School Counselor Blog

Below are a list of resources I have compiled that school counselors can utilize for supporting military children and families.  Please feel free to add your own favorite resources in the comment section below or share them on the School Counselor Blog Facebook Page  or via email .  Resources on the Web: "Best Day Ever"  - Google Doodle image by a military child of father coming home. This image could be used in individual and small group sessions.  Corner on Character  blog by Barbara Gruener - Barbara has literally TONS of information for supporting military children and families. She also has posts about ways she supports our troops at her school! The Corner on Character is a great resource for all things school counseling and character education! In Our Classrooms: Supporting Children of Military Families   from Edutopia. Great article about ways to support military children.  Military Child Education Coalition ...

I make memory boxes as an activity during my grief and loss groups. Memory boxes allow students a special place to keep mementos of their loved one. I also use the memory boxes as a place for students to store items we create during our group. At the end of the group students take their memory boxes home with them. In the past, I have purchased photo boxes like the ones below for students to create memory boxes.   Source:   michaels.com   via   School Counselor Blog   on   Pinterest Photo boxes make great memory boxes but it can be expensive to buy one box per student each time you facilitate a group.  While searching for after-Christmas bargains, I stumbled upon blouse boxes that were deeply discounted. Blouse boxes are not as sturdy as the photo boxes, but they are a great size. They are blank which was a plus for personalizing them with art supplies. I decided to try them out as memory boxes.  The boxes I purchased were...

I feel like I have been M.I.A. (Missing In Action) from School Counselor Blog this week and wanted to check in with you! First off... I must share that school has been crazy lately. A former student died recently. He touched so many students' and teachers' lives. Thankfully, my intern, co-school counselor, the school social worker, and the school social worker's intern were all available to respond to students' needs.  This was definitely an example of why it it was a good choice to move to the student services suite. We were all there to support students and utilized all of our space.  We also had the support of a school counselor from another building (who happens to be my best friend) and a school psychologist from a different building.  I was so grateful that we had so many people able to help and support students. It was a very sad and trying day; it made me feel so much less alone to have them all there.   Last Tuesday we started our state assessments. ...

Self-pillows are pillows that represent your personality. My school counselor colleague, Natasha, had the great idea of creating self-pillows as an activity during our groups for children who have a loved one in prison . Self-pillows would also be great as an activity for grief and loss groups or self-esteem groups! 1. Pick fabric The most important and first step of making a self-pillow is finding fabric! Choose a variety of patterns of fabric that you think your students would like. You can even ask students what some of their favorite things are so you have some fabrics that go along with their interests. Also, consider the topic of the group.  We chose fabrics that related to feelings associated with our group. Children experiencing the incarceration of a loved one, can feel like they do not want anyone to be around them and keep people out of their life. We found some fabric that has gates and dogs that says "Beware" and "Keep Out." A number of...

I am so excited to host the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest , which is 10 days of daily giveaways starting September 1st and ending on September 10th! Today is day four of the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest . Today's giveaway for the School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest  is  Girls in Real Life Situations: Group Counseling for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development: Grades K-5 (Book and CD)  by  Julia V. Taylor   and Shannon Trice-Black from  Research Press . Girls in Real Life Situations: Group Counseling for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development: Grades K-5  (Book and CD)  is great for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The activities from G.I.R.L.S.   are great for  groups  on topics such as self-esteem,  grief and loss , children of incarcerated parents and beyond.  Some activities from  G.I.R.L.S.   would work with b...

I am so excited to host the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest , which is 10 days of daily giveaways starting September 1st and ending on September 10th! Today is day three of the  School Counselor Blog Back to School Contest . Today's giveaway for the S chool Counselor Blog Back to School Contest  is  Girls in Real Life Situations, Grades 6-12: Group Counseling Activities for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development (Book and CD)  by Julia V. Taylor   and Shannon Trice-Black from Research Press . Girls in Real Life Situations, Grades 6-12: Group Counseling Activities for Enhancing Social and Emotional Development  (Book and CD)  is one of my most used curricula.  I have used activities from  G.I.R.L.S.   in groups on topics such as self-esteem, grief and loss , children of incarcerated parents and beyond.  I have even used activities from  G.I.R.L.S  with boys (gasp!)! One of the ...

The last day of school was a whirlwind of activity. It was a busy, balloon-releasing , pillow-stuffing , hug-giving, tear-wiping, last day.  (More about the pillow-stuffing soon !) I am glad that students in my grief and loss group wanted to have their balloon release on the last day of school. It was the perfect way to have closure for our group and the end of the school year.  My favorite part of the balloon release is watching the colorful balloons float up into the blue sky.   We made our  balloon release  activity more environmentally friendly by using latex balloons, which are biodegradable and taking the strings off of the balloons before the  balloon release .  Another engaging activity my intern and I facilitated during this group was the  Healing Heart .  Other activities I facilitated during this group include: Feelings Masks Memory Boxes Grief rainbow writing activity Homemade play dough...

I was first introduced to this powerful spoken word poem by Daniel Beaty at a Children of Incarcerated Parents training. I have since shared this video in individual sessions and group sessions with children and adolescents who have experienced the incarceration of a loved one. Beaty's performance is candid and emotional. It doesn't matter how many times I have seen it, I still become tearful each time I watch it. I encourage you to watch it and share it with others!!! I have created a google document with the words to the poem: " Knock Knock ." "Knock Knock" serves as a powerful discussion starter for children who have experienced the incarceration of a loved one. Students often want to watch it over and over because it is so powerful. The line that seems to stick with children the most is "Although we are our fathers' sons and daugthers, we are not their choices."  Often children experience guilt, shame, and stigma for having a paren...

I am currently co-facilitating a grief and loss group with my counseling intern.  The group has been very powerful and I think it has a lot to do with the activities we are doing in the group. One of the first activities we did was a healing heart.  We used large red roll paper to cut out a gigantic heart.  We then cut the heart into squiggly lined pieces. We made enough pieces so that each member of the group and both of us would have a piece.  We then labeled the back of the heart so we would remember how it went back together.  Note: I highly recommend doing that! It made it so much easier to put it back together. During our first group session, we explained to students that everyone in the group has experienced a loss or multiple losses of people they care about.  We passed out a piece of the heart to each student.  We instructed them that they could use the piece of the heart to draw a picture, write a memory, share a message, or decorate ho...

Oftentimes school counselors get "angry" kids referred to them and instead of trying to figure out what is behind that anger, we put them in a group to teach them how to manage it.   Anger management groups can be a great way to teach students that anger is a normal emotion. Talking about anger can teach students that they have power over their anger and how they handle it. However, if you want to move beyond anger management , it is important to figure out what is behind the anger. Anger management concerns are often masking a bigger and/or different issue. While facilitating anger management groups last year I realized that the majority of students in my groups had or were currently experiencing the incarceration of a loved one . I was interviewed by Counseling Today and mentioned this in the article . This realization made me much more purposeful about the activities we did in our group.  It also helped me to recruit students for future groups focusing on specific ...

Over the summer I volunteered at a weekend-long grief and loss camp for children.  As part of the closing ceremony, I had the privilege of facilitating a balloon release. The balloon release was a simple, yet meaningful way to commemorate loved ones who passed away and give closure to the weekend. The children and staff members wrote messages on the balloons to their loved ones who passed away. I asked everyone to take a few moments to think of their loved one as well as their time spent at the camp that weekend.  After a few moments had passed, I did a countdown to release the balloons.  It was mesmerizing to see dozens of colorful balloons floating in the sky. For the balloon release, I wrote a message to my grandmother who passed away in 2005 unexpectedly from cancer at age 61.  I wrote a personal message to her and closed it saying "You Are My Sunshine." My grandmother always sang "You Are My Sunshine" to me as a child.  The song is very special to ...