In today's episode we discuss anxiety strategies for school counselors with expert Courtney Bennett. Courtney is a passionate school counselor and mom of three. She loves to learn, so you will most often find her with a book in hand. She has spent the last several years studying about anxiety, trauma, and executive functioning and enjoys the challenge of putting this expertise to the test with real kids.. Courtney shares personal experience with anxiety and strategies for managing it with studen...
Apr 30, 2024•26 min•Season 4Ep. 194
On today's episode, we explored a variety of strategies for managing student anxiety with special guest Casey O’Brien Martin. Casey shared her wealth of experience working as both an art therapist and school counselor. Casey O’Brien Martin is a Mom of two boys and a mini schnuazer named Hurley. She is the author of the book Skills for Big Feelings: A Guide for Teaching Kids Relaxation, Regulation, and Coping Techniques . She works as a school adjustment counselor in Massachusetts and runs Whole ...
Apr 23, 2024•28 min•Season 4Ep. 193
In this episode of School Counseling Simplified, your host, Rachel, shares powerful mindfulness strategies for managing student anxiety and executive functioning. Here are some highlights: Mindfulness activates the prefrontal cortex and cingulate cortex, areas of the brain linked to attention, executive functions, and learning. A study found students who practiced mindfulness improved their executive functioning skills like behavioral regulation. Rachel demonstrated mindful breathing exercises l...
Apr 16, 2024•18 min•Season 4Ep. 192
In today's episode, I chat with Laura Filtness about anxiety strategies. Laura talks through the importance of setting professional boundaries and using therapy dogs in counseling programs. We discuss practical applications for managing anxiety in students and school counselors, including mindful moments, expanding the window of tolerance, and using cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques. Laura also shares her passion for using picture books in counseling and her involvement in mentoring ...
Apr 09, 2024•35 min•Season 4Ep. 191
Anxiety remains our focus this week as we have gotten such an overwhleming response and need to continue to cover this topic. Today, Jessica, from Counseling Adventures, joins the conversation to share valuable insights and practical strategies for addressing anxiety among students. Drawing from her 10 years of experience, Jessica offers tips for parents, teachers, and fellow counselors, emphasizing the importance of understanding and managing different types of anxiety in the school setting. Ga...
Apr 02, 2024•32 min•Season 4Ep. 190
Separation anxiety has always impacted kids but it seems to be much more prevalent in the past few years since the pandemic. We see it in students crying as they are exiting their cars in the morning, refusing to come to school, and feeling sick in the nurse’s office. We all want to help these students cope with this anxiety as best as possible so Ashley Bartley is joining us to share practical tips and strategies to help our students who struggle with separation anxiety. Ashley Bartley, M.Ed., ...
Mar 26, 2024•21 min•Season 2Ep. 189
Anxiety does not just impact older students and adults. There are many elementary students who struggle with anxiety as well! As a school counselor, it can be challenging to determine the root of that anxiety and figure out what strategies may be beneficial for your student. I know we all want to support our students as best as possible so I am so excited to have Sophia from School Psych Finds on to share some knowledge and insights about helping our students with anxiety! Sophia is trained as a...
Mar 19, 2024•33 min•Season 2Ep. 188
I think all of us can agree that kids are more anxious now than ever. And as school counselors, trying to find effective tools and strategies to figure out why our students are so anxious and help our students calm down can be challenging. So how can we help these students? I completely understand how difficult it can be to come up with strategies when you have a student in your office whose anxiety is high. Having practical, easy to implement strategies handy for when your student needs them is...
Mar 12, 2024•14 min•Season 2Ep. 187
Students of all ages can suffer from anxiety or feel anxious about certain situations. Teaching them effective coping strategies for managing their anxiety is so empowering for them and can help them feel more calm in stressful situations. I always love to hear tips and strategies from other school counselors and I am so excited to have Mallory Zolinas join me to share some coping strategies for anxiety that she teaches her students. Mallory is a 5th year Elementary School Counselor working with...
Mar 05, 2024•21 min•Season 2Ep. 186
We are wrapping up our series on school counselor competencies with my favorite topics: assessing and data! Showcasing assessments and data is such an incredible way to advocate for your role and show your program’s progress to stakeholders. In addition to it being an amazing way to advocate for your role, assessing and reporting program results is an ASCA school counselor competency! Sharing your program’s progress and impact doesn’t need to be incredibly complicated and now is a great time to ...
Feb 27, 2024•11 min•Season 2Ep. 185
Have you looked at the ASCA school counselor competencies and been totally overwhelmed? This whole month, I am focusing on simplifying these standards and making them easy to understand and easy to implement. We’ve previously covered direct and indirect student services and now it’s time for one of my absolute favorite topics, planning. If you’re a planner like me, you are going to love this, too! Planning doesn’t need to be complicated! There is a lot of jargon in the ASCA school counselor comp...
Feb 20, 2024•14 min•Season 2Ep. 184
Direct student services may not sound super interesting but this is the good stuff! It’s the things we all enjoy doing and the reasons we became school counselors. Direct student services are when we are working with students in one on one settings, small groups, and class lessons. We all know that providing these services are the key parts of our role but how can we be sure we are delivering the best services possible to your students? The ASCA professional competencies can be a bit challenging...
Feb 13, 2024•14 min•Season 2Ep. 183
What are indirect student services? We all know there is so much that goes into school counseling besides just the class lessons, small groups, and individual sessions. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes. These indirect student services are so important to making the biggest impact possible on all of our students. If you’re looking through the ASCA website, it may seem wordy, formal, and confusing making it challenging to determine what you should consider direct or indirect student...
Feb 06, 2024•22 min•Season 2Ep. 182
If you’re like me, you’re always looking for new ways to increase your productivity. As busy school counselors, we need to save every minute we can by finding more efficient ways to do things that work for our personalities and busy schedules. As we wrap up our productivity series, I want to share some of my favorite ways to more efficiently document services provided and ideas for how to make your to do list a little more effective. You know I love sharing tips, tricks, and tools I have found t...
Jan 30, 2024•12 min•Season 2Ep. 181
We are all about productivity this month because I love helping school counselors make the most of their time to make the biggest impact they can! We talked last week about using a time audit to figure out where you are spending your time and how to cut out things that you don’t need to be doing, but how else can you make the most of your time? Batching! We have so many things to accomplish each day and it’s amazing how much time we spend switching between these tasks. That’s why I highly recomm...
Jan 23, 2024•15 min•Season 2Ep. 180
It’s January, the start of a new year and what better way to kick off your year than with a time audit! You know I love time audits because they are so incredibly helpful for making the most of your time and helping you make the biggest impact you can. I know, you might be thinking that adding another thing to your to-do list just isn’t possible. But believe me, you can regain so much time just by doing a quick time audit of what you’re doing each day! As school counselors, we have so much on ou...
Jan 16, 2024•16 min•Season 2Ep. 179
I absolutely love hearing from other school counselors and getting an inside look at what their role looks like. Every counselor’s position is unique based on so many different factors - their background, their caseload size, if there are other counselors on their team, etc. That’s why I am so excited to chat with our guest today! Sheyenne Hernandez has a social work background, has a caseload of about 400 students, and has some great ideas for how to build relationships with her students! All A...
Jan 09, 2024•32 min•Season 2Ep. 178
Happy New Year! We made it to 2024 and I am so excited to kick off a new year with you and see what 2024 holds for us! I always love to kick off the year with some new goals, selecting a word of the year, and a fresh start and I thought it would be perfect to share that with you! I think we all like to go into a new year with a fresh perspective and ideas of things we’d like to accomplish, I know I do at least! So to kick off the year, I thought it would be fun to share some goals I have for you...
Jan 02, 2024•16 min•Season 2Ep. 177
I hope you are enjoying your much needed and well deserved break! We are wrapping up 2023 with a look back at some of the best episodes from School Counseling Simplified this year to help you easily find what you may want to go back and listen to. This year has been so fun and I am so grateful for each and every one of you for tuning in and sharing the podcast! As I looked back on what we covered this year, there were four main topics we spent several episodes covering and I thought those would ...
Dec 26, 2023•12 min•Season 2Ep. 176
Are you currently using a calendar to keep track of what students you are seeing, what you are seeing them for, and what tasks you are spending your time on? Let me tell you, if you are not, hearing from our guest, Lauren Tingle, is going to make you realize how helpful collecting data using a calendar truly is! Lauren is a former high school counselor turned content creator and curriculum writer. She is the high school counseling hype girl behind Counselor Clique helping other high school couns...
Dec 19, 2023•14 min•Season 2Ep. 175
Have you seen some of your kiddos really struggling with stress, worry, or other challenging emotions? Teaching these students some helpful coping skills they can do at school when these emotions come up can be a game changer for them! But how can we as school counselors help them and what types of strategies can we teach them to help them manage their emotions both at school and at home? Janine Halloran is joining us today to share some great tips for helping our students with coping skills! Ja...
Dec 12, 2023•24 min•Season 2Ep. 174
Happy December! Holiday season is in full swing which means it’s a great time to pull some holiday and winter themed activities into your counseling sessions. This is a great opportunity to mix things up a bit, keep students excited to see you, and practice some important skills your students need! One winter activity idea I absolutely love is a seasonal countdown calendar. With winter break quickly approaching, this is a fun way to keep the students engaged during the last few weeks. If you’re ...
Dec 05, 2023•19 min•Season 2Ep. 173
As a school counselor, you’ve likely worked with a student who needed a little sensory support. But how can we help to support these students with sensory issues? Today I am joined by therapist and brain science expert Jessica Sinarski, who is giving us some wonderful insight into the eight senses and helping our students who benefit from various types of sensory input. Jessica Sinarski is a highly sought-after therapist, speaker, and change-maker. Extensive post-graduate training and 15+ years ...
Nov 28, 2023•32 min•Season 2Ep. 172
You know I am all about showcasing your work and impact as a school counselor! And midyear is the perfect time to do just that. One way I love to show the impact that school counselors make is by including student progress data on a data wall that shows how much students have improved because of counseling services. Now, this may sound a little intimidating especially as you’re thinking of everything that you need to do midyear, but it can be completely manageable and totally worthwhile! In this...
Nov 21, 2023•10 min•Season 2Ep. 171
You know I love having other school counselors join me to share their experiences and insight with you! And I thought it would be fun to share my experiences as a school counselor so you can hear a little more about my background and how I got started. Today, I am giving you a glimpse into my path to becoming a school counselor and what my role looked like in my schools. No two school counselors have the exact same background, experience, or journey school counseling. From not finding a job afte...
Nov 14, 2023•22 min•Season 2Ep. 170
Can you believe we are getting close to the end of the semester already? As we approach the midpoint of the school year, this is the perfect time to showcase your amazing work! I absolutely love creating a data wall to show parents, admin, and other stakeholders just how much of an impact school counselors have on the students. Putting a school counseling data wall up in a high traffic area is a great way to ensure that as many eyes as possible see the impact of your work. One of the things I lo...
Nov 07, 2023•9 min•Season 2Ep. 169
When it comes to supporting our kiddos with special needs, there are some things to consider that you may not have thought about. We know these students may need extra support and working collaboratively with the special education teachers can help us understand how to provide this support and ways we can help our students get the most out of our lessons. I am so excited to have Michelle Vazquez joining me to share some insight into how we can work with our special education teachers to best ser...
Oct 31, 2023•19 min•Season 2Ep. 168
At this point in the school year, you are likely seeing lots of referrals coming in for social skills. But, teaching social skills can be beneficial for all students, not just the ones being referred to you. I actually LOVE teaching social skills preventatively as a class lesson and then as needed in small group and individual lessons. Now, you may be a little nervous about coming up with ideas for teaching social skills. That’s okay! I have a whole training for you focused completely on teachin...
Oct 24, 2023•7 min•Season 2Ep. 167
Teaching small groups doesn’t have to be scary! When you have a consistent routine and amazing activities planned, small groups can be super fun to teach. But don’t worry, you don’t need to figure it all out on your own. In today’s episode, I am explaining how you can spice up your group counseling sessions so you can engage your students and make your small group lessons effective and fun! Small groups can be so much fun for you and the students if you do them correctly. The good news is there ...
Oct 17, 2023•37 min•Season 2Ep. 166
October is Bully Prevention Month and unfortunately we all know that bullying is everywhere. Regardless of the socio economic status of the school, population, or even the country of the school, there is likely bullying happening. The good news is that we, as school counselors, can address this issue with our students and help to bring awareness to the harm of bullying and hopefully prevent it from happening. Now, you don’t always need to teach the same general bullying prevention lesson to ever...
Oct 10, 2023•13 min•Season 2Ep. 165
