School for School Counselors Podcast

[Bonus Ep.] From Burnout to Brilliance: SMART Secrets for Overwhelmed School Counselors

• School for School Counselors • Episode 112

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In this episode of the School for School Counselors Podcast, host Steph Johnson  discusses the challenges of adhering to the ASCA National Model in imperfect circumstances and introduces the SMART School Counseling Framework. This five-part framework aims to provide actionable steps for school counselors navigating the complexities of real-world school environments. 

Additionally, she introduces the free SMART School Counseling Assessment (smartschoolcounseling.com) designed to help counselors identify their next best steps for growth and development. Steph emphasizes the importance of not internalizing program shortfalls and instead endeavoring to do what's best for students within the context of the campus.

00:00 Welcome to the New and Improved Podcast

00:40 Celebrating Our Success

01:38 Introducing a New Idea

03:55 Challenges in Implementing the ASCA National Model

08:59 The Smart School Counseling Framework

18:42 The Smart School Counseling Assessment

21:17 Final Thoughts and How to Get Involved

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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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Speaker 1:

Hey there, school counselor, welcome back to the new and improved School for School Counselors podcast. I'm Steph Johnson, your host, a full-time school counselor just like you, on a mission to make school counseling more sustainable and more enjoyable, and I'm so glad that you're here with me for this episode. This is part of our Pod Party Power pack. Say that three times fast. This is a special cluster of episodes we've put out just for you at this time of year, to motivate you, to inspire you and to get you ready for the new school year and as a way of saying thanks. I don't know if you know, but School for School Counselors podcast has been doing a pretty good job. We have over 155,000 downloads as of the time of recording this episode, and we've only been around a couple years. For a niche podcast like ours, without you know, a huge audience to listen to it. That's pretty dang good, and we've risen as high as number three in the global charts in our podcast category. So that is nothing to sniff at, and that's all thanks to you. That's all thanks to everyone who listens, all of our friends and colleagues who tune in to each episode week after week, and so we wanted a way to say thank you and to let you know how grateful we are for your gracious listenership. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. This would not be a thing without you, and we sure hope that this podcast keeps growing and keeps serving our friends and colleagues very, very well in the school counseling world.

Speaker 1:

So as part of the first episode of our Power Pack, I want to introduce you to an idea that we've kind of been playing around with a little bit in School for School Counselors for a few years. This is something that has come up very organically throughout our organization because, as in everything that we do, we never just say, oh, we're going to do this thing, and we just run out and do it. It's always from member input and feedback and ideas, because we don't want to create or put anything out into the world that's not going to serve you, that's not going to be useful to you, it's not going to be conscious of your time, of your energy or of your circumstances. And I feel like we have a lot of things out there in the school counseling world that kind of just sort of forget about the circumstance piece. Right, they just assume that you have autonomy in your program, they assume you have the right school counselor to student ratios. They assume that you have the right time available to do your job when so many of you are working with caseloads well above the recommended ratio, sometimes two or three or even four times more students than is recommended for your role. Or you're written into a master schedule and you're micromanaged to death all day long, or you have all these extra baloney responsibilities that you know you probably shouldn't be doing but you have absolutely no power to change. But people like to forget about all that kind of stuff because talking about those things gets messy and messy is uncomfortable for people, right. And so we here at School for School Counselors my team and I we love to dive into the messiness, we love to get into the nitty-gritty of what real-world school counseling really is, because we feel like we can't support you or cheer you on effectively if we don't have the whole enchilada in mind as we're doing that. And so, all that to say, super excited you're here with us, so grateful for your time, and hope that you feel confident enough that you can recommend us to your friends and colleagues. You know, as I'm talking about recommendations and suggestions, not taking into account your time, your autonomy, your resources, those kinds of things. It makes me think about school counseling program frameworks at large. So we know that it's recommended for us to follow the ASCA national model, and we were likely all trained that way.

Speaker 1:

It's something that we really, really want to do, but we find a lot of roadblocks when we get started in our jobs, don't we? We come in very eager, very bright-eyed, full of lots of initiative and ideas, and then we get on a campus for a couple weeks and we start hearing things like no, we don't have time for that. No, we can't release you from that responsibility. No, nobody's ever done that here before. No, I don't know what that means. Some of them don't even know.

Speaker 1:

Administrators don't understand the national model. It's not an important component of what they're trying to build on their campuses currently, or at least they don't understand it to be right. And so we're faced with all these obstacles. We're trying to implement this national model and at some point, typically school counselors walk away thinking it must be me, it must be my shortcoming, it must be my downfall, it must be my burden to be able to meet this ASCA national model threshold, which, my friend, is pretty high, right. It's pretty idealistic in its goals and the way that it's structured and it needs to be. We need to have a high level of aspiration in our field 1,000%. Not throwing shade at all at the ASCA National Model.

Speaker 1:

But I do think where we fall short is what do we do in the gap? What do we do in the meantime, from ground zero, where we're not doing anything, we're starting fresh in a program or we're revamping to the holy grail of the ASCA National Model and a fully comprehensive school counseling program? What do we do in the messy middle, right when we're not quite here? And we're not quite there? We need some things. We know we're not gonna get, but we don't wanna fall all the way down to the bottom again, like how do we navigate that area? And nobody's really talking about that in our industry. And so we decided well, we'll do it, we'll just create a framework. It may be right, it may be wrong, we don't know, but we're gonna create something to support our friends and colleagues through that trek.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's like telling somebody you're standing here on the ground, there's the mountain, I want you to jump to the top and it's just impossible to do. That's a long climb. It's a hard climb and you're going to need support, right. You're going to need the right equipment. You're going to need support, right, you're going to need the right equipment. You're going to need the right people motivating you. You're going to need the right people training you for the journey.

Speaker 1:

There are all kinds of things that go on when you're trying to reach something like that, and this is no exception. So I have here on my notes that I'm just using to jog my memory Do you ever wish you had a model to rely on that doesn't make you feel like crap about your job? Because, let's be real, a lot of times trying to reach the ideals of the national model leaves you feeling like you are just terrible at your job. You're not doing it well, you haven't figured it out well enough that there's something wrong with you, and we tend to take it very personally, because we're invested in our work and it just breaks our heart to see that happening industry-wide, and so we decided to do something about it.

Speaker 1:

About a month ago, we hosted a free event we do it every summer, called Best Year Ever, and it is absolutely the highlight of our year. We love doing it. We bring so many school counselors together from all over the country for four nights free of charge, and we hold nothing back. There's no gatekeeping involved in this. If somebody asks us a question or wants a resource, we're there for it. We're going to provide what everybody needs to get started off on the right foot for their new school year. And it's so fun because often we have hundreds of people in a Zoom room together and we have learned throughout the years to be able to manage that well. It's a lot of fun. Everybody gets a chance to ask their questions and to be heard.

Speaker 1:

One of the things we touched on as a bonus at the end of our Best Year Ever event this summer was our Smart School Counseling Assessment, and it's an assessment that we've developed to kind of help school counselors when they're in the middle of that uncertainty, when they're trying to build programs, when they're trying to advocate, in order to make inroads and really capture their administrator's attention and get them to buy into the importance of these programs. We wanted to provide a support in the middle so that if you're not able to go from zero to 100, you have a plan for the middle, because I think often that's where we get tripped up. We feel like we know where A is and we know where Z is, but we don't quite know what order everything needs to go in between, which one's B, which one's C? Does this come before this or after this? Or what should I be focusing, or how does this all work? So we developed not only our smart school counseling framework, but we also developed our smart school counseling assessment, and these go hand in hand. I would love to tell you about it today, just to kind of get you in the right frame of mind for the beginning of your school year and so that you can utilize these tools.

Speaker 1:

The SMART School Counseling Framework is divided into five pieces S-M-A-R-N-T, and I'm going to tell you this thread of SMART School Counseling runs through everything we do in our School. For School Counselors mastermind, we are instituting some monthly challenges. They are data-driven challenges. They are reportable challenges, meaning you're going to be able to take these two administrators and say these are the awesome things, this is the stuff I've noticed. It's going to frame you as an expert on your campus. So within those frameworks, we're running our SMART paradigm. But then within school counseling at large, we're also looking at this. So the S in SMART stands for START. Start is kind of your preliminary baseline, information activities and knowledge base. This is where we get started. These are our baby steps on our way to bigger and more exciting things in this world of school counseling and on your campus. So coming up with some preliminary data for your campus, knowing kind of where you stand in the moment, building a realistic vision for where you are now and where your potential is to go.

Speaker 1:

So often, the full model of comprehensive school counseling isn't available to campuses the structure's not right, the resources aren't right, the administrator isn't right sometimes, and so we have to be able to set goals that are realistic. We don't want this pie in the sky idea all the time If we know we can't attain it and it's going to make us feel bad. We don't want to be there. So we've got to have that realistic vision for our program. We need to identify our knowledge gaps so that we know about the things that we need. Next, what are the things I need to know more about? So if someone comes to me with a question and they're like I don't know what to do with this kid, next, I've tried all these things. What do you have in mind or what do you think about this or how can I do better at that. Instead of saying, let me get back to you on that, let me think on that for a minute, you can say well, I know exactly what you can try.

Speaker 1:

Research says we should be doing this. This is the standard protocol. This is the evidence-based approach to your situation. Whatever the case may be, we want to fill in those gaps in your foundational knowledge so that you can talk about these things on the fly. You don't have to stop and process, you don't have to wonder if you sound stupid while you're talking about it, or you don't have to walk away and later think, God, I wish I would have said that thing. And we don't want you to be there. We want you to just to be able to talk about it with authority. And true, you got a lot of training in grad school. You have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things, but being able to talk through those theoretically versus talking through them in the real world is sometimes a little bit of a jump, and so we like to help our school counselors with that and really fill in that gap.

Speaker 1:

The M in our SMART School Counseling Framework stands for move. Move is where things kind of start getting going. This is where we're building intentional relationships on campus. We're starting with some basic data collection, so we're watching things move in real time. We're managing our responsibilities, we're figuring out what's expected of us, what are the unwritten rules that they forgot to tell us about when we started there, or what are some things that we're being asked to do that may not really be part of our role Understanding the nuance of that, why we're responsible for that and how we can start building relationships to get out of it. We're talking about leading your campus staff to know you, like you and trust you. Those are three very important foundational elements and then continuing to fill those knowledge gaps, moving through that content, moving through your understanding, so that you can be a great resource to people on your campus. All right, so we've got the S, we've got the M.

Speaker 1:

The A is for assess. Assess is when we start evaluating the data that we've collected. We have enough information now that we can start to not only form a picture of what's going on in our program, but we can start to tell stories through the data, and I'm here to tell you that is a much more effective way to present your information than just presenting, you know, one of the pie graphs or bar chart or whatever it is people are doing with their school counseling data. That's very dry, it's not engaging, and people don't look at that and feel compelled to say I want to know more, unless they're just a true data geek, right. And so we are taking those data points and we're transforming them into something more. We're making it digestible for folks, we're making it believable and we're making it exciting for them so that they can see the potential if you're allowed to continue with what you want to do potential if you're allowed to continue with what you want to do.

Speaker 1:

We're also evaluating our resources. This is typically when we see our school counselors start to say I'm done with the teachers, pay teachers, I'm done with the downloads. I have the knowledge and expertise now that I don't need those anymore. I don't have to use a crutch to address student issues. I've got the information at the tip of my tongue, and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing to watch happen. I love it Evaluating relationships as well.

Speaker 1:

Are these relationships on my campus serving me? What do the people around me need? How can I be of benefit to them but also, again, build that know like and trust factor. And then some self-assessment, because you are not above reproach None of us are and we need to be constantly assessing ourselves, the way we're running our programs, the way that we're handling our personal boundaries. We just need to make sure that all that stuff is on point, and so that is part of our assess. Category R stands for relate. Our assess category R stands for relate.

Speaker 1:

Once we have all of these other pieces in place and we feel like they're starting to percolate pretty well, then we can start looking at some further relationships, strengthening the collaboration with administration, talking more to stakeholders and community members about how you can work together, how you can proactively get together to serve students and serve them well, and to be able to continue building those relationships with those co-workers so that not only can you be a support to them, but they feel comfortable telling you about things that they're seeing and hearing and that's going to help you in your work with serving students. And then T thrive. That's kind of our aspirational section of our framework. This is when you really just feel like you've got this school counseling thing nailed down. You're able to now stand up and teach others One of our big dreams in our School for School Counselors, mastermind, is to have a cadre of trainers who are teaching our colleagues and friends about different aspects of school counseling.

Speaker 1:

You are probably serving as a mentor to people on your campus and then in our school counseling community at large. You're engaging in true advocacy, not this print and pray stuff that they're showing you on the internet, the printing the ASCA list of appropriate school counselor responsibilities and inappropriate responsibilities. I have never, ever heard and the thousands upon thousands of school counselors that I've talked to, even within the last four or five years never have I ever heard of that list working. Never have I ever heard somebody say you know, I took that list to my admin and they took one look at it and said man, I'm so glad you set me straight. We've been doing this all wrong. How can we change? I don't think I've ever heard a story of that happening. As a matter of fact, I know I've never heard of that happening. It's not to say again there's anything wrong with that list, but that is a data point for discussion. That shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of the collaboration and I think that's where a lot of people stop.

Speaker 1:

So engaging in true advocacy from the inside out. We teach you how to do that in our School for School Counselors Mastermind, and then just some basic mastery of your craft. Being one of those go-to people, having the answers, knowing your business and wanting to share that with others in our field, is just a tremendous privilege as well as a responsibility. So we're trying to move all of our people through this SMART framework on a large scale, certainly throughout their careers, but also on a smaller scale, throughout targeted initiatives, and that's what we're doing in our School for School Counselors Mastermind. But as part of that, as I said, as we're looking toward these aspirational models and the things that we want to do in our school counseling programs but can't quite get to yet, we have to have a way to identify the next best step, right? What is that one thing? If I only have time to do one more thing, what's it going to be? What areas should I be focusing on? Where's kind of the biggest bang for my buck, so to speak? Well, we have the answer for you. We have developed an assessment called the Smart School Counseling Assessment and through a series of questions, it is going to identify for you your biggest areas for growth.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm going to offer this with a caveat. The caveat is this assessment is not an assessment of your awesomeness as a school counselor. No way, in no way is it a judgment on you. This assessment seeks to provide some clarification on where your program is in the moment, and that's an important distinction Because again and I feel like I'm beating this horse to death but you have to remember you're often not in charge of all the aspects of your day. You may not completely be in charge of your scheduling, you may not be in charge of your resources, you may not be in charge of your responsibilities, what you're expected to attack during the course of a day, and so if you're not in charge of all those, you're doing what you can do right. There are very few counselors that sit in their offices and eat bonbons all day and just wait for the kids to roll in so they can impart their wisdom and move on with their day. That doesn't happen anymore. We have to be able to look at what's the next best step for our program, without taking it personally, without feeling like we failed or we're falling short. If you're doing the best you can within your circumstances, then you're doing it right.

Speaker 1:

This assessment is just a tool to help give you an idea for which direction to look to next. Simple as that. So we wanna offer that to you in this podcast episode. You can head over to the webpage now and engaging. The assessment is gonna give you a customized report. At the end, it's gonna give you some suggestions for some of the categories that you want to improve in, and it's all 100% free of charge. All you have to do is give us your email address, and that's just because we have to have somewhere to send the report to. The platform doesn't generate it in real time, but it has to email it to you, and so you give us your email address and that's it, and then, if you don't want to hear from us anymore after that, you can just unsubscribe from our emails. And no hard feelings there, because we know you get a million emails a day. All right.

Speaker 1:

So if you're interested in the assessment, you can head over to smartschoolcounselingcom. The assessment is going to be right there for you and you can be off and away with all of your amazing insights and results that you're going to gain from being part of the assessment. But at the end of the day, here is what I want you to take away from this conversation. You are probably doing enough. It is most likely that you're doing more than what you probably even should with your circumstances.

Speaker 1:

The shortfalls of your program are not always your shortfalls and you need to be able to separate those out. And third, you need to have a great roadmap and framework to get you from point A to point Z, and here at School for School Counselors, we are almost maniacally trying to develop those resources for you, so that you not only feel equipped and capable, but that you can truly conceptualize that the shortfalls of your program are not your fault and that you really do have people in your corner. We want to be that for you. If you are interested in more of this type of support, please know. At any time you can go to our website, schoolforschoolcounselorscom slash mastermind and join our School for School Counselors Mastermind, where we have conversations like this all the time.

Speaker 1:

There are weekly support and consultation, monthly masterclasses, monthly challenges that are quick, concise and to the point, and monthly data discussions, meetings where you can learn how to utilize, implement or follow up on the school counseling data that you're collecting. It's an amazing community. We offer so much for so little, and we would love for you to join us. Schoolforschoolcounselorscom. Slash mastermind. All right, I'm gonna be back soon with another episode in this power pack from our podcast celebration, so I hope you stay tuned and keep listening, and I'll be back with some more very shortly.