Advocacy Through Action
Jenny Noteboom
Advocacy Chair
Hopefully, you're all reading this as you bask in the glow of a successful National School Counselors Week. You used the week to remind your school staff and the community about the vital role school counselors play in a school district and to thank them for their support. Pat yourself on the back, you deserve it. Telling people about school counseling is important.
Telling people is good; showing people is better. We need to prove by our actions, that we are important to our schools. We can't expect to be valued just because school counseling is a noble profession that helps children. It isn't enough. We can't expect to be valued because we run a comprehensive, research-based counseling program. It still isn't enough. Individually, we need to find ways to make our communities, school boards, administrators and staff see us as someone that helps our schools be more successful, be more enjoyable, be better. We need to find tangible ways to make our schools better, not only for our students, but for our staff, administrators and school boards.
In theory, school counselors are in existence to help students, and it would be nice if that were enough. We don't do our job in a bubble- we are part of an education team. To keep from being cut from the team, we need to seek out opportunities to show the people who make the decisions that we are a valuable asset to our school. Take a step back and look for opportunities to help your school board and administrators do their jobs more successfully. What are they concerned about this school year? Is there some way you can become viewed as a problem solver for your school? Multiple opportunities to solve problems for our school boards and administrators present themselves each year. We just have to look for them.
For example, in our school, staff moral was a prime focus for the administrators this year. The counselors took it upon themselves to head up several activities focused on raising staff moral. Also, with each school district being required by the state to have a health policy in place by the end of this year, counselors collaborated with the school nurse to spearhead a coordinated school health team, draft a wellness policy, and put into place a plan to improve the wellness environment in our school. The administration has expressed gratitude for these contributions and has told others- invaluable PR for our school counseling program.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Legislation gives school counselors a multitude of opportunities to be problem solvers. Challenges that school administrators are facing are well-suited to our expertise. Create a solution for a problem your school district has meeting NCLB, and you've made yourself invaluable to your school in a very concrete way.
It would be nice if we were given lots of extra time to take on the additional task of becoming your school district's resident superhero, but we aren't. A person can't do everything. That is why we have to be very deliberate in deciding which areas of concern we become involved with. Which do we see as most important? Which do we have time for? Which will give us the most "PR" bang for its buck? Remember that this isn't a frill we're trying to squeeze into our counseling schedule. It is necessary to allow us to continue to do the work that we love, helping students. Talking about the importance of school counselors in our schools is good- being a living example of the importance of school counselors in our schools is better. Finding ways to make your school more successful and more enjoyable is the only way to guarantee that school counselors will continue to be around to help students.
Isn't this why we became school counselors in the first place?