February 5, 2024 • 23 mins
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How can we effectively educate kids with mental health or basic well-being concerns? Carissa, a former teacher, current school counselor and mental health therapist, says it's not realistic. Students can't learn if they aren't regulated and works to be her best self for her students by remembering her goal of helping rather than "fixing"- guiding her students toward resilience and self-reliance.
Carissa shares her strategies that keep her grounded and effective while balancing a demanding workload and unrelenting needs with the realities of too little time. Our conversation brings to light an overlooked aspect of school counseling: Are we being as kind to ourselves as we are teaching our students to be?
She also shares a SUPER-SUCCESSFUL initiative that would be PERFECT for Random Acts of Kindness Week or anytime your campus & community could use a little extra encouragement.
It's easy to dream big, but Carissa reminds us that starting small and gradually building up while being kind and remembering to care for ourselves is the key to sustainable and impactful programs.
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And for a bit of excitement, we've got a giveaway that's all about celebrating the hard work of school counselors—without adding to their plate. Tune in to find out how to win a treasure trove of resources tailor-made for YOU: the school counseling heroes that guide our students each and every day.
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Our goal at School for School Counselors is to help school counselors stay on fire, make huge impacts for students, and catalyze change for our roles through grassroots advocacy and collaboration. Listen to get to know more about us and our mission, feel empowered and inspired, and set yourself up for success in the wonderful world of school counseling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello school counselor friend, welcome back
to the School for SchoolCounselors podcast.
I am so excited about thisweek's episode.
You have no idea.
We're going to start tosprinkle in some really fun
interviews that I was able to dowith some of our school
counseling colleagues recently,and I think you're going to love
(00:21):
to hear the insights andperspective they bring, as well
as school counseling wisdom.
We are all in for a tremendoustreat, and this week is going to
be no exception.
I have the honor and privilegeof talking with Carissa.
She is a newish schoolcounselor on the scene, but I'm
(00:41):
going to tell you right now,hearing her talk, it sounds like
she's been doing this for years.
She has so much insight andperspective on doing good work
while also taking great care ofourselves, and she has a pretty
stinking cool idea for spreadingkindness not only across our
(01:02):
campuses but throughout ourcommunities.
So I hope you take a closelisten to this one this week,
because it's going to be a goldmine for you.
I started just by askingCarissa to introduce herself to
everyone and tell us a littlebit about herself.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hi, my name is Carissa and I have been a school
counselor for about two and ahalf years.
Before that I was a teacher,elementary and special ed
certified, for about 16 yearsbefore becoming a school
counselor and I ultimately madethat change.
(01:42):
Because, as important as Ithink education is, if you don't
have the fundamental mentalhealth support, kids are not
going to really care what a nounis, if they're having things
going on at their home orthey're very anxious or they are
thinking about suicide.
The education component doesn'treally matter to them.
(02:05):
So I really wanted to get tothat base of the issue, because
I was seeing these type ofmental health issues when I was
teaching.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Carissa may have only been school counseling for
about two and a half years, butshe has a tremendous breadth and
depth of experience and a truepassion for her work.
In addition to teaching andschool counseling, she
volunteers for a crime victimscouncil, working mostly with
sexual assault victims, andstarted her own private practice
(02:39):
focusing on women and children.
She hopes to expand that into agroup practice while still
continuing her full-time schoolcounseling job.
So I asked her you've got to beso extremely busy.
You have so much going on.
How do you find and maintain agood balance in your day?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I try my best to keep realistic expectations for
myself as much as I can and justremind myself of that.
Also, looking at prioritieswhat is the priority situation?
And start there.
That's where I need to be.
And these other things going on, how can I manage them?
It can be really hard to setthose realistic expectations on
(03:25):
herself.
I myself a lot of times havethat.
I want to help everybody, saveeverybody, feeling so.
I don't want to feel like I'mletting anybody down, but it's
just about prioritizing and thisis what I can do right now.
That doesn't mean later I can'tdo something more, but this is
(03:47):
where we're at right now andtrying to look at that
realistically and then go fromthere.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love Carissa's mindset on this and I think it
melds really nicely with what wesay around our school for
school counselors world all thetime, which is I'm a helper, not
a fixer.
It's so easy to get in thatmindset, a feeling like you have
to fix everything and that'swhat stresses a lot of school
(04:15):
counselors out.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Feeling like we have to do all the things, yeah, and
it can be hard realizing thatAll of that needing to fix or
helping it's not all on us.
Whoever we're trying to helphas to take ownership in that
process to at least a search anddegree.
So we need to remind ourselvesof that.
(04:38):
We can't make people do things.
We can help them.
We can show them options andresources and be creative, but
at the end of the day, even ifit's a person we care about and
we're concerned about, there'sonly so much we can do.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Spoken like a true clinical therapist and a wise
school counselor for sure,because we know that unless
people have a desire to changeor something compelling them to
make a positive change, it'sgoing to be extremely difficult.
I noted that, in schoolsparticularly, it feels like
we're more of an assembly linemodel of counseling, so to speak
(05:19):
.
We expect to apply anintervention, see a result, fix
the thing, move on.
And it's that way in schools,not only with academics but with
school counseling as well.
Just administer a small groupand everything will be fine,
talk to them for 10 minutes andeverything will be okay.
But that's not the way thatkids work.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, you get lucky sometimes where there's some
kind of disagreement and it canbe worked out A one meeting,
maybe a follow up meeting.
But yeah, sometimes there'sthat assumption Go do your magic
and fix the situation and Ilove that.
They think I'm able to havethat magic and that usually I do
(06:05):
really well and that's great.
But yeah, it's not as easy assometimes the outside world of
counseling thinks that it is.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Y'all.
So many people in our industrylove to talk about self-care.
As a licensed therapist andschool counselor, carissa has
some really strong opinionsabout what constitutes true
self-care and how it can beattained, and I think she may be
a master at it.
I was glad to hear her opinionsbecause, I'll be real, a lot of
(06:40):
the self-care conversation Ifind irrelevant to real people
in real life.
It sort of makes me cringe, andI think it does Carissa too.
Listen what she had to sayabout it.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
We go to so many trainings about self-care and
they're like oh, just spend oneextra half an hour a day reading
a book or doing this.
The way they break it down it'slogical, but it doesn't work
for everybody and they shrink itdown to this little issue and
don't really understand whatself-care really is and that
(07:13):
it's a mindset and a way youhave to go about your day, go
about your week.
It's not like a quick fix oh,I'm gonna get massaged tomorrow.
I'm good on self-care for theweek because it's a daily thing,
even if it's just a small thingdaily, and I think it's very
personal and unique to everybody.
I think it'd be more helpful intrainings that help people
(07:36):
figure out what might reallywork for them, as opposed to
here's four things.
Here's a breathing technique.
Especially as counselors, weknow that stuff.
It should be more about helpingthe individual kind of sort out
what works for them.
What works for one person doesnot work for another person, and
I have that mindset when I'mworking with students or clients
(07:59):
that I can show you some toolsand we can practice things, but
in the end of the day you needto figure out which one of these
tools are gonna work for you,and I just wanna give you a
sampling of some things to try.
And if it works today, it mightnot even work tomorrow.
Whatever your self-care is, Ithink it's good to be purposeful
(08:21):
and to have a variety of things.
Maybe you go take a walk, butit's raining.
What else can you do?
And don't beat yourself upeither.
If you can't get that walk intoday, the whole day is not
ruined.
You're not horrible.
Life throws different curvesand stuff like that.
(08:44):
So you have to give yourselfgrace as well.
Yeah, there's realities of mebeing one person in five places.
Sometimes one day I had to bein three places at one time and
I had to do two virtually andthen one in person because
there's only one of me.
But before I came to thatposition, the position didn't
(09:05):
exist and they had nothing.
So I need to remind myself thatI might want to do this really
comprehensive counseling programfor each school, but it's not
realistic because I'm only thereone day a week or two days a
month.
So I'm gonna do the best I canwith that time.
(09:25):
So, yeah, just keeping your ownexpectations in check.
So you're not stressingyourself out.
You're one person, you're ahuman and you're gonna do what
is best that you can do in whatsituation you're given.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I could not agree with Carissa's thoughts more.
It's so important to make surethat we're keeping a realistic
perspective in our work and notburning ourselves out trying to
be a hundred different people atonce.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I mentioned that there's a huge trend of folks
coming out of grad schoolthinking that the expectation is
to build this mega schoolcounseling program that's
instantaneously comprehensive,and then they jump on a campus
and start to burn out reallyfast and we're taught, like you
said, all the differentcomponents of a counseling
(10:17):
program and, depending whatsystem we come into, some may
have some part set up, somemight not really have much set
up and they're eager and theywant to do the best that they
can.
They have all that extra energyand stuff like that.
But yeah, it's not that youdon't wanna strive to do the
best and even maybe push thatenvelope a little bit and do a
(10:39):
little more than you thought youcould do.
But you have to stay realisticas well and remind yourself that
, okay, this year I mightimplement this great small group
system and then next year whenyou reevaluate, you know what
this small group was good.
But now I would like to addthis extra school wide thing, so
(10:59):
we don't always have to doeverything at the exact moment
that we start.
We sometimes have to build andremind ourselves that's okay If
it's not everything at once.
Just start somewhere and juststart building on that, as you
can.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We have been honored to have Carissa in our school
for school counselors communityfor years and I think she's
participated in just abouteverything we've ever offered or
put out into the world.
I asked her what has School forSchool Counselors done to help
sustain her school counselingpractice?
(11:36):
I was expecting tactics ortechniques, or perhaps
consultation.
What she had to say blew mymind and I'm going to be honest,
I've really struggled withwhether or not I was going to
leave this in the podcast, but Iwant to be true to her words
and what she sees in our Schoolfor School Counselors world.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I think the best benefit, which might be
overlooked sometime, is just howreal of a person you are to
start with.
Though you have a lot ofexperience, you don't act like
this stuffy individual who knowseverything when you're going to
sit down and explain to us howeverything works and how it
(12:20):
should be.
You're more a person that iseasy to talk to, so that makes
it great.
This is like your side project,but I don't feel like this is
like a money grab or this iswhat your concern is.
It's about more of a communityof School Counselors coming
together, providing support,sometimes with different ideas
(12:43):
and what to do, sometimes justventing and letting out some
things that are frustrating youand realize that there's some
other people having a verysimilar frustration as well.
Only when you're in a positionwhere you don't really socialize
with lots of other SchoolCounselors because I'm the only
School Counselor for fiveschools I think it's beneficial
(13:05):
that way, if you are within theisland upon yourself, have some
counselors like Belone and theSchool or multiple schools, to
have that kind of interaction,that very real human interaction
, not like putting on airs andtrying to be the queen of
something.
You're just a regular personand that makes everything feel
(13:28):
really comfortable.
I think it just starts withjust who you are as a person and
that's filtered into whatSchool for School Counselors is,
because that radiates.
I think that's ultimately thebest benefit I got from it.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Thank you.
I'm humbled by that.
I don't even know what to sayin response.
Oh my stars, that's not what Iwas expecting at all, thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'm glad that's shining through, because when we started, the
whole point of any of this wasthat we were stronger and
smarter together and that weshould never have one expert
(14:10):
ever in a room ready to telleverybody else what they should
be doing.
That was grad school.
We've all been through that now.
It's time to collaborate and getbetter amongst our peers to
help each other out.
So thank you so much for that,and I get I want to say.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I agree, then, what you said about not being 1
expert in the room, because evensomebody who just starts
counseling, they may havesomething to share that we
haven't thought of.
When I was in college, beforeeven officially graduating, I
started to accumulate resourcesand put them into Google drive
(14:48):
With different categories, whichI've done.
Now, over time, I have likethousands of resources.
Now that might be an idea.
Somebody who graduated is likeoh, I've thought about this,
make sure you're Putting them indifferent places because some
weird topic comes up and thenyou can look up oh, I have these
things on that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, I think you can learn something and get
experience from anybody at anylevel, because, though there's
obviously things in common withus, there's also so much diverse
Education and information andsettings that they're coming
from, so we all have somethingthat we can contribute as we
wrapped up our conversation, Iasked Chris, with all the things
(15:30):
that she has going on, all thebusyness and the clinical work
and the school work and evenhome life and personal life,
what keeps her walking backthrough the doors of her
campuses day after day?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It can be the smallest thing, sometimes that
you're talking to a studentwho's having a hard day or just
Dealing with something that theydon't know how to deal with,
and when you sit down with themyou have those conversations to
get to know them a little betterand you can see them being more
(16:04):
at ease and more calm andhaving a thought of maybe how
they can attack whatever thesituation is.
I had a student like that andthen a few days later they had
come to me and they said it feltlike a giant weight was lifted
off them because they were ableto do something that was
(16:24):
previously causing them a lot ofstress.
And the student told me thatyou changed my life and I was
just melted.
I'm not sure that's quiteaccurate, that I changed their
whole life, but you could see ontheir face the weight was
lifted and in that moment it maylook the whole year to matter
what I was going to do past thatit made it worth it.
(16:46):
So, like all thoseaccumulations of things like
that, it shows me that I'm in agood place.
I'm doing something.
These are what my skills arefor.
I had done a school wide thingthis year that I want to try
when I was doing bullying andkindness lessons for bullying
(17:08):
prevention month and I hung upin the schools these kindness
posters where they were rippedoff a paper and they had
different compliments they wouldgive them to somebody and I had
so much success with that.
I had principal saying we needmore of these.
These signs are all gone thefirst day, like all the
(17:29):
compliments are gone.
I even had a student because Iput that up make up his own
compliments on his own and handthem out to his peers and I was
just like Lord, I'm like thatone way better than I thought
and with that, when I would stopa student who I saw pulling off
(17:49):
a compliment, I would say whoare you going to give it to?
Because I wanted to see if theyweren't just like pulling them
off when they all had differentstories about their parents or a
teacher or a sibling they weregoing to give them to and why
they were going to give them tothis person.
I had students and start torequest more put up.
But yeah, I think when I countedbetween my five schools, I
(18:14):
think there was something like alittle over 2000 compliments
that went out in the communityBecause of that idea.
Sometimes you have an idea andyou're like, hi, I wonder how
it's going to go.
That one really well, next yearI will improve upon it.
I'll probably make some withsome different kinds of
compliments and mix it up.
But yes, stuff like that keepsme going and as maybe silly as a
(18:38):
thing that seems how that doesmake a difference and even if
just in a moment, and shiftsthat student to be appreciative
to somebody and share that withsomebody and get some positives
instead of all of the negativesthat we are always getting and
unfortunately one negative takesway too many positives to get
(18:59):
rid of it.
Just little things like that.
Those things sustain me.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
What a fantastic idea , especially with random acts of
kindness week coming up.
Y'all imagine the impacts thatyou could make on your community
doing just what Carissa did.
The word that comes to mindlistening to Carissa speak was
encourager.
Carissa feels like the ultimateencourager for students.
(19:27):
Not a cheerleader, becausethat's different, but solid,
meaningful, real and authenticsupport for students.
So, as a last word, I askedCarissa if she had one piece of
advice or one bit of wisdom thatshe could provide to her school
counseling colleagues.
What would she want you to know?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
We promote all this social emotional learning.
We promote ideas of trying tobe kind other students, be kind
to each other, conflictmediation, all that kind of
stuff.
What's hard a lot of times isshowing that kindness to
ourselves.
So when we are feelingoverwhelmed, reminding yourself
that we can do it and we'rehuman beings, we're not robots.
(20:13):
We are not just programmed todo some kind of whatever
presentation or curriculum thatwe're human beings to and we
give that kindness easily toother people, but we need to
remember to be kind to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
It was a delight to visit with my friend, carissa,
and I felt like we could havetalked and talked all afternoon
if we had the chance.
She is a delight, she'sabsolutely precious and she has
such a great viewpoint on somany things.
I think it's important that weremember the things that she
(20:52):
told us that it's important tomaintain a realistic perspective
in our work, that we need to beextending ourselves, grace and
taking good care of ourselves inmeaningful ways.
That we can be an encourager inthis world where so many people
are feeling beaten down, byspreading positivity, kindness
(21:16):
and compassion to others.
I so enjoyed this conversationwith Carissa and I hope you did
too.
I hope it was as inspirationalfor you as it was for me.
Hey, before we go, I want tolet you know if you're listening
to this episode around the timeof release.
We are right at the start ofNational School Counseling Week,
(21:40):
and that's always an excitingtime for so many of us, but my
team and I here at School forSchool Counselors really felt
like it was time to pay somethings forward.
Instead of giving you all theseextra to-dos or expectations on
top of your already-overwhelmedschedule, we thought we'd do
something a little different.
(22:01):
We are hosting a mega SchoolCounselor giveaway.
It's going to be insane.
There is one grand prize thatconsists of a year's membership
in our School for SchoolCounselors Mastermind, a $150
Amazon gift card and 10 of ourfavorite school counseling
(22:23):
related books shipped straightto your door.
This is going to be an epiccontest, and not only can you
win by entering, but you canalso get extra entries for
sharing and letting your otherSchool Counseling colleague
friends know about it.
You can find out all about iton our webpage, schoolforschool
counselorscom, so head on overthere and get signed up.
(22:46):
Alright, I'll be back soon withanother episode of the School
for School Counselors podcast.
In the meantime, both Carissaand I hope that you have the
best week.
Take care.
Hello school counselor friend, welcome back
to the School for SchoolCounselors podcast.
I am so excited about thisweek's episode.
You have no idea.
We're going to start tosprinkle in some really fun
interviews that I was able to dowith some of our school
counseling colleagues recently,and I think you're going to love
(00:21):
to hear the insights andperspective they bring, as well
as school counseling wisdom.
We are all in for a tremendoustreat, and this week is going to
be no exception.
I have the honor and privilegeof talking with Carissa.
She is a newish schoolcounselor on the scene, but I'm
(00:41):
going to tell you right now,hearing her talk, it sounds like
she's been doing this for years.
She has so much insight andperspective on doing good work
while also taking great care ofourselves, and she has a pretty
stinking cool idea for spreadingkindness not only across our
(01:02):
campuses but throughout ourcommunities.
So I hope you take a closelisten to this one this week,
because it's going to be a goldmine for you.
I started just by askingCarissa to introduce herself to
everyone and tell us a littlebit about herself.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hi, my name is Carissa and I have been a school
counselor for about two and ahalf years.
Before that I was a teacher,elementary and special ed
certified, for about 16 yearsbefore becoming a school
counselor and I ultimately madethat change.
(01:42):
Because, as important as Ithink education is, if you don't
have the fundamental mentalhealth support, kids are not
going to really care what a nounis, if they're having things
going on at their home orthey're very anxious or they are
thinking about suicide.
The education component doesn'treally matter to them.
(02:05):
So I really wanted to get tothat base of the issue, because
I was seeing these type ofmental health issues when I was
teaching.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Carissa may have only been school counseling for
about two and a half years, butshe has a tremendous breadth and
depth of experience and a truepassion for her work.
In addition to teaching andschool counseling, she
volunteers for a crime victimscouncil, working mostly with
sexual assault victims, andstarted her own private practice
(02:39):
focusing on women and children.
She hopes to expand that into agroup practice while still
continuing her full-time schoolcounseling job.
So I asked her you've got to beso extremely busy.
You have so much going on.
How do you find and maintain agood balance in your day?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I try my best to keep realistic expectations for
myself as much as I can and justremind myself of that.
Also, looking at prioritieswhat is the priority situation?
And start there.
That's where I need to be.
And these other things going on, how can I manage them?
It can be really hard to setthose realistic expectations on
(03:25):
herself.
I myself a lot of times havethat.
I want to help everybody, saveeverybody, feeling so.
I don't want to feel like I'mletting anybody down, but it's
just about prioritizing and thisis what I can do right now.
That doesn't mean later I can'tdo something more, but this is
(03:47):
where we're at right now andtrying to look at that
realistically and then go fromthere.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love Carissa's mindset on this and I think it
melds really nicely with what wesay around our school for
school counselors world all thetime, which is I'm a helper, not
a fixer.
It's so easy to get in thatmindset, a feeling like you have
to fix everything and that'swhat stresses a lot of school
(04:15):
counselors out.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Feeling like we have to do all the things, yeah, and
it can be hard realizing thatAll of that needing to fix or
helping it's not all on us.
Whoever we're trying to helphas to take ownership in that
process to at least a search anddegree.
So we need to remind ourselvesof that.
(04:38):
We can't make people do things.
We can help them.
We can show them options andresources and be creative, but
at the end of the day, even ifit's a person we care about and
we're concerned about, there'sonly so much we can do.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Spoken like a true clinical therapist and a wise
school counselor for sure,because we know that unless
people have a desire to changeor something compelling them to
make a positive change, it'sgoing to be extremely difficult.
I noted that, in schoolsparticularly, it feels like
we're more of an assembly linemodel of counseling, so to speak
(05:19):
.
We expect to apply anintervention, see a result, fix
the thing, move on.
And it's that way in schools,not only with academics but with
school counseling as well.
Just administer a small groupand everything will be fine,
talk to them for 10 minutes andeverything will be okay.
But that's not the way thatkids work.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, you get lucky sometimes where there's some
kind of disagreement and it canbe worked out A one meeting,
maybe a follow up meeting.
But yeah, sometimes there'sthat assumption Go do your magic
and fix the situation and Ilove that.
They think I'm able to havethat magic and that usually I do
(06:05):
really well and that's great.
But yeah, it's not as easy assometimes the outside world of
counseling thinks that it is.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Y'all.
So many people in our industrylove to talk about self-care.
As a licensed therapist andschool counselor, carissa has
some really strong opinionsabout what constitutes true
self-care and how it can beattained, and I think she may be
a master at it.
I was glad to hear her opinionsbecause, I'll be real, a lot of
(06:40):
the self-care conversation Ifind irrelevant to real people
in real life.
It sort of makes me cringe, andI think it does Carissa too.
Listen what she had to sayabout it.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
We go to so many trainings about self-care and
they're like oh, just spend oneextra half an hour a day reading
a book or doing this.
The way they break it down it'slogical, but it doesn't work
for everybody and they shrink itdown to this little issue and
don't really understand whatself-care really is and that
(07:13):
it's a mindset and a way youhave to go about your day, go
about your week.
It's not like a quick fix oh,I'm gonna get massaged tomorrow.
I'm good on self-care for theweek because it's a daily thing,
even if it's just a small thingdaily, and I think it's very
personal and unique to everybody.
I think it'd be more helpful intrainings that help people
(07:36):
figure out what might reallywork for them, as opposed to
here's four things.
Here's a breathing technique.
Especially as counselors, weknow that stuff.
It should be more about helpingthe individual kind of sort out
what works for them.
What works for one person doesnot work for another person, and
I have that mindset when I'mworking with students or clients
(07:59):
that I can show you some toolsand we can practice things, but
in the end of the day you needto figure out which one of these
tools are gonna work for you,and I just wanna give you a
sampling of some things to try.
And if it works today, it mightnot even work tomorrow.
Whatever your self-care is, Ithink it's good to be purposeful
(08:21):
and to have a variety of things.
Maybe you go take a walk, butit's raining.
What else can you do?
And don't beat yourself upeither.
If you can't get that walk intoday, the whole day is not
ruined.
You're not horrible.
Life throws different curvesand stuff like that.
(08:44):
So you have to give yourselfgrace as well.
Yeah, there's realities of mebeing one person in five places.
Sometimes one day I had to bein three places at one time and
I had to do two virtually andthen one in person because
there's only one of me.
But before I came to thatposition, the position didn't
(09:05):
exist and they had nothing.
So I need to remind myself thatI might want to do this really
comprehensive counseling programfor each school, but it's not
realistic because I'm only thereone day a week or two days a
month.
So I'm gonna do the best I canwith that time.
(09:25):
So, yeah, just keeping your ownexpectations in check.
So you're not stressingyourself out.
You're one person, you're ahuman and you're gonna do what
is best that you can do in whatsituation you're given.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I could not agree with Carissa's thoughts more.
It's so important to make surethat we're keeping a realistic
perspective in our work and notburning ourselves out trying to
be a hundred different people atonce.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I mentioned that there's a huge trend of folks
coming out of grad schoolthinking that the expectation is
to build this mega schoolcounseling program that's
instantaneously comprehensive,and then they jump on a campus
and start to burn out reallyfast and we're taught, like you
said, all the differentcomponents of a counseling
(10:17):
program and, depending whatsystem we come into, some may
have some part set up, somemight not really have much set
up and they're eager and theywant to do the best that they
can.
They have all that extra energyand stuff like that.
But yeah, it's not that youdon't wanna strive to do the
best and even maybe push thatenvelope a little bit and do a
(10:39):
little more than you thought youcould do.
But you have to stay realisticas well and remind yourself that
, okay, this year I mightimplement this great small group
system and then next year whenyou reevaluate, you know what
this small group was good.
But now I would like to addthis extra school wide thing, so
(10:59):
we don't always have to doeverything at the exact moment
that we start.
We sometimes have to build andremind ourselves that's okay If
it's not everything at once.
Just start somewhere and juststart building on that, as you
can.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We have been honored to have Carissa in our school
for school counselors communityfor years and I think she's
participated in just abouteverything we've ever offered or
put out into the world.
I asked her what has School forSchool Counselors done to help
sustain her school counselingpractice?
(11:36):
I was expecting tactics ortechniques, or perhaps
consultation.
What she had to say blew mymind and I'm going to be honest,
I've really struggled withwhether or not I was going to
leave this in the podcast, but Iwant to be true to her words
and what she sees in our Schoolfor School Counselors world.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I think the best benefit, which might be
overlooked sometime, is just howreal of a person you are to
start with.
Though you have a lot ofexperience, you don't act like
this stuffy individual who knowseverything when you're going to
sit down and explain to us howeverything works and how it
(12:20):
should be.
You're more a person that iseasy to talk to, so that makes
it great.
This is like your side project,but I don't feel like this is
like a money grab or this iswhat your concern is.
It's about more of a communityof School Counselors coming
together, providing support,sometimes with different ideas
(12:43):
and what to do, sometimes justventing and letting out some
things that are frustrating youand realize that there's some
other people having a verysimilar frustration as well.
Only when you're in a positionwhere you don't really socialize
with lots of other SchoolCounselors because I'm the only
School Counselor for fiveschools I think it's beneficial
(13:05):
that way, if you are within theisland upon yourself, have some
counselors like Belone and theSchool or multiple schools, to
have that kind of interaction,that very real human interaction
, not like putting on airs andtrying to be the queen of
something.
You're just a regular personand that makes everything feel
(13:28):
really comfortable.
I think it just starts withjust who you are as a person and
that's filtered into whatSchool for School Counselors is,
because that radiates.
I think that's ultimately thebest benefit I got from it.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Thank you.
I'm humbled by that.
I don't even know what to sayin response.
Oh my stars, that's not what Iwas expecting at all, thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'm glad that's shining through, because when we started, the
whole point of any of this wasthat we were stronger and
smarter together and that weshould never have one expert
(14:10):
ever in a room ready to telleverybody else what they should
be doing.
That was grad school.
We've all been through that now.
It's time to collaborate and getbetter amongst our peers to
help each other out.
So thank you so much for that,and I get I want to say.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I agree, then, what you said about not being 1
expert in the room, because evensomebody who just starts
counseling, they may havesomething to share that we
haven't thought of.
When I was in college, beforeeven officially graduating, I
started to accumulate resourcesand put them into Google drive
(14:48):
With different categories, whichI've done.
Now, over time, I have likethousands of resources.
Now that might be an idea.
Somebody who graduated is likeoh, I've thought about this,
make sure you're Putting them indifferent places because some
weird topic comes up and thenyou can look up oh, I have these
things on that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, I think you can learn something and get
experience from anybody at anylevel, because, though there's
obviously things in common withus, there's also so much diverse
Education and information andsettings that they're coming
from, so we all have somethingthat we can contribute as we
wrapped up our conversation, Iasked Chris, with all the things
(15:30):
that she has going on, all thebusyness and the clinical work
and the school work and evenhome life and personal life,
what keeps her walking backthrough the doors of her
campuses day after day?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It can be the smallest thing, sometimes that
you're talking to a studentwho's having a hard day or just
Dealing with something that theydon't know how to deal with,
and when you sit down with themyou have those conversations to
get to know them a little betterand you can see them being more
(16:04):
at ease and more calm andhaving a thought of maybe how
they can attack whatever thesituation is.
I had a student like that andthen a few days later they had
come to me and they said it feltlike a giant weight was lifted
off them because they were ableto do something that was
(16:24):
previously causing them a lot ofstress.
And the student told me thatyou changed my life and I was
just melted.
I'm not sure that's quiteaccurate, that I changed their
whole life, but you could see ontheir face the weight was
lifted and in that moment it maylook the whole year to matter
what I was going to do past thatit made it worth it.
(16:46):
So, like all thoseaccumulations of things like
that, it shows me that I'm in agood place.
I'm doing something.
These are what my skills arefor.
I had done a school wide thingthis year that I want to try
when I was doing bullying andkindness lessons for bullying
(17:08):
prevention month and I hung upin the schools these kindness
posters where they were rippedoff a paper and they had
different compliments they wouldgive them to somebody and I had
so much success with that.
I had principal saying we needmore of these.
These signs are all gone thefirst day, like all the
(17:29):
compliments are gone.
I even had a student because Iput that up make up his own
compliments on his own and handthem out to his peers and I was
just like Lord, I'm like thatone way better than I thought
and with that, when I would stopa student who I saw pulling off
(17:49):
a compliment, I would say whoare you going to give it to?
Because I wanted to see if theyweren't just like pulling them
off when they all had differentstories about their parents or a
teacher or a sibling they weregoing to give them to and why
they were going to give them tothis person.
I had students and start torequest more put up.
But yeah, I think when I countedbetween my five schools, I
(18:14):
think there was something like alittle over 2000 compliments
that went out in the communityBecause of that idea.
Sometimes you have an idea andyou're like, hi, I wonder how
it's going to go.
That one really well, next yearI will improve upon it.
I'll probably make some withsome different kinds of
compliments and mix it up.
But yes, stuff like that keepsme going and as maybe silly as a
(18:38):
thing that seems how that doesmake a difference and even if
just in a moment, and shiftsthat student to be appreciative
to somebody and share that withsomebody and get some positives
instead of all of the negativesthat we are always getting and
unfortunately one negative takesway too many positives to get
(18:59):
rid of it.
Just little things like that.
Those things sustain me.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
What a fantastic idea , especially with random acts of
kindness week coming up.
Y'all imagine the impacts thatyou could make on your community
doing just what Carissa did.
The word that comes to mindlistening to Carissa speak was
encourager.
Carissa feels like the ultimateencourager for students.
(19:27):
Not a cheerleader, becausethat's different, but solid,
meaningful, real and authenticsupport for students.
So, as a last word, I askedCarissa if she had one piece of
advice or one bit of wisdom thatshe could provide to her school
counseling colleagues.
What would she want you to know?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
We promote all this social emotional learning.
We promote ideas of trying tobe kind other students, be kind
to each other, conflictmediation, all that kind of
stuff.
What's hard a lot of times isshowing that kindness to
ourselves.
So when we are feelingoverwhelmed, reminding yourself
that we can do it and we'rehuman beings, we're not robots.
(20:13):
We are not just programmed todo some kind of whatever
presentation or curriculum thatwe're human beings to and we
give that kindness easily toother people, but we need to
remember to be kind to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
It was a delight to visit with my friend, carissa,
and I felt like we could havetalked and talked all afternoon
if we had the chance.
She is a delight, she'sabsolutely precious and she has
such a great viewpoint on somany things.
I think it's important that weremember the things that she
(20:52):
told us that it's important tomaintain a realistic perspective
in our work, that we need to beextending ourselves, grace and
taking good care of ourselves inmeaningful ways.
That we can be an encourager inthis world where so many people
are feeling beaten down, byspreading positivity, kindness
(21:16):
and compassion to others.
I so enjoyed this conversationwith Carissa and I hope you did
too.
I hope it was as inspirationalfor you as it was for me.
Hey, before we go, I want tolet you know if you're listening
to this episode around the timeof release.
We are right at the start ofNational School Counseling Week,
(21:40):
and that's always an excitingtime for so many of us, but my
team and I here at School forSchool Counselors really felt
like it was time to pay somethings forward.
Instead of giving you all theseextra to-dos or expectations on
top of your already-overwhelmedschedule, we thought we'd do
something a little different.
(22:01):
We are hosting a mega SchoolCounselor giveaway.
It's going to be insane.
There is one grand prize thatconsists of a year's membership
in our School for SchoolCounselors Mastermind, a $150
Amazon gift card and 10 of ourfavorite school counseling
(22:23):
related books shipped straightto your door.
This is going to be an epiccontest, and not only can you
win by entering, but you canalso get extra entries for
sharing and letting your otherSchool Counseling colleague
friends know about it.
You can find out all about iton our webpage, schoolforschool
counselorscom, so head on overthere and get signed up.
(22:46):
Alright, I'll be back soon withanother episode of the School
for School Counselors podcast.
In the meantime, both Carissaand I hope that you have the
best week.
Take care.
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