Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Imagine this, and I
promise you it won't be a
stretch.
There's a line of studentsstanding outside your office,
your email is overflowing withwho knows what, your to-do list
keeps growing and you're doingwhat most of us do.
You are solving problems asfast as they come up, trying to
(00:24):
meet all the needs like a schoolcounseling superhero.
But what if I told you that ourhelping instinct to go swoop in
and save the day might be theone thing that's holding a lot
of our students back?
That's what we're going to talkabout in this podcast episode.
(00:49):
Welcome back to the School forSchool Counselors podcast.
I'm Steph Johnson, a full-timeschool counselor, just like you,
on a mission to make schoolcounseling more sustainable and
more enjoyable.
Sustainable and more enjoyableI believe that each and every
one of you deserves support,validation and empowerment, and
(01:10):
that's why I founded School forSchool Counselors, where we take
practical tools and make themwork in the real-world
situations that you face on thedaily.
I want to bridge the gapbetween what they taught you in
grad school and what's reallygoing on, so you can feel
competent, connected andinspired to make a difference,
(01:33):
even if you're working in crazy,difficult circumstances.
I want to be a resource for youand I want to be a source of
inspiration and of strengththroughout your professional
journey.
So I sent an email out recentlyto all of the subscribers on
our School for School Counselorsemail list and it talked about
(01:58):
how you're charging through theyear, doing all the things that
need to be done and all of asudden it seems like staff and
administration start referringeverything to you Bad behavior,
having a sad day, friendproblems, whatever it is.
(02:18):
They start lining up at yourdoor and stacking up in your
email inbox with urgent requestsfor students to be seen.
The problem is, if you'rerunning a ratio greater than 250
to 1, you're getting buriedunder all of those requests and
(02:38):
it becomes a minute-by-minutegame of what's most urgent right
now.
And then how can I squeeze inall the other things?
And you start feelingoverwhelmed.
You're running like your hairis on fire and trying to get to
all the things you can to try toaddress as many needs as
possible, because it's expectedof you.
(03:01):
And then you spend the rest ofthe semester battling out of
this perfect storm and kind ofwondering all throughout it,
what should have really beensent my direction.
Was this all really necessary,or were some of these situations
better handled elsewhere or bysomeone else.
(03:23):
What if there was a better way?
I want to talk with you todayabout how to triage requests so
that you can really discernwhich issues are more pressing,
to help you prioritize youractivities.
But I also want to talk abouthow you can politely decline
(03:46):
some of the non-urgent requeststhat you receive, without
ticking people off, withoutmaking teachers angry, without
making parents or administratorsupset with you.
How can you do that?
And at the end of that email, Iasked readers to email me back
(04:08):
and tell me if they felt likethey were being bombarded in
this way, and I have to tell youthis is one of the biggest
responses I've ever receivedfrom one of my emails.
Just email after email with yes, yes, yes, just kept pouring
into my inbox, and so I knew wewere on the right track with
(04:29):
this podcast episode.
I think this is something thatwe all need, and no one really
clarifies it for us.
No one really gives us abenchmark or a framework for how
to discern what to tackle first, how to triage all the needs
Because, let's face it,sometimes you just can't get to
(04:51):
everything.
You just, physically andemotionally, cannot meet every
single need on your campus.
So how do you prioritize?
And, even better, how do youprioritize without feeling like
you're going to be viewed asjust oh well, I guess she
doesn't want to do her job todayBecause, right or wrong, that's
(05:12):
the way schools often operate,right?
So we're going to tackle all ofthese things head on.
When I was a new schoolcounselor brand new on my first
campus, I had the same instincts.
I wanted to jump in and solveall the problems, and teachers
(05:32):
were calling me to talk withkids about all sorts of things,
and a lot of times it was minorsituations, or they were having
a sad day or they werefrustrated about an isolated
incident within one day.
But I went running to all ofthe concerns because, number one
, I genuinely wanted to help.
(05:53):
Number two, I was worried aboutwhat my staff would think if I
wasn't running to all the needs.
And, number three, I was reallyworried about you know, what if
I miss something?
What if I let somebody down?
It was a huge concern on my endand I found myself just running
myself ragged trying to takecare of all of these things, to
(06:17):
the point that anytime I wentinto an elementary classroom to
teach a guidance lesson.
It was a no-brainer that I wasgoing to be called out of that
lesson.
I don't think I completed asingle lesson within an entire
semester on that campus becauseI was constantly being called
(06:38):
and I continued to run my schoolcounseling program like that
because everywhere I went,everything I read celebrated
these school counselors thatwere working their fingers to
the bone, who were sooverwhelmed and approaching
burnout as a badge of honor.
It's really backwards ineducation how we celebrate
(06:59):
success and what we see assuccessful, and I bought in to
that narrative.
I thought you know, they mustall know what they're talking
about and everybody seems to bedoing this.
So why would I think that I wasany different?
And then, years later, Ilearned about Ryan and DC's
research on self determinationtheory and when I started
(07:23):
learning about that I went wait,maybe I'm not on the right
track.
After all, ryan and DC'sresearch spans decades and
involves thousands of studentsand tells us that autonomy is
(07:44):
essential to psychologicalwell-being.
Think about that for a minute.
When we foster autonomy inyoung people, it builds their
sense of resilience and theirself-efficacy.
When they solve problems ontheir own, they're building
(08:06):
confidence and they'redeveloping coping skills on
their own no-transcript.
(08:32):
That's pretty powerful when wethink about it right.
How often are we running to therescue without giving them a
moment to take a breath, toassess and to think through what
they want to do as their nextsteps?
Reeve 2009 says that whenstudents are in
(08:53):
autonomy-supportive environmentsmeaning we're giving them a
little bit of time and space todevelop their own autonomy over
situations that their motivationincreases and their positive
psychological development.
Y'all this is grounded inresearch.
Sue and Reeve 2011, did ameta-analysis of 43 intervention
(09:20):
studies and when they looked atautonomy-supportive approaches,
they found significantlyincreased student engagement in
school, improved academicperformance, stronger
persistence when facingchallenges and enhanced
psychological well-being.
(09:40):
And the really cool part aboutthis is that brief, focused
autonomy support training sojust helping kids develop the
agency to have autonomy overtheir problems proved more
effective than longerinterventions.
So this tells us that in schoolcounseling, it's not about us
(10:07):
trying to do less, it's about ustrying to do business
differently.
So how do we know when to stepback and when to jump in?
If we think about multi-tieredsystems of support MTSS we hear
(10:28):
about that all the time in oureducation world.
We know that supports aretypically broken down into three
tiers.
Tier one usually about 80 to90% of your students on campus
are universal supports.
Tier two 10 to 15% are targetedsupports.
(10:50):
And tier three one to 5% ofstudents are typically receiving
intensive supports.
Universal supports in schoolcounseling typically looks like
guidance lessons, school-wideinitiatives, assemblies, those
kinds of things, things whereeverybody is learning about the
(11:13):
same thing, regardless of theirpersonal circumstances.
Tier two that targeted supportfor that 10 to 15 percent are
cases where students need alittle bit of guided autonomy,
things like some mild anxiety,mild stress, response, academic
(11:34):
performance dips, socialchallenges, minor behavior
issues.
Those are typically the thingswe see within the realm of tier
two.
And then tier three, yourintensive supports, are things
like safety concerns,significant mental health issues
, severe academic struggles,crisis situations, the things
(11:58):
that you cannot leave.
You must jump in immediatelyand we know that right.
We know tier three is anon-negotiable, especially when
things suddenly spark off.
But when we look at tiers oneand two, we have to get really
critical about where is ourexpertise most warranted.
(12:20):
So great, steph, I know mytiers of intervention.
I know my tier one, my tier two, my tier three kids.
Now this new thing comes up andI'm not even really sure in the
moment where it fits within thisframework.
I don't know if it's a tier oneor a tier two.
I have no clue because Ihaven't yet started working with
(12:43):
the student.
So how do I know when to holdback and when to jump in if I
don't know the full extent ofthe problem?
Because you know, and I know,that typically what's first
reported to us as the issue isnever the real issue, right?
So how do we make thatdetermination Okay?
(13:03):
So we know, then, from thisresearch that student autonomy
is crucial for their development, but then that creates a
practical challenge for us.
A practical challenge for us.
How do we balance a student'sneed to develop autonomy with
(13:23):
our responsibility to providesupport?
Because not every situationallows us to step back.
It's not always appropriate forus to wait and see, or you
stand back at arm's length tosee what a student is able to
accomplish.
Sometimes we need to provideimmediate intervention.
So my thought is we need a moresystematic way to evaluate
(13:48):
situations and to determinewhether these situations are
ones that we need to jump intowith both feet or whether
they're ones that we can kind ofstep back and see if students
can develop autonomy.
That's why I developed aframework for myself to help
(14:09):
determine what needs need to gofirst.
If there are too many needsbeing presented on campus, how
do I know where to jump in first?
How do I know which situationsneed to simmer a little bit and
which are the ones that I needto jump and cover before they
explode right?
So just like a doctor would usetriage to determine which
(14:36):
patients need to be seenimmediately and which can wait,
we can use a similar approach tohelp us decide when student
autonomy can be approached orwhen we need to immediately
provide that direct intervention.
So these questions that I usehelps balance three key factors
(15:00):
of student situations One, theimmediacy and the severity of
what's going on.
Two, the student's capacity forautonomy.
And three, the potentiallearning opportunities that are
presented as a result of thesituation.
So let's talk through thesedecision-making questions that
(15:26):
you might want to use todetermine how to triage
situations on your campus.
Question one is it an immediatesafety or legal issue?
Question one is it an immediatesafety or legal issue?
Does it involve harm to self,harm to others, abuse, legal
obligations or anything likethat?
Obviously, if the answer is yes, you're going to jump in.
(15:47):
If no, we go to the nextquestion Is the issue
significantly impacting studentfunctioning?
Is it a true concern regardingthe student's academic, social
or emotional functioning?
If it is, we need to look atthe severity.
(16:08):
Does it look mild, moderate orsevere?
Let's make a plan and let'sjump in.
If it's not significantlyimpacting the student's
functioning, let's go on to stepthree.
Step three is looking forevidence of a sudden or
immediate decline.
(16:29):
Has the student's academicperformance, emotional stability
or attendance suddenly taken anosedive?
If it has, escalate thesituation.
Give immediate support orintervention.
If we don't see that kind ofevidence, we move on to step
(16:51):
four.
Step four asks is the studentcapable of solving the problem?
Are they cognitively capable ofaddressing the issue
independently, even for a shorttime?
Are they emotionally capable ofaddressing the issue
independently?
(17:11):
And we have to be careful herethat we don't start projecting
onto our students, careful herethat we don't start projecting
onto our students.
But if it looks like they'recapable of a little bit of
autonomy in their situation, letthem take the lead.
And if you don't believe thatthey have that capacity, that's
when you step in to provide thatcapacity-building support,
(17:42):
building support.
Then we need to consider can astaff member assist.
Does this concern fall withinthe expertise of another staff
member or within the scope of arelationship that the student
has with someone else on campus?
If it is, and a referral isappropriate.
If it is and a referral isappropriate, see if you can get
a staff member to help with thesituation.
If there's no staff memberavailable or the student has not
(18:04):
developed strong relationshipswith others on campus, consider
a brief, solution-focused check.
Would that kind of briefintervention clarify the issue
for the student or provide themthat next best step?
If it would, that's when you goforward with a brief,
(18:25):
solution-focused approach.
If not, we consider would ourstepping in prevent valuable
learning for the student?
Have we seen the studentsuccessfully navigate similar
challenges in the past?
Does this situation provide asafe environment for them to
(18:47):
learn without immediate and direconsequences?
And dire consequences?
Will intervening in thissituation teach the student to
rely on adults for problems thatreally they can solve?
And what is the student likelyto learn if I don't step in?
If you feel comfortable withthose questions and feel like
(19:08):
stepping in might remove thatlearning opportunity for the
student, coach them, watch themfrom a distance, but don't get
hyper-invested in counseling.
And if you don't feel that theywould benefit from trying to
solve it on their own, then youknow you need to step in.
(19:28):
Now, that is not a formalframework.
There's nothing published aboutthat anywhere to my knowledge.
But as I kind of sat down andthought through the things that
I think about when situationspresent themselves on campus,
those are kind of the broadgeneral categories that came to
mind.
Now, don't feel like you haveto go back and listen to this
(19:50):
and write them all down, unlessthat's how you learn best, which
is how I learn.
So you will often catch medoing that in podcasts.
But if that's not your jam andyou need a list of these
questions, I want you to knowI'm going to hook you up at the
end of the podcast episode whereyou can access these questions
in flowchart style and be ableto directly apply them to your
(20:12):
school counseling program.
All right, so we've talked aboutthe benefits of sometimes
providing some autonomy tostudents to let them grow into
themselves, to let themunderstand what they're capable
of and really to support betterpsychological well-being.
We've talked about thedifferent tiers of intervention
(20:34):
and some questions that we canask as we're approaching
situations on campus todetermine whether or not.
Our immediate response is thebest option and, as we've talked
through that, I can imagineyou're probably thinking, um,
yeah, this sounds great intheory.
You're probably thinking, yeah,this sounds great in theory,
(20:59):
but what about the people on mycampus who expect results now?
What about the parents that areconstantly emailing me wanting
me to sort out all of theproblems?
What about the teachers who areexpecting me to essentially
show up with a magic wand andfix all the behaviors?
Or what about theadministrators who are expecting
results now?
I can't tell them that I'mtrying to help students build
(21:21):
autonomy.
They are going to interpretthat as I am being lazy, I'm
falling down on the job or I'mnot committed to our students.
Did you have that thought?
If you did, I would say that'spretty typical in our school
counseling world.
Working on school campuses ingeneral can feel pretty punitive
(21:44):
, almost like you're back inschool yourself.
Right, if you don't make thegrade, there will be
consequences, kind of a thing,and that looks different on
different campuses.
But we also tend to be rulefollowers and we wanna be
helpers, and so it's hard toseparate ourselves from that
idea of the instantaneous helperto the one that steps back.
(22:05):
So how can we explain this toothers around us?
How do we make them understandthat this is actually a
research-based mechanism forsupporting students?
Well, certainly we can talkthrough Ryan and DC's work on
self-determination theory.
(22:25):
I think that would be apowerful conversation to have,
and I'm not sure that a lot ofeducators are aware of it.
Sue and Reeve 2011, shows usthat these autonomy-supportive
approaches significantly improveacademic engagement,
problem-solving capabilities,long-term resilience and
(22:46):
emotional regulation, just likeI talked about at the beginning
of this episode.
But the really cool thing, thenext step beyond that
information, is that studentimprovements were not temporary.
The research showed thatstudent behavior and student
capabilities sustained lastingchanges.
(23:08):
So we have to be ready toexplain our rationale to those
around us.
We have to develop theconfidence and the belief in the
way that we're working to beable to explain it well, so that
people understand what we'retalking about and that we can
truly communicate that we dohave the best interest of
(23:32):
students at heart.
The slack that we get on ourworkload that's just an added
bonus, right, that just allowsus to get to more students.
And if we provide this autonomyfor students at the outset of an
issue and we see that they'renot making progress.
Certainly we're going to stepin and provide the needed
(23:52):
supports.
Right?
It's not like we're juststanding back watching them from
around the corner wondering ifthey're going to fall on their
face.
That's not this at all.
But we can briefly check in,find out what the problem is,
assess where we think it fallsin the hierarchy and then
provide suggestions for waysthat they can take control over
(24:13):
the situation or engage in moreintensive counseling services.
It's going to be up to ourexpertise, but when we talk
about Ryan and DC's work, sueand Reeve's work, it reminds us
that we don't have to be thesuperhero all the time, we don't
have to be the lawnmowercounselor going and trying to
(24:35):
clear all the obstacles fromstudents as they work through
situations, and that actually,if they have to chop down some
of the weeds themselves, theymay actually emerge stronger,
smarter and happier because ofit.
So, based on this research andbased on the plan that I
(24:57):
outlined for you, here are someways that you can get started
slowly with this idea in yourschool counseling program.
First, choose one type ofstudent issue where you
typically just jump inimmediately.
Think about something maybethat's happened fairly recently
or something that tends tohappen over and over again On my
(25:19):
campus.
I can give you a perfectexample.
I wish I had a dollar for everyteacher that emails me that a
student needs to be seenimmediately because they're
having a sad day, and it oftentakes some conversation with
teachers to help them understandthat.
I'm worried about sad days whenthey last a long time, when
(25:43):
there are many, many of thosesad days in a row and the
student's demeanor changes.
That's when I wanna getinvolved.
But everybody has sad days,right.
Everybody has days where theyfeel angry.
Everybody has those crappy daysthat just don't go right.
It doesn't necessarily mean weneed to be calling the school
(26:03):
counselor to the forefront.
So think about some of thosesituations on your campus, which
are ones that you typicallyencounter.
Really, think critically aboutyour current approach in those
situations.
What do you tend to do?
Do you tend to drop everythingand run to find the student?
Do you tend to worry and stressyourself about how you're going
(26:26):
to fit them in in between allof the other things you've
already had going on?
Do you end up staying latebecause you're seeing students
when you'd planned on doingpaperwork or documentation?
How does that work for you andthen, once you've identified
those recurring situations andyour typical responses, see if
(26:47):
you can implement some autonomysupportive strategies.
See if you can check in withthe kid briefly five, 10 minutes
to identify the problem andhelp them come up with their
next best step.
This is where solution focusedapproaches work fabulously.
If you're not well-versed insolution focused approaches, I
(27:11):
would really urge you to studyup and learn on it as quickly as
you can.
Those are going to be as closeas you're going to get to a
magic wand in school counseling.
But think of someautonomy-supportive strategies
you can implementSolution-focused conversations,
providing a menu of options,scheduling, brief check-ins
(27:32):
after the fact, things like thatwhere you're not necessarily
sitting down face-to-face withthe student for even 10 or 15
minutes.
This might be a brieffive-minute walk and talk up and
down the hallway.
How can you implement some ofthose autonomy supportive
strategies in your schoolcounseling program and then
track the outcomes in yourschool counseling program and
(27:56):
then track the outcomes, watchand see what happens.
See if your students don'treport feeling stronger, feeling
proud of themselves, feelingaccomplished because they worked
their way through the situation.
If you love the idea of steppingback and giving students a
little bit more autonomy.
But you're nervous.
(28:21):
You're worried about what yourprincipal might say, you're
worried about the chatter in theteacher's lounge.
I'm going to tell you that yournumber one best ally in those
situations is knowledge andempowerment.
When you can talk the talk,when you can effectively explain
what you're doing and why, thenaysayers quickly get quiet
(28:41):
because you're not leaving thema leg to stand on.
And that's part of what we calldeveloping professional fluency
.
Just like we urge our readers inschool to develop fluency right
so that they can becomeprolific readers, we want to
develop professional fluencywithin our craft.
We want to be able to havethese just-in-time conversations
(29:06):
at the drop of a hat.
If someone walks up to us andasks us a question, we want to
be able to answer with authority, without feeling like we have
to BS around the situation orhaving to say you know what?
Let me get back to you on them.
We want to come across as cool,calm, collected and competent.
(29:27):
And the way that you developthat school counseling fluency
is by engaging in regularprofessional consultation and
support.
That's why we built our Schoolfor School Counselors Mastermind
.
That's why we meet each andevery week and we have people
who have been meeting us everyweek for years, who are masters
(29:51):
at their craft, who know thatthe more they immerse themselves
in these conversations, thebetter they're going to be.
The more clout and influencethey're going to develop on
campus, the better they're goingto be able to support their
students.
It all comes from professionalfluency, and so I would love to
(30:15):
welcome you to the School forSchool Counselors, mastermind.
It's an amazing group ofphenomenal school counselors,
and the best part is you canjoin in and just listen until
you get ready to offer yourexpertise in the circle as well.
You can find out more about itat schoolforschoolcounselorscom.
Slash mastermind.
(30:37):
And if you've been patientlywaiting for the list of
questions that I walked throughin this podcast episode, check
the episode description in yourpodcast player.
You'll see a link right therefor my list of questions and how
I conceptualize triagingstudent concerns.
I am not guaranteeing that itis the right answer.
(30:59):
I am not guaranteeing that itis the best answer, but it's the
way I approach my work, which Itry to do with integrity and
due diligence, and you can takethis list of questions and
adjust it as needed for yourcampus.
The important thing isn'tnecessarily the flow chart
itself.
The important thing is you'rethinking about how you're doing
(31:21):
business and how to best supportstudents' development and
outcomes.
Hey, do me a favor this week, ifyou haven't already and you
know of a colleague who wouldlove to tune into our podcast,
why don't you share it with them?
It would mean so much to usthat the word is getting out
(31:42):
about the podcast and hopefullyit's going to become a
phenomenal tool in their toolbox, just like it's become an
awesome tool for you.
Reach out to a colleague, copythe share link in your podcast
player and just send a quickemail.
Hey, I thought you might beinterested in this.
Just help us spread the word.
(32:02):
All right, I'll be back soonwith another episode.
In the meantime, I hope youhave the best week and the best
Thanksgiving break coming up.
I'll see you again soon.
Keep being awesome and takecare.