Small Group Counseling

Counseling groups are offered via counselor invitation throughout the year. They not only help students to learn practical skills and strategies but also provide an opportunity for students to discuss with and learn from their peers. Group topics will likely vary from year to year because they are based on student needs. Some examples of groups include friendship/social skills, family changes, test anxiety, successful learning and middle school transition. Although they are designed to be beneficial for all students, only a select number of students are invited to participate due to time limitations. Teachers and other staff will oftentimes communicate student needs to the School Counselor in order to provide a more accurate understanding of which groups to run and when to run them. Group sessions are interactive and include games and activities in addition to discussion; they meet during lunch or recess or a time of day that does not take away from core instruction. It is my personal belief that counseling groups are ineffective if they interfere with a student's learning or cause them to fall behind in the classroom.

During the 2022-23 school year Medical Lake School District began using the SSIS-SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) screener as a tool to help continue to meet the needs of every student, every day. The results of that screener provide Mental Health professionals (School Counselors, School Psychologists and other associated roles) important information about student SEL needs. At Michael Anderson, the SSIS-SEL results data was presented to the Intervention Team alongside all other collected student data to help answer the questions: 1) How many students can be served additional SEL each trimester via small group intervention?, and 2) What SEL subjects would have the greatest impact on our student population? 

Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of many of my colleagues at Michael Anderson we were able to work with over 150 students in additional SEL interventions via small group and short-term, whole-class lessons! It was incredible leading this charge and seeing so many students grow in their understanding of feelings, problem-solving, communication, self-regulation and interacting with others in more positive ways. These skills are so important to elementary-age students and will help them to be successful throughout grade school and beyond as they continue to grow and learn. This SEL work will continue next school year and for the foreseeable future at MAE to meet the needs of our students.