First Week: Meet the Counselor

During the first week of school I will be visiting each classroom to introduce myself to new students and refresh previous students of how I can help them.  In the younger grades I'll be reading a book I created to explain my role at Lee Elementary.  Inspired by Lauren Gentry at Cool School Counseling, I created the book to help students learn about me, explain how I can help, and where they can find me.

Here are a few sample pages:

In the older grades I will speak with students about my role at the school, how to meet with me, confidentiality, and answer any questions they have through a powerpoint.  They will fill out an organizer, created by Vanessa at Savvy School Counselor, to keep in their binder if they needed help remembering.

Additionally, students can individually sign-up to meet with me when they need to help.  Last year I prioritized requests on a first come, first serve basis.  Last years' fourth graders and I realized that this didn't prioritize students that might need to see me more urgently.  This year I'm revamping self-referrals by having students check how soon they'll need to see me on their request.  I found this other great idea on using rock sizes from Vanessa at Saavy School Counselor to visualize urgency and size of problem.  I created this poster to help students pick their rock:

 

Students can use this self-referral sheet to put in my mailbox: