CONSENT

As requested, a teacher may invite me to talk with a student about adverse behavior or emotions during the day. Likewise, a student can request to see me for any reason. Common reasons students request to see me include: academic concerns, conflict with peer or teacher, stress at home or in school for a variety of reasons, and friendship concerns. Students also request to see me for happy reasons too! Celebrations, prideful accomplishments, and expressing joy are common reasons students want to talk with me, too!

I will inform you if I saw your child for an adverse reason and I will communicate with you the content of our time together within guidelines of confidentiality.

If I want to meet with your child multiple times, I will solicit your permission separately. I will not meet with your child regularly for the same reason without your consent.

School counselors are not therapists: I do not provide therapy or psychological diagnoses.

CONFIDENTIALITY

As needed, I will meet with your child to support issues that may be affecting your child’s social emotional skills and/or success in the classroom. School counseling is short-term and problem-solving oriented. It can be helpful to improve a specific behavior, effective communication skills, conflict resolution, social skills, decision-making skills, or other issues that are impacting a student in school.

Confidentiality is important to develop a positive counseling relationship. Information shared by your child will be kept confidential and will not be shared without the student or parent’s consent, whichever applies. The exception is when there is reason to believe that the student’s safety or the safety of others is a concern.

Confidentiality in elementary school counseling can be tricky because teachers and parents are so highly integrated in a student's academic and social wellbeing. While "what is said in here stays in here" is our pact, I will always inform the student and/or seek the student's permission to disclose the content of our conversation with a parent or teacher. There are no surprises between me and a student.

Website Link: Role of Elementary School Counselors