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August 30, 2024 24 mins

In this episode of the School for School Counselors Podcast, host Steph Johnson discusses ways to make school counseling more sustainable and enjoyable. Steph explores the importance of understanding your 'why', the benefits of tracking your time, the necessity of delegation, the value of effective systems, and the role of building strong relationships with staff. She emphasizes the need to maintain realistic expectations and provides insights on how school counselors can manage their demanding roles without burning out. Join the conversation and learn practical tips to thrive in your school counseling career.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:28 The Importance of Sustainable School Counseling

04:34 Understanding Your 'Why'

08:13 The Role of Data in School Counseling

14:20 The Power of Delegation

16:44 Building Effective Systems

18:45 Fostering Relationships with Staff

20:55 Setting Realistic Expectations

22:38 Conclusion and Support Resources

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Mentioned in This Episode:

SMART School Counseling Assessment: smartschoolcounseling.com

School for School Counselors Mastermind

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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):
Hey there, school counselor, welcome back to the
second episode of our podcastpower pack commemorating School
for School Counselors podcastsuccess throughout the last two
years.
So excited for you to join me.
I'm Steph Johnson, a full-timeschool counselor, just like you,
on a mission to make schoolcounseling more sustainable and

(00:22):
more enjoyable, and I just can'ttell you how excited I am that
you've joined me on this ride.
Coincidentally, the topic forthis episode is about making
school counseling sustainable.
You know, in the last episodewe talked about our SMART
framework and our SMART schoolcounseling assessment.
Go back and find theinformation on that.
Smartschoolcounselingcom iswhere you can find that

(00:43):
assessment.
Go back and find theinformation on that.
Smartschoolcounselingcom iswhere you can find that
assessment.
But we constantly in our world,are talking about how do we
make information more accessible, more meaningful, how do we
make school counselors expertsin their craft, how do we join
in real life with real worldschool counselors and real

(01:05):
problems, and so everything thatwe put out in the world is
designed with that end in mind.
So we talk about sustainableschool counseling a lot.
It reminds me of when I was akid.
I used to watch a bunch ofLooney Tunes cartoons I don't
know how many of you are oldenough to remember Looney Tunes
cartoons, but there were severalwhere the roadrunner would be

(01:27):
running away from Wile E Coyote.
He'd be chasing and inevitablythey would come to the edge of a
cliff and the roadrunner wouldrun right off the cliff and get
wherever he needed to go, butthe coyote would take a few
steps up into thin air, lookdown and all of a sudden realize
there was no ground underneathhis feet and you could see him

(01:48):
scrambling, trying to run hisway up the air right to save
himself from falling to theground below.
And I think often, as schoolcounselors, that's how we feel.
Sometimes we feel like theearth just moves out from
underneath us and we've beengiven all these expectations,
all of these initiatives thatwe're supposed to be meeting,
all these responsibilities tomeet, but then there's no

(02:11):
foundation underneath us and wefeel like we just were falling
and falling, and falling.
So we want to help schoolcounselors with that.
We want to give you a littlebit of an extra boost.
We want to give you someencouragement and motivation to
get through this crazy job,because it's an incredible thing
in and of itself that you'rehere doing this.

(02:31):
If you think about it, it'sreally pretty phenomenal that
you said, hey, I want to raisemy hand, I want to do that job,
I want to see and hear the worstthat my students have to offer.
I want the emotional burden tocarry some of that information
in my mind and in my heartbecause I can't share it with

(02:54):
anybody else on my campus.
I want to be in the middle ofsome situations that feel
unsolvable.
Yeah, I'll do that, sign me upfor that, because I love
students so much, I want tosupport kids so much, that I'm
willing to do that.
That's pretty incredible whenyou think about it, isn't it?

(03:14):
And I think it's a testament toyour character.
I think it is a testament toyour morals and your values that
you still feel like that's animportant thing in this world,
and I 1000% agree with you.
So if you're continuing to showup, if you're continuing to
give and learn and grow andprovide care and empathy and

(03:35):
support and understanding tostudents, I think we should be
working as an industry to helpyour work feel more sustainable.
Be working as an industry tohelp your work feel more
sustainable.
In an era where schoolcounselors are being
second-guessed, we're beingmisutilized or we're just plain
misunderstood.
How do we find that secretsauce to keep us going?

(03:58):
How do we maintain ourmotivation and our desire to
walk through those doors everymorning and greet students like
it's the first day?
How do we do that?
I think there are some secretsto sustainable school counseling
and I want to share them withyou in this podcast episode.
I want to get the wheelsturning in your mind so that

(04:20):
when you're having those roughpatches or perhaps preemptively
right to be able to really setyourself up for success, let's
think about these aspects ofsustainable school counseling.
First and this is a littlecliche, it almost feels
cringeworthy, but I think it'san important conversation to

(04:42):
have.
So I'm just going to offer itout there and do with it what
you will.
But this is a conversation wealso had in our mastermind
earlier today, before I recordedthis episode about knowing your
why.
And again, this is so cliche,it gets twisted in so many ways.
I don't mean sit down and writemission statements and vision

(05:03):
statements and all of thosekinds of things.
I don't think those areexceptionally helpful to you in
your work, but I do think it ishelpful to have a clear
philosophy of why you do thiswork.
I think so often in our workwe're told it's for the kids,
just do it for the kids.
Or we feel like people areleaning on us to do things out

(05:25):
of the goodness of our heartsand sometimes we want to do
those things.
Sometimes we understand and weget it and that's what we want
to do.
But sometimes we don't and wedon't want to be goaded into
this idea of you know well, justoverwhelm yourself, just do too
much.
Check every box, dot every I.
Overwhelm yourself, just do toomuch.

(05:47):
Check every box, dot every Iand cross every T we give you
because it's for the good of thekids.
We know that's not healthy,right?
We need good boundaries, weneed good distinctions between
us as a human being and us as aschool counselor.
Our work life versus our homelife, all of those different
things, our work life versus ourhome life, all of those
different things.
But in the middle of that weneed to not lose sight of our

(06:11):
why.
Why are we in school counseling?
What brought us here?
What is the purpose?
And that helps us maintain thatclarity and that clear
direction.
I have worked with probably now500 aspiring school counselors
in preparing for job interviewsand getting ready to get hired

(06:32):
on a school campus, and everysingle time that I meet with one
of these folks, I ask them whatbrought you to school
counseling?
And nine times out of 10, it'sa story that will just inspire
you forever or it willabsolutely break your heart.
But almost every single personthat I've worked with has a

(06:53):
reason.
There is something that drovetheir decision to get into
school counseling.
I don't think anybody justwakes up one day and says I
think I'll just become a schoolcounselor.
That seems easy.
I'll do that.
If they do, they don't lastvery long, do they?
So you need to have that ideain your mind.
It's going to help you getthrough the hard days.

(07:15):
It's going to help you getthrough the days when kids come
and tell you stories that youcould have never imagined and
that you wish you had neverheard.
It's going to help you marchthrough situations when you
desperately wish you had someoneon campus that you could go
consult with or just unload onfor a minute and nobody's

(07:37):
available.
It's going to help you get yourmuster and your courage up to
walk back through the door on aday that follows a day that
everything just went wrong.
You need to have a clear pictureof your why.
What brought you into schoolcounseling?
What do you derive personallyfrom your school counseling

(07:59):
pursuits?
And keep that in the forefrontof your mind, because it really
does serve to carry you throughsome really difficult times.
Sit for a minute and thinkabout your why.
Secondly and this is going tofeel really counterintuitive to
a lot of you but to make schoolcounseling sustainable,

(08:19):
sometimes we have to go theextra mile in capturing our
program data.
That sounds weird.
You're like Steph.
You just told me we want tomake school counseling more
sustainable, yet here you aretelling me to do more work in an
already overloaded schedule.
Are telling me to do more workin an already overloaded

(08:39):
schedule.
Let me tell you why I'm sayingthat, because I think the reason
will surprise you.
School counseling data, forbetter or for worse, has become
a really hot topic in ourindustry lately, and I think
it's great that people are moreaware of it.
I think it's cool that schoolcounselors are paying attention
to the things that they're doing, but I think the reasons behind

(09:01):
it are being manipulatedsomewhat and that's troubling to
me.
But the inevitable falloutright of just data-driven
initiatives of any kind.
I think that use of time datais meant for more than just
advocacy, and usually when wehear people talking about school

(09:21):
counseling data, that's whatthey're talking about.
They're talking about usingdata to either prove what you've
been doing all day long or toprove that what you're doing is
working, and I do think thoseare two important pieces to the
puzzle, but I don't thinkthey're the whole story, and I
think that's why a lot of peoplefall short in their data

(09:42):
collection initiatives becausethey don't have the right frame
of mind on what they're doing.
If you feel like the only reasonthat you're capturing data is
to justify your job, you'regoing to get tired.
It's going to burn you out.
You're going to feel like it'sgoing to burn you out.
You're going to feel like whyam I doing this?
I shouldn't have to do this.
I saw a lengthy thread insocial media just this morning

(10:04):
talking about that thing.
Why should I have to justify myuse of time?
Nobody else on my campus has todo it.
Why is it just me?
I think that's insulting.
I don't think that's fair.
On and on, and on and on.
And some of those folks have apoint.
But if we're only looking atdata for those compliance

(10:26):
reasons, we're missing the boat,because that's not the whole
story.
Your data is going to help youtriage and prioritize the needs
on your campus.
You are going to have dayswhere you feel like there is not
any way I can get to the nextthing.
There's too much.

(10:51):
I can't add one single thing tomy plate today.
And in those times you're goingto need to be able to
effectively triage andprioritize your activities.
And that doesn't always mean inthe moment.
Sometimes, if you have abroader scope of what's going on
, it helps you to shuffle thingsaround a little bit more.
If you have a student that comesto you and says oh, ms
So-and-so, I have to see youright now.

(11:13):
I'm having a crisis andeverything's wrong and I hate my
life and I really need to talkto you and you know that you've
spent 5% of your time in thelast month with this one
specific student it's going tohelp you triage.
Was it immediate concerns?
Was it crisis concerns?
Do you need to jump on it rightnow or do they tend to be

(11:34):
something different?
Can you identify a theme?
When they come see you, canthey wait just a second?
It doesn't mean you're puttingthem off.
But inevitably in our work wehave to triage, and so we've got
to have that information.
We've got to know what's goingon.
It's also going to help youprioritize your initiatives.
If you get a great new idea, orif your administrator has a
great new idea for you, you'regoing to be able to prioritize

(12:03):
things in your schedule.
You're going to know where yourtime is going, and sometimes
nothing for nothing y'all.
You're going to be able to findplaces that you're wasting time
.
Believe it or not, email is abig area of wasted time.
I do think you need somedowntime to sit and just process
, and I think that all schoolcounselors should be scheduling
white space in their day.
It's a whole other conversation,but if you're looking for

(12:24):
pockets of time, your use oftime data is going to help you
do that.
Working with use of time datais going to help you
conceptualize your role on yourcampus a little bit better.
It's going to give you a betterunderstanding of the
expectations for you,particularly if you're just
getting started on a campus andyou're tracking what you're
doing out of the expected rolesthat have been given to you.

(12:47):
It's going to just be able togive you a fuller, more rich
picture of what the trueexpectation on that campus is
for the school counselor.
It's going to help you triageneeds, it's going to help you
prioritize initiatives and it'sjust going to give you a more
well-rounded education on notonly the way your campus works

(13:07):
and what its needs are, but howyou fit into that puzzle.
And so I really want toencourage you if you're not
capturing use of time now,consider it, because I think it
could be super valuable to youand it may come into play later
on as part of justifying yourrole.
We had a couple of members ofour School for School Counselors

(13:29):
mastermind just this last yearwho were keeping use of time
data, thinking nothing was goingto come of it, and all of a
sudden at the end of the year,they got an unexpected curveball
and that data was helpful inthose conversations to be able
to justify why they needed toremain where they were.
So keep all this in mind.
It's not wasted time, it's notan extra responsibility.

(13:52):
This should be fundamental toyour school counseling program,
and although it may feel likeextra work at the outset or
until you get your systems andhabits in place, it's going to
pay off in spades.
It's going to be so worth itand it will make your school
counseling program feel moresustainable.
So we have your why and we haveyour time tracking coming.

(14:16):
The third thing that we've gotto do to make school counseling
more sustainable is learn how todelegate.
We are often the ones that wantto jump in and fix everything
right.
We just want to make it better,we just want to help, we just
want to give and give and give.
And sometimes we have toremember, like we always say in
School for School Counselors,that we're helpers, we're not

(14:38):
fixers, and not every time needsto be us.
It doesn't always have to be usrunning to the rescue.
We can delegate things to otherpeople on our campus, delegate
some of those responsibilities.
Is there someone else that canhelp with behavior intervention
in classrooms in the moment, andthen you come back around at

(14:59):
the end to kind of bring it allhome, have the conversations,
make the plans, identify thecoping strategies, without
having to actually be there inthe moment.
It's possible, something tolook at.
Can you delegate some of yourother responsibilities?
If you have helpers on yourcampuses Social, emotional
coaches, community organizationworkers, psychologists, those

(15:21):
kinds of folks what can youcollaborate on what can you
double team on?
What can they take off of yourplate?
It's interesting to think about, because sometimes there's more
there than you would initiallysuspect.
So think about delegating thosethings and think about how, when
you don't delegateresponsibilities, it kind of
serves to undermine your role ina way, because if you're

(15:45):
constantly running to the rescueand you're always available,
what are people going to assumeabout you?
They're going to assume thatyou need something to do, and
that is not the impression thatwe want to give the folks that
we work with every day,certainly not the impression
that we want to give ouradministrators.
And so we've got to be careful,even if that impression is not

(16:12):
accurate.
Even if you had to drop ahundred things to go running to
the rescue, if you don't have to, you just might be mindful of
the times and places in whichyou're intervening.
Again, I'm not telling you tohalfway do your job, I'm not
telling you to shirk yourresponsibilities, but I am
saying be mindful of how youintervene and in what contexts,
so that you can just kind of bea little bit healthier in your

(16:35):
response, right?
Because again, if we're thego-to for everybody all the time
, it's going to burn us outeventually.
That's a heavy load to carry.
Next, I would say look at yoursystems.
Are your systems manageable andare they sustainable?
This past summer, in our BestYear Ever free event, we talked
through the concept of a jumpfile having everything at your

(16:57):
fingertips so you can just graband go when things are needed.
That's an exceptionally helpfulcollection of items to have in
your office so that you don'thave a student in crisis and
you're trying to find theprotocol or you need a parent
signature but you got to pullthe paper up real quick on your
computer or whatever it is.
Have those things ready to go.
We have a formalized list ofthose for you.

(17:18):
And then, what other systems doyou have going on on your
campus?
Is your time capture systemefficient?
Is it working for your needs?
There's lots of different waysyou can set those up.
So is the way that you're doingit working for you?
If not, change it, make itsustainable.
These are the things we talkabout in consultation in our

(17:38):
School for School CounselorsMastermind all of the time
Helping people reframe,re-identify their priorities.
How do they set them up, how dothey sustain them?
How can we help them do that?
It's a large part of the workwe do over there.
Do you have the right templates?
Do you have the rightchecklists?
Do you have all the rightmaterials in place?

(18:00):
Are your referral systemsappropriate for the way your
campus operates, despite whatsocial media would have you
believe there's no one rightanswer to that question?
How do you tweak it and refineit?
You've got to find yoursustainable systems.
Often, identifying thosesystems comes through
consultation, because you'regoing to need to hear what other

(18:21):
people are doing and kind offit those pieces together to
figure out how you want to do it.
So we've talked about havingyour clear philosophy and
knowing your why.
We've talked about keepingtrack of your time.
We've talked about delegatingsome of your responsibilities.
We've talked about looking atyour systems to be sure they're
manageable and they'resustainable.

(18:43):
Fifth, I would say we need tobuild relationships and
understanding among our staff.
This one, I think, isoverlooked a lot.
I think on the surface, wethink, yeah, I mean, that makes
sense, I should have goodrelationships with the people I
work with.
But really, how often do weimplement it?

(19:05):
Because the school counselorsthat I've talked to are
typically focused on theirinterventions with students and
the adults around them are kindof a second thought, right, or
they just assume they'rebuilding these connections with
teachers because they're saying,hi, good morning, how are you?
But they're not investing thetime to intentionally get to

(19:28):
know these folks.
And that's a big hurdle for usbecause, again, we're
time-limited, right, we havelots of responsibilities, but if
we can be intentional aboutbuilding these relationships
with people on our staff, it'sonly going to help us.
It helps you build bridges, ithelps you find your allies on

(19:50):
campus who are going to supportyou and who are going to be your
voice for you when you're notaround.
It's going to help you make newallies as well, and it's going
to serve as a reflection of youand the way you work.
People assume that the way youare one-to-one is also the way
you do your job, and so if youare able to have conversations

(20:11):
with staff members that aremindful, that are full of
empathy, that contain a lot ofactive listening, people are
going to understand how you workand they're going to be more
likely to be a champion of yourcause, not to mention just maybe
becoming some really goodfriends on campus, right, and
making you feel like you're notquite so by yourself.

(20:31):
So investing time intentionallyinto developing these
relationships, not just hopingthey just kind of happen or they
just fall into place.
Give it some time andintentionality.
Create opportunities to be ableto start conversations with
people, to follow up with themand ask about how things went,

(20:52):
because I promise you it's goingto be so worth your time.
Last, I think we have to makesure we have realistic
expectations of our work, and Italked about this in our
previous episode when we weretalking about the SMART school
counseling framework, so I'm notgoing to belabor it a ton, but
I do want to just remind youthat the framework and the

(21:14):
ideals that you've been given byyour national organization or
perhaps your state organization,they're aspirational right,
they're the perfect worldsituation, and while it would be
great to get there I would lovefor each and every one of you
to be there that's not oftenreality for the majority of
school counselors, so you needto be careful and you need to

(21:36):
filter information through somesort of a sieve in your mind
about what's realistic andwhat's not, and remember that
the shortfalls of your programaren't necessarily your personal
shortcomings.
I think that's an importantdistinction to keep in mind, and

(21:56):
far too many school counselorsare burning out because they
feel frustrated about not beingable to attain this ideal, or
they feel angry because they'renot given the resources or the
time or the autonomy to meet theideal.
And they know they can do it,they've been trained in it and
they know how awesome it's goingto be for that school campus
once they get ideal.
And they know they can do it,they've been trained in it and
they know how awesome it's gonnabe for that school campus once

(22:17):
they get there.
But they just can't quite makeit.
And so, from A to Z, somewherein the middle, they give up.
They throw their hands up andthey say this isn't worth it,
it's never gonna be what it'ssupposed to be.
And I give up and think aboutall of the students that we're
letting down when we do that.
That's something to considerfor sure.

(22:38):
All right, so making schoolcounseling sustainable.
I think if we listen to all ofthe influencers, school
counselors online, if we arejust looking at these
aspirational goals, we're goingto burn out, we're going to feel
like we're not enough.
We're going to feel like we'renever going to hit're gonna feel
like we're never gonna hit themark, and that's not where I
want you.
I want you taking control ofyour school counseling career

(23:01):
and your program to make it feelsustainable, to feel like you
have your thumb on the thingsyou need to be doing and that
it's gonna be okay, and we wannasupport you in getting there.
Remember, we have our Schoolfor School Counselors Mastermind
available.
If you need some additionalprofessional support and
consultation, we got you.
We hold weekly support andconsultation chats, monthly

(23:24):
masterclasses, monthly 15-minutechallenges that are going to
majorly move the needle for yourprogram, as well as monthly
data discussion cohorts where westart talking about school
counseling data, not only use oftime, but program-wide
initiative-related data.
It's just a tremendouscommunity with so much going on

(23:44):
and we would love for you to bea part of it.
Schoolforschoolcounselorscomslash mastermind All right.
So I hope you enjoyed thisperspective on making school
counseling sustainable.
It reminds me of that oldSaturday Night Live skit You're
good enough, you're smart enoughand doggone it people like you.
I'm so glad you're here with meand I look forward to being

(24:05):
back soon with the third episodeof our podcast, power Pack in
Celebration of the School forSchool Counselors podcast.
So keep listening and I'll beback very shortly.
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