48 Hours special about the fashion industry on that evening and to make sure that I watched it.  Only later in my life would I appreciate this acknowledgement and encouragement of who and what I was as a middle-school boy in a mid-size town in the middle of the Midwest.

Needless to say, I did not become a fashion designer.  But at the time, I was obsessed to the point of watching and reading everything I could get my hands on related to the industry.  Style with Elsa Klensch was regular Saturday morning viewing, and shows such as Designing Women held me in thrall, not only for the sassy wit and repartee, but for the clothes.

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Recently an item appeared in my Facebook and Twitter feeds from a variety of sources that has continued to trouble me.  A school district in New Jersey sent a letter home at the opening of the school year that stated:

"If a student goes through the food service line and it is discovered that the student does not have the required funds for a meal, the Chartwells Food Service representative has been instructed by the Willingboro Board of Education to withhold the meal from the student, with the understanding that such meal cannot be re-served and must be discarded." (source: www.willingboroschools.org)

This caused enough of a stir that a national morning news program had a segment about it that featured two panelists, a parenting blogger and a school-counselor & therapist.  You can read about and view the segment here, as well as read a follow-up response by the parenting blogger.  The school counselor states at one point that if a child goes to the register with his/her lunch, is unable to pay, and the lunch is taken away and ultimately thrown out, that this is a "teaching moment," presumably for the child and then for the parents when the child goes home complaining of hunger and humiliation.  The school counselor appears to be in agreement with the policy of the school district in that it will help to hold parents accountable and make them responsible.

This whole exchange is concerning to me on many fronts.  First, we know that hunger has a direct impact on academic success in schools.  It can be simplified even to Maslow's hierarchy of needs--if kids are hungry, they are not going to be able to focus on instruction or higher-order thinking and they will lack the fuel and energy to process information and critically apply it to the work at hand.  In an era where teacher, administrator, and school evaluations are tied to standardized test scores, this link between nutrition and achievement is key.  It makes strong academic sense to make sure that children are fed and thus able to have productive learning days in school.  Secondly, because, as school counselors, we are trained in child and adolescent development and are tasked with keeping up with research, we should be one of the voices at the table speaking for the importance of maintaining programs that support the steady and reliable nutritional needs of our students.  We are ethically tasked with removing barriers to academic success for our students.  If we know that hunger in children is correlated to academic success, then do we not have an ethical obligation to share that knowledge with our stakeholders and advocate for our students?  Further, the concern in the letter from the schools system as well as from the school counselor in the news segment is that the parents are not filling out the required forms to qualify for federal free/reduced lunch.  Yet, this policy ultimately does not effect the parents.  Rather, it has an immediate impact upon the child, both in their lack of a meal and in the social-shaming experience of having food withheld, possibly in front of their peers.  In a very basic sense we are putting the kids in the middle in order to try to get their parents to comply.

The school counselor in the segment goes on to say that while he thinks this policy may provide "teaching moments" for students, he does not think that any child will really be forced to go hungry, and that he himself has paid for many meals for students.  At best, this is sending mixed messages.  At worst, it only shows the school district policy to be a punitive scare-tactic that is not really meant to be enforced, almost as if we are playing "hunger games" with students and families.  In an era of positive-behavior management and responsive (and responsible) intervention, we should, as school professionals be practicing what we preach.

I am not naive--I understand that school districts around the country are facing extremely difficult financial challenges as federal and state funds are reduced and deficits increase.  Any expenditure and line-item in a school system's budget is going to face more scrutiny, and very tough decisions will have to be made.  I am not questioning the reality that this is probably a very real financial concern for this school district, who are more than likely trying to keep as much money as possible in areas that directly support instruction.  However, as school counselors we should be advocating on behalf of our students for solutions that go directly to the parents and the concern that forms are not being filled out, rather than a policy that publicly punishes the student for something they may have little to no control over and that moreover we know also impacts academic achievement.

In our counselor trainings, we are taught to look beneath the surface of statements and behaviors in our students to try to ascertain what the true issue may be that is causing distress.  This is no different.  The value here would be to examine why the forms are not being turned in by parents and guardians.  If there is a language or cultural barrier, perhaps community outreach is the answer.  This can be done through establishing parents liaisons to communities, going to homes and families that there is concern over directly, or perhaps visiting community centers or faith organizations to share information about the importance of the federal free/reduced lunch program and to offer assistance in completing the paperwork on the spot.  Additionally, if the concern is getting parents into the school to complete the paperwork, sponsor a back-to-school fair and include a meal to entice participants or perhaps drawings or give-aways.  My experience has always been that local businesses are very often willing to donate gift-cards or meals for such events--it helps them with their community-engagement work, and it allows schools to entice families to enter their doors and begin partnerships to support children.

Beyond this initial push, once the deadline for forms has passed, schools can target those families who are unable to purchase meals yet who have not yet completed paperwork.  Schools could develop teams to divide up to go to parents and families directly to complete the forms, and perhaps again work with local businesses and Parent-Teacher-Student-Organizations (PTSO's) to develop a support fund to help defray the cost of meals while teams were working with families to get the paperwork completed, something that I have seen work first-hand.  If communities have been able to rally to such causes as Blessings in a Backpack that discretely supply food to students and families in need on the weekends, perhaps the community of this school district would be able to work collaboratively towards a solution to this particular issue that does not leave kids missing meals.

There is a statement made by the school counselor during the television segment that I whole-heartedly agree with--we are one of the wealthiest nations in this world with an abundance of food to go around.  In fact, we waste almost half of our food, according to recent studies, which brings me back to Designing Women.

As a middle-school boy, dreaming of my future catwalks and runway shows, I distinctly remember one episode of the series entitled "They Shoot Fat Women, Don't They?" in which one of the main characters goes to her high-school reunion and is humiliated because she has gained a lot of weight since she last saw most of her classmates.  During the show, she meets a young boy from Africa who is touring the country sharing his story of hunger and the loss of his family due to starvation.  In a speech that the character makes upon winning the award for "Person Most Changed," she shares that she met this boy and realized the absurdity that she spent the day upset because she had too much to eat while there were people in this world dying and worrying about where their next meal would come from.  That one part of that speech has remained with me all of these years, making me cognizant of the fact that I have never had that worry.  However, for many people, including many of our students, this is their everyday.

As school counselors, we possess the skills, knowledge, and political savvy that allows us to build bridges that can help our students who do not always know where their next meal is coming from.  Let's use it.

How Do High-School Counseling Departments Use Social-Media?

www.collegeweeklive.com

Greetings, School Counselors!  Some of you have already started your vital and important work with students and your school communities, and others are gearing up in the next week or two.

On October 17th at 3 p.m. ET, I will be leading a session on "College Readiness in the Facebook Era" for College Week Live's Professional Development Series.  I'd love to see you there, and next month I'll be sharing more information about that presentation.

In preparation for that session, I am collecting information on how high-school counseling departments utilize social-media to enhance their post-secondary advising practice.  If you are a high-school counselor, I would love your input!  Please click here to take a short survey--it should take no more than a few minutes to complete. I will share information about the results in my October session.

Best wishes for a smooth start to your school years!

The Road to RAMP: Checking the Rear-View Mirror

This is the sixth in a series of reflections on the RAMP process.

This past week a few members of my school counseling team and I met to do a final review of all of our Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) narratives. We had revised all of the supporting materials prior to the end of school, but left the narrative edits for later due to time constraints as well as wanting to have a bit of distance from the school year to be able to take a little bit more of an objective look.  Well, with those edits the application is almost completely finished.  A colleague is in the process of editing our final section, which will be a video summation/reflection of our program, we will have an outside reviewer take a look, and then it will go before our principal and a school board member prior to final submission in October.  However, the bulk of the work is now complete.

Just like that, four-years of work is represented in twelve folders worth of documents on a server.  Humbling.

I have no idea if we will achieve RAMP status or not--only time will tell.  However, as I think back on the last year, or even four years since we really began this process, regardless of what the outcome is I think this journey has been valuable all unto itself.  As with all things in life, I think it is important to ask the question, "What have I learned?"

• Give yourself time.  Lots of time:  Program transformation is, I believe, more successful and more likely to weave itself into the fabric of your school if it is done over a period of years versus a period of months.  Additionally, as we were doing the final writings and edits on our RAMP application, we were able to go back and speak to components from a longitudinal perspective.  The Mission statement in our application is actually the third incarnation of our original Mission statement written four years ago.  Not only could we discuss how we developed the current one, but we could speak to how it had evolved from its previous two ancestors.  Further, the lessons, the groups, the goals, etc. are now standard practice for us.  Our "RAMP" year was not the first year we had done most of these components.  This has given us time to figure out how they fit into our particular school culture, work out any "bumps," and has allowed the components to become fixtures of our program.
• Collaboration is key.  I am so proud of our school counseling team and the work they have done over the last four years to complete this application.  Rome was not built in a day, and neither was RAMP.  If you work on a large team, as I have, you have a variety of people with different backgrounds and strengths.  Some people are probably familiar with the ASCA National Model, some may not be.  Some may be rockstars with technology and data, others may be great at relationship-building and communication.  You owe it to your team to work together to transform your program on the timeline that is best for them, and to do it in such a way that you are utilizing their strengths so that everyone is able to contribute in a way that is comfortable.  You owe it to your team to provide education on aspects of the ASCA Model that they may be unfamiliar with. You owe it to your team to listen to them if it gets to be overwhelming at times.  If your goal is to develop a comprehensive school counseling program, then it is important to make forward progress at the same time your are honoring the team's timeline so that there is buy-in and so that everyone can internalize the process for themselves.  Additionally, to move forward you need the assistance of the other stakeholders in your building--teachers, administrators, parents, and students.  If you have taken the time over the years to build strong relationships with your school community, this will become apparent very quickly as people jump on board to support you in your RAMP application.  I have been so fortunate to get to work with amazing people who have jumped in to give feedback, assist, and cheerlead us through this process.
• Everything interrelates.  I've alluded to this in previous posts, but I think the greatest intellectual gift for me during this process has been that an additional light-bulb went off in my head somewhere in the middle of the year.  The RAMP application process really allows you to see, in action, just how effective a comprehensive program can be towards increasing student achievement and supporting students and families.  When you set clear, reasonable, and measurable goals grounded in outcome data and then develop lessons, groups, and additional programming to support that targeted intervention, it becomes a machine specifically built to help kids be successful.  One cog links with another cog, and suddenly there is momentum across the board and you are having an impact on the entire system, not just an individual piece here or there.
  

The end of this road is in sight up ahead, but I think it is important to keep checking in that rear-view mirror to make sure that you are not only moving towards your destination, but that you are also remembering the journey and how you got there.

ASCA Conference 2013: One Conference, Two Worlds

Going to a conference of school counselors is not unlike going to your own birthday party, wedding, etc.  The focus is on you, or, in this case, your profession, 24 hours a day.  Everyone there "gets" you.  You live, eat, breath, and "reception" school-counseling for one to four days, and upon returning home go through conference withdrawal in which you rediscover silence, your cat, and conversations that do not involve "achievement gaps" and "evidence-based interventions."

One of the many benefits of this annual pilgrimage to the World's Fair of school-counseling is that through the sessions, meet-and-greets, and networking opportunities you are able to gain a perspective on emerging themes in the profession as well as take the pulse of where we currently stand and where there is still work to be done.  The bonus of the national conference is that you are gathering this information not just on a local or even state level, but from the perspective of programs and professionals from across the country and even from around the world.  Taking the short-view, you can see how what you do within your school and community can impact larger goals.  Looking at the bigger picture, you can determine if you have the capacity and the time to make larger contributions at the national level.

This year, I felt one theme emerge fairly quickly: We have come a long way and are looking towards the future.  So many of the sessions and conversations this year were centered on "next steps" for the profession of school-counseling.  Many schools and districts have adopted the ASCA National Model and are using it to have an impact on students and communities, demonstrating this through data that shows how school-counselors are directly effecting academic achievement.  The number of Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) recipients continues to be impressive, and on this year's list many of the schools were re-RAMPing, which says that they have been running data-driven comprehensive school counseling programs for years.  What's next?

Taking the model even further, that's what's next.  The conference sought to really answer this question through its offerings:

• Leadership:  A cornerstone of the ASCA National Model, school counselors have always been leaders within their buildings.  There is now a text that offers theory and practical work on how to develop these skills specific to our profession.  This is exciting information that helps us to not only be stronger educational and instructional leaders, but also helps us to develop into leaders within the school-counseling field.  As was repeatedly stated during multiple sessions, school-counselors are the ones with the whole picture in a school--we see it all.  This gives us a unique vantage point and opportunity for leadership.  Additionally, a new edition of school counseling Ethics and Law was just released.  So much of our job lives in the world of "grey" versus black and white.  It is incumbent on us to have strong ethical and legal knowledge not just for us, but for our schools.  Further, in order to navigate ethically within our schools we must be politically savvy and have strong relationships with students, parents, administrators, and community members alike. We are the ones looked to as leaders and resources when issues arise with student confidentiality, records, technology, and best practice.  As such, this is an area of education in which we have the ability to become and assert ourselves as experts.
• Research: As discussed above, we have grounded ourselves in data-driven practice and are now testing interventions and gathering data on the effectiveness of these interventions.  This naturally leads into practitioner-based research so that we can began to establish best-practices and share empirically-supported interventions across the profession.  One of the sessions I attended was about three school districts in the U.S. who studied ways to reduce "summer melt," the idea that the number of students at the end of their senior year who state they are attending a two or four-year university is not the actual number who enroll in two and four-year schools the following fall.  In some instances, large percentages of students are "melting" away over the summer due to a lack of information and guidance on the final processes needed to fully enroll and start in college.  These three school districts all tested programs that took place the summer between students senior year and first year of college involving text-messages, information send-outs, and meetings with student and parents to include finalizing financial-aid packages and plans.  The data from all three districts showed a reduction in the amount of "summer melt," and is something that all school districts could look to as a model.  Additionally, I was able to participate in a session entitled "Data and Research" in which 14 counselors shared information about specific interventions, grounded in outcome data, that were shown to have a positive impact on student achievement.  These ranged everywhere from small-groups focused on reducing discipline incidents to school-wide efforts to decrease unexcused absences and tardies amongst its students. These types of researched interventions are important not only as contributions to the school-counseling research cannon, but also as a means of continuing to establish our profession as one that is necessary to schools and student success.
• Education and Mentoring:  Finally, we need to look at ways that we are paying it forward for the next generations of school-counselors.  How are you sharing your knowledge and expertise in the field with those who are coming up?  Whether you've been a school-counselor for six months or six years, your perspective is valuable and could help someone who is considering entering the field or someone who has been in the field but who needs inspiration or support.  You could consider blogging about your experiences, as Danielle Schultz and Andrea Burston shared in their session.  I attended an excellent session, co-presented by three counselor educators, one of whom was fellow blogger Dr. Erin Mason, about continuing your own education and becoming a counselor-educator at the university level. Things to consider: CACREP status of the school, Ed.D or Ph.D, length and format of the program, future earnings potential.  Bonuses: Researching and teaching what you are interested in, mostly in charge of your own schedule/time, ability to impact large systems of people/schools/communities, ability to serve on state and local boards/organizations.  Additionally, as was discussed in multiple sessions, getting involved at the state level and mentoring other school-counselors, whether you help them to formulate strong SMART goals or are serving as a RAMP resource, can help you to share what you have learned over the years in a way that can both teach and support someone else.

It is an exciting time to be in school counseling.  However, not for everyone.

I also attended a session on helping undocumented students find pathways to two and four-year colleges.  If you are someone who is in high-school counseling or follow the admissions process, you know these resources are constantly being sought by school-counselors around the country.  Thus, this session was packed.  The presenter, a high-school counselor, had spent many years developing relationships with area colleges and universities as well as building partnerships with professionals in immigration law in order to serve her students and provide them correct information.  She knew the nuances of everything from registering her students for the SAT/ACT to navigating the very complex world of financial-aid/scholarships.  She also informed us that as she was a school-counselor in Philadelphia, she currently did not have a job.

This was the other world at the ASCA Conference.  At the same time that so many of us were having animated conversations about the next-steps we could take in leading our schools and school district or getting excited about mentoring a fellow school-counselor we had met over lunch, the backdrop was Philadelphia, a city and school system wrenched apart by difficult budget choices, the collateral damage of which was laying off school-counselors, fine-arts teachers, and instructional assistants.  The ASCA Conference held a session to share information about school-counseling and the situation in Philadelphia with members of the media and various political entities.  The summer will tell if there is any resolution to the layoffs.

My mind comes back to the students in Philadelphia or in Chicago, a city also experiencing closings and layoffs, who have lost the resource of their school-counselor.  Our urban schools are often those with the greatest need, and school-counselors are the ones able to assist students with personal/social issues that may be impacting academic achievement, and they are invaluable resources for connecting students to post-secondary opportunities, just as the presenter above has done for many years.  There is no way to replace that kind of expertise, and one has to wonder just what will become of these students in the future when they have lost that advocate and knowledge-base to help them attain their goals.

As a profession, we need to remain with feet firmly planted in both worlds.  On one side, the world that  continues to dig deeper, taking the lead, building research, and sharing our expertise with other professionals.  On the other, the one in which our colleagues are at-risk of losing their jobs and their students at-risk of losing an educational expert able to help them navigate school and life while setting and meeting their goals for future opportunities.  In this way, we are able to celebrate how far we have come, look towards to future, and at the same time be mindful of our responsibility to support and advocate for school-counselors and students the world over.  

ASCA Conference 2013: Blogger Meet-and-Greet

Always wondered what your favorite school counselor bloggers are like in person?  Planning on going to the 2013 American School Counselors Association conference in Philadelphia in a few weeks?  Danielle Schultz of School Counselor Blog and Andrea Burston of JYJ Counselor Blog have organized a school counselor blogger meet-and-greet for the evening of Tuesday, July 2nd from 8-9 p.m.  Details are in the flyer below--hope to see some of you there!
 

Danielle and Andrea are also leading a conference session about blogging if you want even more information--check it out at the conference.

See you in Philly!

School Violence and Resiliency

In the last few weeks, another school-violence plot was uncovered and thankfully stopped in Albany, Oregon.  As with any of these incidents, there are always a lot of questions raised: Why?  What warning signs were there?  How can we prevent things like this from happening in the future?

As school counselors, we are often looked to for answers to these questions in an effort to help try to make sense of what seems unthinkable, and to reassure communities that schools are safe places for students and staff.  I was able to discuss this topic this past Wednesday on KGAL Talk Radio (starts at 37:38), a station based in Albany, Oregon, where this latest incident occurred.  One of the main questions the program host had for me was, "What are the warning signs?"  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has a list of risk factors for youth violence.  It is important to note that just because a student may be exhibiting or experiencing some of these risk factors does not necessarily mean that they are going to commit an act of violence--correlation and causation are not the same thing.  A few of them are:

• History of victimization
• Substance use and misuse
• History of emotional distress/mental health concerns
• Exposure to family violence
• Antisocial beliefs (spoken, written, posted online)
• Poor family functioning
• Low parental involvement
• Inconsistent, extreme, or relaxed discipline standards at home
• Social rejection amongst peers
• Membership in a delinquent or anti-social peer group
• Lack of involvement in school or community activities
• Poor academic and school performance 

source: www.cdc.gov

Does this mean that every child that has one or more of these risk-factors is planning to do harm?  Of course not.  However, as school counselors we deal with that list every day at all levels, elementary through high-school.  If a child is not having success with peers at school, we develop friendship and social-skills groups to help them build connections with other students.  We might also work with students on finding some club or activity they can participate in that would increase their connection to the school and community.  Meanwhile, we are educating our whole schools about bullying, the roles of bullying (including that of the bystander), the consequences of bullying, and how to report bullying, all in an attempt to lessen student victimization and isolation as well as increasing empathy amongst our populations.  If students are not finding success at school, we help teach study and organization skills.  We work to build relationships between teachers and students to improve communication and therefore, academic success.  If a child is struggling with mental illness, we work with the family and additional support personnel such as a school psychologist or social worker, connecting them to resources within and outside of the school to give them the help they need.  Our relationship with the families of our students can often allow us to help strengthen the connection between students and parents if they are going through a particularly difficult time together.  The very nature of our role within schools is to support all of our students, and we are uniquely qualified to help address the risk factors presented here.  Further, in my interview, one of the things that I felt was most important about this latest incident in Albany, OR, was that it was prevented.  The student in question made statements that were concerning, and ultimately someone reported this to the authorities.  Again, because our role in schools is ideally a non-punitive one, we work hard to establish relationships with all of the students on our case-loads so that they feel comfortable talking to at least one adult within building.

Beyond addressing individual risk factors, school counselors can also help to develop resiliency skills in children.  What is this, exactly?  Basically, we are teaching skills and strategies that help children develop protective factors and build coping mechanisms so that as challenges inevitably arise throughout their lives, they are more able to deal with them successfully.  By teaching these concepts, you are giving them a "toolbox" that they can open when the road gets bumpy, even if there is no one else around to give them support.  Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, has developed a resiliency program, based upon work by Henderson and Milstein.  There are six components:

• Increase pro-social bonding
• Set clear, consistent boundaries
• Teach life skills
• Provide caring and support
• Set and communicate high-expectations
• Provide opportunities for meaningful participation

source: www.fcps.edu

If we look at these six components in more detail, school counselors are highly qualified to teach students skills, help them practice these skills, and then assist them with applying them to their own lives.  As stated before, we teach lessons and develop groups to help students develop appropriate social skills.  We teach children coping skills.  We are able to provide support to not only students, but also to families, teachers, and school personnel.  Through goal setting and post-secondary planning, we are helping to communicate high-expectations but also giving them the steps to reach these expectations.  Finally, though our lessons and groups, as well as by connecting them to activities, clubs, and groups, we are helping students to find ways to share their unique thoughts and talents in a meaningful way with their communities.  For more information and additional resources that you can use to help build resiliency in your own students, click on the links presented above.  

However, as I spoke about in my radio interview, to be able to form trusting relationships with students and families, to be able to develop and implement interventions that address possible risk factors, and to build resiliency in all students, we need to have school counselors present in every school, and we need to have reasonable ratios.  The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a ratio of 1:250.  Yet, Oregon, where this latest incident occurred, stands at 1:553.  More extreme situations exist in states like California, where the ratio sits at 1:1016, or in the city of Philadelphia, which has just enacted a school budget that will cut school counselors, in addition to arts programs, librarians, and athletics--programs that can help decrease isolation and increase connections between students and schools.  Given the opportunity, we are capable of doing so much to create safe and welcoming environments for all students, as well as develop supportive interventions for students who are struggling.