School counselors are for ALL students. We support and educate students in the areas of academics, healthy social and emotional well being, and post secondary success which is most of the time is accomplished through our weekly guidance classes. However some students need additional support in those areas. There are a few ways students are identified as needing additional school counseling assistance. Parents, students, educator staff, and SSiS. The SSiS is a universal screener teachers complete at the beginning and end of the school year. Through this screener the teacher is provided 4 categories that students can fall into with regards to their social and emotional development. Students who are identified as a concern in their social and emotional development are considered for additional intervention. Sometimes those interventions consist of the school counselor running groups or individual sessions to help provide further education into areas of need.

Group and Individual sessions are confidential. Children are taught what this means. For groups they can talk to their guardians about group, but only in the context of what they did in group and not what others in the group did or talked about. Same goes for individual sessions. They are held in confidence between myself and the student. If something is brought up in a session that I feel a guardian or other trusted adult (such as principal or teacher) should know, I have a conversation with the child and seek out their permission to break confidentiality. There are three instances where I am unable to maintain confidentiality between myself and a student: 1) someone is hurting the child. 2) The child wants to hurt someone else. 3) The child wants to hurt themselves. These rules are explained at the beginning of the school year in guidance class and at the beginning of group sessions.

Groups are held once a week for about 20-30 minutes that lasts 6-8 weeks. The elementary school counselors works with the students' teachers to determine the best time to hold group that has the least amount of academic interruption.

Common topics group topics are (but not limited to):

• Family Change

• Worry/Anxiety

• Self Control

• Friendship

• Self-Esteem

• Resiliency

• Grief

• Emotional Regulation

As also described in the parent Q/A section, a school counselor does not provide long term mental health therapy. What we can offer is short term brief solution focused therapy. As a basic rule of thumb, if a situation is significant enough that it requires more than 3-4 sessions to resolve, then appropriate recommendations for outside therapy will be provided to the guardians.

Common topics students will see me for individual sessions:

• Friendship conflicts/conflict resolution

• Troubles at home (family change, sibling conflicts,

• Anxiety and worries

• Study skills/organization

• Emotional regulation strategies