August 25, 2025 • 22 mins
"What you say in here, stays in here…”
We’ve all said it, but it’s a promise that never came from schools, and it’s costing us trust with students, parents, and administrators.
In this Graded episode, I examine how near-absolute confidentiality has been implemented in school counseling, the fallout it’s created, and why the grade I’m giving it might surprise you.
We’ll trace how confidentiality migrated from clinical counseling into schools without informed consent, why the line we were trained to use is misleading at best, and how it has fueled parental distrust, administrative micromanagement, and even new state legislation.
If you’ve ever felt caught between protecting student privacy and keeping parents informed, this episode will give you the clarity- and the courage- you need to move forward differently.
References (Annotated)
American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA Code of Ethics. Alexandria, VA: Author. https://www.counseling.org/resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf
The foundational ethical guide for all counselors. Section B.1.b. and A.2.d. directly address confidentiality with minors and the need to explain limits clearly.
American School Counselor Association. (2022). ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors. Alexandria, VA: Author. https://schoolcounselor.org/ethics
School-specific ethical standards. Section A.2.a. emphasizes protecting confidentiality “to the extent possible,” while A.2.d. requires informing students upfront about its limits.
Harrichand, J. J. S., Knight, A. M., & Captari, L. E. (2021). Moral injury among mental health professionals: Risk, impact, and recovery. Counseling and Values, 66(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/cvj.12155
Explains how moral injury—acting against one’s ethical compass—contributes to counselor stress and burnout. Directly ties to the personal cost of impossible confidentiality decisions.
Isaacs, M. L., & Stone, C. B. (2001). Confidentiality with minors: Current views and practices of school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 4(4), 258–265. https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759X0100400405
A classic study showing how school counselors navigate confidentiality with students. One of the earliest peer-reviewed examinations of the real-world gap between ethics and practice.
Remley, T. P., & Huey, W. C. (2002). An analysis of legal and ethical issues in school counseling. Professional School Counseling, 6(1), 33–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759X0200600107
An overview of common legal/ethical dilemmas in school counseling, including confidentiality, and strategies for reducing liability while maintaining professional integrity.
Stone, C. (2017). School counseling principles: Ethics and law (4th ed.). Alexandria, VA: American School Counselor Association.
Widely used textbook by Carolyn Stone, the leading voice on legal and ethical issues in school counseling. Offers detailed guidance on confidentiality and parent rights.
*********************************
⭐️ Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! ⭐️
**********************************
All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What you say in here stays in here.
Unless you want to hurt yourself, you want to hurt others or
someone is hurting.
You Sound familiar?
I know it does.
If you've said that line tostudents, you are not alone,
because most of us were trainedto say it.
It sounds professional andclinical.
(00:21):
Professional and clinical.
We memorized it in grad school,practiced it during our
internships and delivered itwith confidence to hundreds and
maybe even thousands of studentsover the course of our careers.
But here's the problem thatstatement isn't just misleading,
it's straight up wrong.
And more than that, ournear-absolute approach to
(00:45):
confidentiality in schoolcounseling is slowly dismantling
our ability to help kidsblindsided by angry parents and
(01:08):
micromanaged by nervousprinciples.
I've realized that the verytool we've relied on for
protecting confidentiality isactually destroying the trust we
need to help them.
Hey, skoll Counselor, welcomeback In this episode of our
graded series.
We're tackling what you say inhere stays in here.
We were trained to say it, butthe uncomfortable truth is that
(01:29):
that promise didn't come fromresearch.
It didn't even come fromschools.
Today I'll share why the lineis misleading how near absolute
confidentiality has eroded trustand a better framework you can
start using right away.
So if you're ready for somestraight talk, my friend, some
clarity on your work and alittle bit of rebellion, you're
(01:52):
going to be in the right place.
I'm Steph Johnson and this isthe School for.
So how did we get here?
How did a profession that'sdedicated to helping kids end up
(02:13):
with a core practice thatactually works against us?
For most of us it started ingrad school when they handed us
these little sound bites aboutconfidentiality.
They sounded clinical andprofessional and trustworthy.
And man, they were easy tomemorize, right Catchy.
What you say in here stays inhere, unless that just became
(02:35):
our go-to script.
And it didn't help whenteachers pay teachers came onto
the scene and suddenly everybodyhad a way to distribute these
statements in cute littlepictorial form little signs to
put in your office withbumblebees or flags or whatever
it was.
But these confidentialitystatements weren't designed for
(02:56):
schools.
They were borrowed fromclinical counseling, where
confidentiality really can benearly absolute.
Think about it this way Inprivate practice, when a
teenager walks in for therapy,their parents have already
signed informed consentdocuments, and those documents
spell out exactly whatconfidentiality means and where
(03:19):
the limits are.
Everyone in the game knows therules from day one.
That model works beautifully inclinical settings, but in
schools we have very few ofthose ground rules.
There's no signed consent, noagreements, no formal sit-down
with the parents.
And yet we've carried thisprivate practice playbook into
(03:43):
our school counseling officesand wondered why it started
blowing up in our faces.
Most school counselors don'tstop to think about the fact
that we never actually obtaininformed consent for counseling
services.
In schools we operate undersomething called implied consent
.
It's the assumption thatbecause students are enrolled,
(04:04):
they can access counselingservices.
But in that scenario neitherstudents nor parents actually
understand what they're agreeingto.
That's where assent comes in,and we have to gain that assent
in developmentally appropriateways.
But if I'm being honest, basedon the conversations that I've
(04:25):
had with hundreds of schoolcounselors, we rarely gain
assent clearly.
And then, to complicate thingseven more, somewhere along the
way we were sold this idea thatshielding kids from their
parents was the ultimate form ofadvocacy, that if a child came
(04:45):
to you with depression orsubstance abuse, sexuality
questions or family conflict,your job was to be the shield.
Sometimes there's truth in thatline of thinking.
There are families wheredisclosure could cause harm, but
over time those exceptionsbecame the rule and we started
(05:07):
approaching every parent withsuspicion, and that's where the
real trouble began.
So real world.
What happens when we keepleaning into this idea of
confidentiality at all costs?
Let's walk through the fallout,because it is hitting us
(05:27):
literally on every level.
First, let's talk about parents.
For years we've been told thatkids come to us because their
parents can't or won't do theirjobs.
But for most families thatnarrative just doesn't match
reality.
Most parents do care, mostparents want to help, and when
(05:51):
they're cut out of the thingsthat are going on, it doesn't
feel protective To them, itfeels like betrayal.
And then we've gone and made itworse, because in our
professional culture, in schoolcounseling culture, the stories
that go viral are always thehorror stories the parents who
(06:14):
explode in the office or shametheir kids or just don't get it.
Even the parents that threatentheir children upon disclosure
threaten their children upondisclosure.
Those stories get repeated andthey get amplified until they
start to feel like they're thenorm.
And what rarely gets shared arethe hundreds and hundreds of
(06:35):
collaborative wins Parents whocame in, got the information and
actually helped to turn thingsaround.
But because of the proliferationof the bad stories, we started
to believe that parents were theenemy and, to be real about it,
the parents feel it.
Then there are the students.
(06:55):
They hear us say what you sayin here stays in here, and they
believe it until the moment wehave to break that promise.
And when that happens, theyfeel completely blindsided, they
feel betrayed, and then wordstarts spreading fast Don't tell
the counselor, they'll justtell your parents.
Some students also discoverthat how they share information
(07:20):
shapes what happens next.
They learned that framingsituations as something bigger
or scarier can lead to moreone-on-one time or relief from
being in class, sometimesspecial privileges, and they're
not doing it necessarily formanipulation.
It's just how the system is setup.
But when confidentiality istreated as absolute, it can
(07:44):
reinforce these unhealthy cyclesinstead of connecting kids to
the deeper, long-term supportsthat they actually need.
When we've talked about parentsand students, let's shift to our
administrators, because whenparents complain and they will
that complaint lands on theprincipal's desk and your
(08:08):
administrator isn't going toevaluate your decisions through
the lens of the ASCA Code ofEthics.
They're going to evaluate itthrough the lens of optics.
Are parents angry?
Are calls going to thesuperintendent?
Is this going to turn into aheadline?
Are calls going to thesuperintendent?
Is this going to turn into aheadline.
So when they hear that you'vebeen quote keeping secrets, they
(08:29):
don't see an ethical counselor,they see a liability and their
responses are pretty predictable.
Typically we see more rulescome into place, more oversight,
more micromanagement of theschool counselor, and suddenly
your professional discretionshrinks.
(08:50):
And as if that was not enough,finally, let's zoom out to the
public square, the school boardsand the state houses and the
media, because what we callprivacy they call secrecy, and
secrecy plays terribly with thepublic.
This is not new.
(09:12):
In the 90s, the big thing waspregnancy.
In the 2000s it was drugs andalcohol, and parents argued if
my kid is drinking or pregnant.
I deserve to know.
That storyline hasn't changed.
What we frame as protection, thepublic frames as secrecy.
The public frames as secrecy,and secrecy, especially when it
(09:35):
involves children, has neverplayed well.
Let's be honest.
In the broader cultural climateright now it makes things even
worse.
Stories of child exploitation,from Epstein to online
trafficking scares those haveall heightened suspicion of any
(09:55):
adult who appears to be keepingthings hidden.
So when school counselors talkabout confidentiality, parents
don't always hear protection,they hear secrecy.
And in today's world, secrecy isautomatically linked with
danger, which brings us to now.
The public narrative hasescalated into outright fear
(10:20):
that counselors are influencingkids on gender identity and
deliberately hiding it fromfamilies.
Now are there isolated cases ofpoor practice?
Of course, you can find thosein any profession, but they're
not the norm.
The problem is nuance doesn'tmatter.
Once the story hits the news,loud, dramatic cases set the
(10:43):
narrative and the new laws thatwe see in Texas, florida and
beyond are the result.
And with all of this swirlingaround us, with the angry
parents and the distrustfulstudents and the cautious
administrators and the lawmakerswriting new restrictions, there
is another casualty we don'ttalk enough about, and that's
(11:06):
you, the school counselor,because as you're listening,
you're probably feeling this inyour bones.
The school counselors whostruggle most with questions of
confidentiality are not the oneswho are careless, they're the
ones who care the most.
You are the one lying awake atnight replaying the
(11:30):
conversations, wondering if youmade the right call, wondering
if you made the right call,wondering if you made the right
disclosure.
You're the one that's carryingthis impossible weight of trying
to be everything to everyone.
Research has a name for this.
It's called moral injury, thedistress that happens when
you're forced to act againstyour own ethical compass.
(11:51):
Studies in the schoolcounseling field and in other
fields show how these impossiblerole demands fuel counselor
burnout, and that's what manyschool counselors are
experiencing it's systemic harm.
So if this is the wreckage,where parents are cut out,
(12:12):
students are betrayed,administrators are clamping down
, lawmakers are writing newrestrictions and counselors
themselves are breaking underthe weight of all this pressure
where do we go from here?
Well, it's not telling parentseverything, but it's also not
clinging to secrecy until we seeour role completely disappear
from schools into secrecy, untilwe see our role completely
(12:33):
disappear from schools.
The answer lies in balance.
I call this balancedtransparency and in practice,
from the very start of things,we're saying this is your space
to talk privately and most ofthe time, what you share stays
between us.
But sometimes we might need toinvolve your parent or another
(12:57):
adult and if that happens, I'mgoing to tell you first and
you're going to have a say inhow we do it.
Here's how this whole thingworks in practice.
I see this as three zones.
A green zone would be everydayconcerns, something like a sixth
grader that's anxious about amath test or a high schooler
(13:18):
that has some worries about somefriend drama.
These are normal developmentalconcerns, so keep them private.
But then if involving parentscould actually help, you might
ask the student would you beokay if we talk to your mom
about study strategies and ifthey say no, respect it?
(13:40):
This teaches students thattheir voice matters and it also
doesn't overstep when weconfront ongoing struggles,
that's when we head to theyellow zone.
A ninth grader admits to vaping,a seventh grader is being
bullied.
A student struggling withpersistent sadness is finding
it's affecting their grades.
These aren't immediate safetycrises, but they're not small
(14:07):
problems either.
So in this situation we mighttell the student your parents
should probably know about thisso they can help support you.
How do you think we shouldshare it?
We could do it together, inperson or through a note, or
maybe even another way.
What do you think?
Collaborative disclosure is thename of the game here, not the
counselor as the gatekeeper.
(14:29):
And then, with safety concerns,of course, we're in the red
zone.
Suicidal thoughts, abuse, plansto hurt someone these are
non-negotiables.
Right Disclosure must happen.
But even here we're going tobring the student into the
process.
This problem is bigger thanboth of us and the law says
(14:50):
there are people that we have totell about this.
So let's talk about what mighthappen when we tell the people
that need to know.
If we use this balancedtransparency approach, we're
explaining up front whatcounseling involves, what the
limits are and how the decisionsget made.
(15:10):
Now you might be listening tothese examples of green and
yellow and red zones andthinking, man, what if I ask
them how we're going to shareand they say no?
What if they refuse?
What if they give me an answerI'm not expecting?
What do I do then?
This is critical and it'simportant to think about because
(15:32):
you have to realize that,although it feels immediate, you
often do not have to make thesedecisions by yourself.
One of the strongest principlesin Carolyn Stone's ethics
framework is consultation,seeking input from colleagues,
supervisors and otherprofessionals when you're facing
(15:52):
complex confidentialitydecisions.
It's best practice.
When you're sitting with astudent disclosure that falls in
that yellow zone, don't wrestlewith it by yourself.
Reach out to a supervisor, talkto the school psychologist,
consult with other experiencedcounselors, because consultation
(16:13):
isn't just about beingethically sound.
It's about being protective ofyour role professionally.
When you document that yousought input, you're
demonstrating thoughtfuldecision-making.
The thing is, consultationrequires community, and that's
something that's often hard tocome by for school counselors.
(16:36):
It requires having trustedprofessionals that you can turn
to when things get complicated.
The good news is that's exactlywhat we've built in the School
for School Counselors Mastermind.
It's a community of experiencedcounselors who understand these
ethical dilemmas becausethey're living them in real time
too.
So if you don't have acommunity, you might want to
(16:59):
look our direction.
But back to balancedtransparency.
Let's share what a successstory might look like in that
framework.
A 10th grader discloses thatshe's been cutting.
Instead of promising to keep itprivate, the school counselor
says hey, your parents probablyneed to know so they can get you
(17:21):
the help that I just can't giveyou at school.
How would you like to tell themabout it?
Should I be there with you orwould you prefer to tell them on
your own first?
So the student chooses to havethe school counselor there and,
yes, there were tears and therewere oogie feelings.
But three months later thestudent was in weekly therapy,
(17:43):
her parents had learned how tobetter support her and she comes
back and tells her counselor Iam so glad we did not keep this
secret.
That's what balancedtransparency can make possible.
So confidentiality this is thegraded series.
So we need to grade thisConfidentiality as a concept,
(18:05):
I'm going to give an A+.
It's essential, it's backed byresearch and it's foundational
to the school counselingprofession.
But the way we've beenimplementing it in schools, that
is a big fat C minus.
Yes, you heard me right.
We get a C minus inimplementing confidentiality,
(18:30):
not because we're bad at it, butbecause we've borrowed the
wrong model.
We've tried to force that wrongmodel into schools and we've
accidentally created distrust inthe process.
The good news is that the gradedoesn't have to stay a C right.
We can always grow and improve.
Once we know better, we can dobetter and with balanced
(18:54):
transparency, we can all worktogether to raise the grade.
Now, before we go, I do want toaddress a concern that might be
sitting like an elephant in theroom.
You may be thinking what ifstudents stop coming to me?
But to be honest, studentsdon't come to school counselors
(19:15):
just because of absoluteconfidentiality.
They come because you listenwithout judgment, because you
help them solve their problems,because you make them feel less
alone, and those qualities onlyget stronger when you're working
through balanced transparency.
Here are some things that youcan start doing this week.
(19:40):
You can start doing this week.
First, if you have one of thosehorrible what you say in here
stays in here signs in youroffice, destroy it.
It is the delight of my lifewhen people send me videos.
This is true, this reallyhappens when people send me
videos and pictures of themdestroying their confidentiality
(20:02):
signs.
I love it so much becausethey're just so untrue.
Second, reconsider your spokenconfidentiality statement.
Use the language that I shared.
This is your space to talkprivately and most of the time,
what you share is going to staybetween us, but sometimes we may
(20:23):
need to involve your parent oranother adult and if that
happens, I'll tell you first andthen you'll have a voice in how
we do it.
Third, practice this with acolleague.
Get comfortable with thelanguage and with the
explanation before you try touse it with students.
If you don't have a colleagueto practice with, practice it in
(20:44):
the mirror, run through it inyour head in a mental rehearsal,
whatever it takes, but somehowpractice this thing before you
deploy it.
And last this is going to becrucial Somewhere somehow sit
down with your administrator,even if just for a couple of
minutes, and explain thisapproach before you implement it
(21:07):
, because if parents ever askquestions, you want your
principal, understanding yourreasoning before the mess ever
hits the fan, and that's a goodrule of thumb for anything.
The bottom line, my friend, isthat we didn't get in this
profession to keep secrets.
If we did, this should be awhole other conversation.
(21:28):
We got into school counselingto help kids, and sometimes
helping kids means involving theadults that love them the most.
So if you are all wrapped up inthis idea that being a
so-called good counselor isabout keeping secrets, I think
it's time for a reframe.
Maybe being a good schoolcounselor is about being brave
(21:52):
enough to involve the rightpeople at the right time,
skilled enough to make parentspartners rather than adversaries
, and wise enough to know whenproblems are bigger than what
any one person can handle alone.
So I'll leave you with this Areyou promising secrecy or are
(22:13):
you building trust throughmeasured transparency?
Our profession is too importantto kids to let secrecy destroy
it.
I'll be back soon with anotherepisode of the School for School
Counselors podcast.
In the meantime, I hope youhave the best week.
(22:34):
Take care.
What you say in here stays in here.
Unless you want to hurt yourself, you want to hurt others or
someone is hurting.
You Sound familiar?
I know it does.
If you've said that line tostudents, you are not alone,
because most of us were trainedto say it.
It sounds professional andclinical.
(00:21):
Professional and clinical.
We memorized it in grad school,practiced it during our
internships and delivered itwith confidence to hundreds and
maybe even thousands of studentsover the course of our careers.
But here's the problem thatstatement isn't just misleading,
it's straight up wrong.
And more than that, ournear-absolute approach to
(00:45):
confidentiality in schoolcounseling is slowly dismantling
our ability to help kidsblindsided by angry parents and
(01:08):
micromanaged by nervousprinciples.
I've realized that the verytool we've relied on for
protecting confidentiality isactually destroying the trust we
need to help them.
Hey, skoll Counselor, welcomeback In this episode of our
graded series.
We're tackling what you say inhere stays in here.
We were trained to say it, butthe uncomfortable truth is that
(01:29):
that promise didn't come fromresearch.
It didn't even come fromschools.
Today I'll share why the lineis misleading how near absolute
confidentiality has eroded trustand a better framework you can
start using right away.
So if you're ready for somestraight talk, my friend, some
clarity on your work and alittle bit of rebellion, you're
(01:52):
going to be in the right place.
I'm Steph Johnson and this isthe School for.
So how did we get here?
How did a profession that'sdedicated to helping kids end up
(02:13):
with a core practice thatactually works against us?
For most of us it started ingrad school when they handed us
these little sound bites aboutconfidentiality.
They sounded clinical andprofessional and trustworthy.
And man, they were easy tomemorize, right Catchy.
What you say in here stays inhere, unless that just became
(02:35):
our go-to script.
And it didn't help whenteachers pay teachers came onto
the scene and suddenly everybodyhad a way to distribute these
statements in cute littlepictorial form little signs to
put in your office withbumblebees or flags or whatever
it was.
But these confidentialitystatements weren't designed for
(02:56):
schools.
They were borrowed fromclinical counseling, where
confidentiality really can benearly absolute.
Think about it this way Inprivate practice, when a
teenager walks in for therapy,their parents have already
signed informed consentdocuments, and those documents
spell out exactly whatconfidentiality means and where
(03:19):
the limits are.
Everyone in the game knows therules from day one.
That model works beautifully inclinical settings, but in
schools we have very few ofthose ground rules.
There's no signed consent, noagreements, no formal sit-down
with the parents.
And yet we've carried thisprivate practice playbook into
(03:43):
our school counseling officesand wondered why it started
blowing up in our faces.
Most school counselors don'tstop to think about the fact
that we never actually obtaininformed consent for counseling
services.
In schools we operate undersomething called implied consent
.
It's the assumption thatbecause students are enrolled,
(04:04):
they can access counselingservices.
But in that scenario neitherstudents nor parents actually
understand what they're agreeingto.
That's where assent comes in,and we have to gain that assent
in developmentally appropriateways.
But if I'm being honest, basedon the conversations that I've
(04:25):
had with hundreds of schoolcounselors, we rarely gain
assent clearly.
And then, to complicate thingseven more, somewhere along the
way we were sold this idea thatshielding kids from their
parents was the ultimate form ofadvocacy, that if a child came
(04:45):
to you with depression orsubstance abuse, sexuality
questions or family conflict,your job was to be the shield.
Sometimes there's truth in thatline of thinking.
There are families wheredisclosure could cause harm, but
over time those exceptionsbecame the rule and we started
(05:07):
approaching every parent withsuspicion, and that's where the
real trouble began.
So real world.
What happens when we keepleaning into this idea of
confidentiality at all costs?
Let's walk through the fallout,because it is hitting us
(05:27):
literally on every level.
First, let's talk about parents.
For years we've been told thatkids come to us because their
parents can't or won't do theirjobs.
But for most families thatnarrative just doesn't match
reality.
Most parents do care, mostparents want to help, and when
(05:51):
they're cut out of the thingsthat are going on, it doesn't
feel protective To them, itfeels like betrayal.
And then we've gone and made itworse, because in our
professional culture, in schoolcounseling culture, the stories
that go viral are always thehorror stories the parents who
(06:14):
explode in the office or shametheir kids or just don't get it.
Even the parents that threatentheir children upon disclosure
threaten their children upondisclosure.
Those stories get repeated andthey get amplified until they
start to feel like they're thenorm.
And what rarely gets shared arethe hundreds and hundreds of
(06:35):
collaborative wins Parents whocame in, got the information and
actually helped to turn thingsaround.
But because of the proliferationof the bad stories, we started
to believe that parents were theenemy and, to be real about it,
the parents feel it.
Then there are the students.
(06:55):
They hear us say what you sayin here stays in here, and they
believe it until the moment wehave to break that promise.
And when that happens, theyfeel completely blindsided, they
feel betrayed, and then wordstarts spreading fast Don't tell
the counselor, they'll justtell your parents.
Some students also discoverthat how they share information
(07:20):
shapes what happens next.
They learned that framingsituations as something bigger
or scarier can lead to moreone-on-one time or relief from
being in class, sometimesspecial privileges, and they're
not doing it necessarily formanipulation.
It's just how the system is setup.
But when confidentiality istreated as absolute, it can
(07:44):
reinforce these unhealthy cyclesinstead of connecting kids to
the deeper, long-term supportsthat they actually need.
When we've talked about parentsand students, let's shift to our
administrators, because whenparents complain and they will
that complaint lands on theprincipal's desk and your
(08:08):
administrator isn't going toevaluate your decisions through
the lens of the ASCA Code ofEthics.
They're going to evaluate itthrough the lens of optics.
Are parents angry?
Are calls going to thesuperintendent?
Is this going to turn into aheadline?
Are calls going to thesuperintendent?
Is this going to turn into aheadline.
So when they hear that you'vebeen quote keeping secrets, they
(08:29):
don't see an ethical counselor,they see a liability and their
responses are pretty predictable.
Typically we see more rulescome into place, more oversight,
more micromanagement of theschool counselor, and suddenly
your professional discretionshrinks.
(08:50):
And as if that was not enough,finally, let's zoom out to the
public square, the school boardsand the state houses and the
media, because what we callprivacy they call secrecy, and
secrecy plays terribly with thepublic.
This is not new.
(09:12):
In the 90s, the big thing waspregnancy.
In the 2000s it was drugs andalcohol, and parents argued if
my kid is drinking or pregnant.
I deserve to know.
That storyline hasn't changed.
What we frame as protection, thepublic frames as secrecy.
The public frames as secrecy,and secrecy, especially when it
(09:35):
involves children, has neverplayed well.
Let's be honest.
In the broader cultural climateright now it makes things even
worse.
Stories of child exploitation,from Epstein to online
trafficking scares those haveall heightened suspicion of any
(09:55):
adult who appears to be keepingthings hidden.
So when school counselors talkabout confidentiality, parents
don't always hear protection,they hear secrecy.
And in today's world, secrecy isautomatically linked with
danger, which brings us to now.
The public narrative hasescalated into outright fear
(10:20):
that counselors are influencingkids on gender identity and
deliberately hiding it fromfamilies.
Now are there isolated cases ofpoor practice?
Of course, you can find thosein any profession, but they're
not the norm.
The problem is nuance doesn'tmatter.
Once the story hits the news,loud, dramatic cases set the
(10:43):
narrative and the new laws thatwe see in Texas, florida and
beyond are the result.
And with all of this swirlingaround us, with the angry
parents and the distrustfulstudents and the cautious
administrators and the lawmakerswriting new restrictions, there
is another casualty we don'ttalk enough about, and that's
(11:06):
you, the school counselor,because as you're listening,
you're probably feeling this inyour bones.
The school counselors whostruggle most with questions of
confidentiality are not the oneswho are careless, they're the
ones who care the most.
You are the one lying awake atnight replaying the
(11:30):
conversations, wondering if youmade the right call, wondering
if you made the right call,wondering if you made the right
disclosure.
You're the one that's carryingthis impossible weight of trying
to be everything to everyone.
Research has a name for this.
It's called moral injury, thedistress that happens when
you're forced to act againstyour own ethical compass.
(11:51):
Studies in the schoolcounseling field and in other
fields show how these impossiblerole demands fuel counselor
burnout, and that's what manyschool counselors are
experiencing it's systemic harm.
So if this is the wreckage,where parents are cut out,
(12:12):
students are betrayed,administrators are clamping down
, lawmakers are writing newrestrictions and counselors
themselves are breaking underthe weight of all this pressure
where do we go from here?
Well, it's not telling parentseverything, but it's also not
clinging to secrecy until we seeour role completely disappear
from schools into secrecy, untilwe see our role completely
(12:33):
disappear from schools.
The answer lies in balance.
I call this balancedtransparency and in practice,
from the very start of things,we're saying this is your space
to talk privately and most ofthe time, what you share stays
between us.
But sometimes we might need toinvolve your parent or another
(12:57):
adult and if that happens, I'mgoing to tell you first and
you're going to have a say inhow we do it.
Here's how this whole thingworks in practice.
I see this as three zones.
A green zone would be everydayconcerns, something like a sixth
grader that's anxious about amath test or a high schooler
(13:18):
that has some worries about somefriend drama.
These are normal developmentalconcerns, so keep them private.
But then if involving parentscould actually help, you might
ask the student would you beokay if we talk to your mom
about study strategies and ifthey say no, respect it?
(13:40):
This teaches students thattheir voice matters and it also
doesn't overstep when weconfront ongoing struggles,
that's when we head to theyellow zone.
A ninth grader admits to vaping,a seventh grader is being
bullied.
A student struggling withpersistent sadness is finding
it's affecting their grades.
These aren't immediate safetycrises, but they're not small
(14:07):
problems either.
So in this situation we mighttell the student your parents
should probably know about thisso they can help support you.
How do you think we shouldshare it?
We could do it together, inperson or through a note, or
maybe even another way.
What do you think?
Collaborative disclosure is thename of the game here, not the
counselor as the gatekeeper.
(14:29):
And then, with safety concerns,of course, we're in the red
zone.
Suicidal thoughts, abuse, plansto hurt someone these are
non-negotiables.
Right Disclosure must happen.
But even here we're going tobring the student into the
process.
This problem is bigger thanboth of us and the law says
(14:50):
there are people that we have totell about this.
So let's talk about what mighthappen when we tell the people
that need to know.
If we use this balancedtransparency approach, we're
explaining up front whatcounseling involves, what the
limits are and how the decisionsget made.
(15:10):
Now you might be listening tothese examples of green and
yellow and red zones andthinking, man, what if I ask
them how we're going to shareand they say no?
What if they refuse?
What if they give me an answerI'm not expecting?
What do I do then?
This is critical and it'simportant to think about because
(15:32):
you have to realize that,although it feels immediate, you
often do not have to make thesedecisions by yourself.
One of the strongest principlesin Carolyn Stone's ethics
framework is consultation,seeking input from colleagues,
supervisors and otherprofessionals when you're facing
(15:52):
complex confidentialitydecisions.
It's best practice.
When you're sitting with astudent disclosure that falls in
that yellow zone, don't wrestlewith it by yourself.
Reach out to a supervisor, talkto the school psychologist,
consult with other experiencedcounselors, because consultation
(16:13):
isn't just about beingethically sound.
It's about being protective ofyour role professionally.
When you document that yousought input, you're
demonstrating thoughtfuldecision-making.
The thing is, consultationrequires community, and that's
something that's often hard tocome by for school counselors.
(16:36):
It requires having trustedprofessionals that you can turn
to when things get complicated.
The good news is that's exactlywhat we've built in the School
for School Counselors Mastermind.
It's a community of experiencedcounselors who understand these
ethical dilemmas becausethey're living them in real time
too.
So if you don't have acommunity, you might want to
(16:59):
look our direction.
But back to balancedtransparency.
Let's share what a successstory might look like in that
framework.
A 10th grader discloses thatshe's been cutting.
Instead of promising to keep itprivate, the school counselor
says hey, your parents probablyneed to know so they can get you
(17:21):
the help that I just can't giveyou at school.
How would you like to tell themabout it?
Should I be there with you orwould you prefer to tell them on
your own first?
So the student chooses to havethe school counselor there and,
yes, there were tears and therewere oogie feelings.
But three months later thestudent was in weekly therapy,
(17:43):
her parents had learned how tobetter support her and she comes
back and tells her counselor Iam so glad we did not keep this
secret.
That's what balancedtransparency can make possible.
So confidentiality this is thegraded series.
So we need to grade thisConfidentiality as a concept,
(18:05):
I'm going to give an A+.
It's essential, it's backed byresearch and it's foundational
to the school counselingprofession.
But the way we've beenimplementing it in schools, that
is a big fat C minus.
Yes, you heard me right.
We get a C minus inimplementing confidentiality,
(18:30):
not because we're bad at it, butbecause we've borrowed the
wrong model.
We've tried to force that wrongmodel into schools and we've
accidentally created distrust inthe process.
The good news is that the gradedoesn't have to stay a C right.
We can always grow and improve.
Once we know better, we can dobetter and with balanced
(18:54):
transparency, we can all worktogether to raise the grade.
Now, before we go, I do want toaddress a concern that might be
sitting like an elephant in theroom.
You may be thinking what ifstudents stop coming to me?
But to be honest, studentsdon't come to school counselors
(19:15):
just because of absoluteconfidentiality.
They come because you listenwithout judgment, because you
help them solve their problems,because you make them feel less
alone, and those qualities onlyget stronger when you're working
through balanced transparency.
Here are some things that youcan start doing this week.
(19:40):
You can start doing this week.
First, if you have one of thosehorrible what you say in here
stays in here signs in youroffice, destroy it.
It is the delight of my lifewhen people send me videos.
This is true, this reallyhappens when people send me
videos and pictures of themdestroying their confidentiality
(20:02):
signs.
I love it so much becausethey're just so untrue.
Second, reconsider your spokenconfidentiality statement.
Use the language that I shared.
This is your space to talkprivately and most of the time,
what you share is going to staybetween us, but sometimes we may
(20:23):
need to involve your parent oranother adult and if that
happens, I'll tell you first andthen you'll have a voice in how
we do it.
Third, practice this with acolleague.
Get comfortable with thelanguage and with the
explanation before you try touse it with students.
If you don't have a colleagueto practice with, practice it in
(20:44):
the mirror, run through it inyour head in a mental rehearsal,
whatever it takes, but somehowpractice this thing before you
deploy it.
And last this is going to becrucial Somewhere somehow sit
down with your administrator,even if just for a couple of
minutes, and explain thisapproach before you implement it
(21:07):
, because if parents ever askquestions, you want your
principal, understanding yourreasoning before the mess ever
hits the fan, and that's a goodrule of thumb for anything.
The bottom line, my friend, isthat we didn't get in this
profession to keep secrets.
If we did, this should be awhole other conversation.
(21:28):
We got into school counselingto help kids, and sometimes
helping kids means involving theadults that love them the most.
So if you are all wrapped up inthis idea that being a
so-called good counselor isabout keeping secrets, I think
it's time for a reframe.
Maybe being a good schoolcounselor is about being brave
(21:52):
enough to involve the rightpeople at the right time,
skilled enough to make parentspartners rather than adversaries
, and wise enough to know whenproblems are bigger than what
any one person can handle alone.
So I'll leave you with this Areyou promising secrecy or are
(22:13):
you building trust throughmeasured transparency?
Our profession is too importantto kids to let secrecy destroy
it.
I'll be back soon with anotherepisode of the School for School
Counselors podcast.
In the meantime, I hope youhave the best week.
(22:34):
Take care.
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