2017 Annual Conference

Carl Buck

Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

This presentation is a general overview of the college financial aid process and how a student can use ‘personal branding’ to market themselves to schools.  The session will cover how to appeal a financial aid award and understanding the institutions use of ‘professional judgment’.   Key topics of discussion include:

• Importance of early college planning
• Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
• Understanding the Net Price Calculator (NPC)
• The financial aid award letter
• Loan options

 Many families focus on the college search, selection and admission process. We believe that figuring out how to pay for college is also an important part of this process. ‘College Financial Aid 101’ helps families understand the ins and outs of college financial aid. It covers topics such as:

• How financial aid eligibility is determined
• How to maximize grants and scholarships
• How to read your Award Letter

This presentation will also address common financial aid myths and real questions from other families going through this process.

Agenda:

• Common Financial Aid Myths
• What Is Financial Aid?
• Grants & Scholarships
• Federal Work-Study
• Student Loan Options
• The Financial Aid Formula
• Expected Family Contribution
• The Financial Aid Award Letter
• Special Circumstances – How & When to Appeal
• Questions
• Website for additional information:  CollegeCovered.com/Assist  

Our Mission

To help people spend smarter, manage debt better and save more so they achieve a brighter financial future. 

We are committed to lend responsibly and encourage students and parents to maximize grants, scholarships and other free financial aid before taking student loans. We recommend students and parents compare the features of federal and private student loans and choose the loans that best fit their needs.

Zane Shelfer

Middle
Secondary

If you have ever wondered what happens when a student enters the Department of Juvenile Justice School System, this presentation is for you. Come learn how the Department of Juvenile Justice School System is working to build a better future for students while they are enrolled. An overview of the agency and school system will be provided. In addition, information about programs, graduation, reentry, and transition into and out of the system will be discussed.

 

This presentation will provide school counselors insight into the DJJ school system and the experiences their students have while in the school system. Learning objectives are: awareness of the agency and school system, understanding curriculum and academic programs offered students, awareness of reentry and transition considerations when students return to their home school.

Shaketha Blankenship
Tamila Jackson-Whitaker

Elementary
Middle
Secondary

School counselors are integral in improving self-efficacy and the health of others. Balancing self-care and professional care is often a challenge for school counselors and other helping professionals. Due to ethical, emotional, and mental implications it is incumbent school counselors are aware of the importance of identifying and maintaining self-wellness. The purpose of the presentation is to provide an overview of counselor wellness, best practices of maintaining wellness, and strategies to establish a work-life balance.

School counselors are integral in improving self-efficacy and the health of others. Balancing self-care and professional care is often a challenge for school counselors and other helping professionals. Due to ethical, emotional, and mental implications it is incumbent school counselors are aware of the importance of identifying   and maintaining self-wellness. The purpose of the presentation is to provide an overview of counselor wellness, provide best practices of maintaining wellness, and provide strategies to establish a work-life balance.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the importance and ethical implications of self-wellness
• Identify barriers in balancing self-care and professional care
• Identify strategies and resources in assessing self-wellness
• Identify strategies and resources in maintaining self-wellness and a work-life balance

Opportunities for Participation:

Throughout the session, presenters will provide counselor impairment and counselor wellness  scenarios allowing discussion and dialogue. Participants will also have opportunities to share strategies. Participants will be provided with resources for best practices of maintaining self-wellness.

 

Tierney E. Langdon

Middle
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Students considered "at risk" often show academic gaps in their fundamental skills necessary in education. Poor Academic performance can be a contributing factor to an adolescents negative self image. Students who gain support in academics, while learning to have personal value will increase their efforts in educational work and self assurance. In this session students begin to understand Growth Mindsets, and how Growth mindset language can positively impact a students attitude and success in education.

The goal of this Unit is for at risk students in the in the area of Math and
Literacy to be able to increase their Math and Literacy skills through the review of foundational skills, as well as
increasing their self image through Growth Mindset Language.
 Strategies to be utilized in achieving this goal will consist of a nine week long small group unit that includes progress monitoring activities, growth and fixed mindsets lessons, as well as familiarity with Growth Mindset Language. Students will meet one time a week for approximately 9 weeks, for a duration of 30 minutes a session. 
Students will set a personal End of Year grade goal and track their individual grade performance. Students will have
the oppportunity to reflect on their academic performance, celebrate success and recieve small group encouragement
to do the best they can. Students will also have the opportunity to increase their literacy skills through the use of
character education readings and activities. Students will participate in activities focusing on differentiated learning and peer collaboration. Lesson one will begin with a group opening, norms, a Mindset Survey for a pre test and an introduction to fixed vs. growth mindsets. Lesson 2 wil utilize a short video explaining the differences between growth and fixed mindsets. Lessons 3 through 6 will involve hands on activities that assist in how the brain learns, changing fixed mindset language to growth mindset language, illustrating a growth mindset and a poster project on growth mindset language and their meanings. Lessons 7 and 8 will require working together and utilizing a growth mindset, and participating in a cup stacking challenge. Finally lesson 9 will summarize the Unit by reflecting on observations, open discussion through the triangle response to questions craft.
The skills and insights participants should be able to gain are as follows:

Process data- students who are chosen for small group are defined as academically at risk students based on the beginning of the school years academic performance on core pre-tests.
Perception data- Students will have a stronger motivation for learning and working through academic challenges. Through the use of growth mindset language, students will be able to self motivate and increase their academic participation and performance. 
Expected Outcome data- students in the group will increase their math and language arts performance from first semester to second semester. Academic performance will be measured through progress monitoring, and an end of semester 2 percentage grade of a 70 or high in the area of Math and Language Arts.

The content of this unit includes materials from three different references. Items were recieved from

www.mindsetworks.com 

Carol Dweck's book titled "Mindsets: The New Psychology of Success

as well as video slides from youtube: Star wars exerpt- exemplifying growth Mindset from Yoda (lesson 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUJxzh8Raw); Will Smiths Top 10 rules for Success (lesson 5-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBsT9omTeh0); Video "how to" on cup stacking challenge(lesson 8- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tejbh-dxHTQ)

Dr. Cedric Cooks, LPC, NCC, NCSC

Middle
Secondary

In the last decade, there have been great strides made in LGBT rights; however, change can come very slowly to the LGBTQ youth in our nation schools. Unforunately, LGBTQ students continue to experience widespread discrimination and harrassment in school which threatens their psychological well-being and impedes their educational outcomes. LGBTQ youth continue to report that they don't feel safe in school or supported by adults. Implementing appropriate resources are highly important and effective in changing the school climate for LGBTQ youth.

Program Content: Participants attending this session will have an opportunity to increase their advocacy for LGBTQ youth. Participants will learn about resources and how to implement these resources in their schools. These resources can be used with students and staff members to help reduce discrimination, harrassment and bullying in the school environment with LGBTQ youth. LGBTQ youth have reported feeling unsafe in school climates, hearing biased language from students and educators, and having their psychological well-being and educational endeavors suffer as a result of hostile school climates.

School-based supports such as comprehensive anti-bullying/harassment policies, school personnel who are supportive of LGBTQ students, Gay-Straight Alliances, and LGBT-inclusive curricular resources can positively affect school climate for LGBTQ students. When these resources and support systems are in place, positive school experiences, including lower victimization and absenteeism and higher academic achievement will follow. It is critical that counselors in collaboration with school leaders, education policymakers, and other individuals who are obligated to provide safe learning environments for all students take the following steps:

• Implement comprehensive school anti-bullying/harassment policies

• Support Gay-Straight Alliances

• Provide professional development for school staff on LGBTQ student issues

 • Increase student access to LGBT-inclusive curricular resources.

These actions can move us toward a future in which all students  will have the opportunity to learn and succeed in school, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. 

We will examine where Georgia currently stands as it relates to providing safe and positive school environments for LGBTQ youth.

Dianne Lassai Barker
Sarah Wenham

Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

Georgia’s Move on When Ready (MOWR) program provides students the opportunity to earn college credit while completing their high school graduation requirements.  With tuition, many fees, and textbooks covered by the program, and with many other benefits to enrolling in college while in high school, MOWR participation is growing.  Join us to learn more about the MOWR program and how your students can participate at the TCSG and USG colleges and universities across the state.

This session will provide participants with an overview of the MOWR program.  The following topics will be included:

• Student MOWR funding eligibility requirements;
• Program funding and possible student expenses;
• TCSG and USG MOWR admission requirements and procedures;
• Eligible college courses, tips for selecting courses, and the process for new courses to be approved;
• Benefits of enrolling in college prior to high school graduation; and,
• Review of MOWR online resources

During this session, there will be many opportunities for discussion and for participants to ask questions of the presenters.  No handouts are planned but participants will leave the session with an awareness of the online resources that are available.

 At the conclusion of the session, participants will:

• Have an awareness of the history of the MOWR program;
• Possess an understanding of the MOWR funding eligibility requirements, what the funding covers, and the possible student expenses;
• Be aware of the TCSG and USG MOWR admission requirements and procedures;
• Know where to access the listings of eligible college courses in the MOWR course directory and will have an understanding of the process for new courses to be added to the list;
• Be able to describe student benefits of participating in the program; and,
• Know where to go to access online resources related to the program.

Maret Paschal, Ed.S.

Elementary

The word "Transition" should evoke positive feelings.  But, moreso, it has a negative connotation among students and parents.  Transitioning especially from an elementary school to a middle school evokes a wide variety of emotions, behaviors, and concerns for upper elementary school students.  This workshop will include numerous strategies that prepares students in deeming transition as a positive change or movement.  Strategies for students (and parents) will be discussed for positive transitioning from the elementary school to a middle school level, prekindergarten level to the formal school setting, along with from one elementary grade level to the next grade level.

This guidance session will have a multi-modal delivery.  Program session attendees learning objectives/outcomes are:

*  to develop strategies and approaches to communicating and working with diverse student populations in addressing issues with student transitioning.

*  to advocate for student (individuals and collectively) success within the school and among community stakeholders.

*  promote a positive "Yes, you can!" attitude and school culture.

*  understand and promote the role of the school counselor among students, parents, school personnel, and community stakeholders to advocate and support one's school counseling program.

There will be a powerpoint that will outline the entire presentation, along with opportunities for group discussion, and a question and answer segment.  Handouts will be available for all attendees.

Dr. Dawn Mann
Rachel McCoy
Dr. Brent Shropshire

Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Participants will learn about FREE tools designed for counselors by The College Board (i.e. K-12 score portal, ready-made handouts, presentations, and advisement guides). New and enhanced features of the Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy will be shared. Participants will leave with ideas for best practices to work smarter, not harder and a toolkit for implementing these resources in their schools or districts.

The College Board provides free resources and tools for school counselors to support student success. Former and current school counselors who have utilized these resources will share best practices to work smarter, not harder.
Participants will become aware of the resources available, gain knowledge on how to access and best utilize the following tools to promote college readiness: K-12 score portal, ready- made handouts/presentations, advisement guides; and the new and enhanced features of the Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy.
Best practices will include an interactive demonstration on how to use the K-12 portal to identify students for further interventions (i.e. candidates for an SAT Prep Class, or PSAT interventions with targeted sub-groups); connecting students to Khan Academy for personalized practice; and a discussion on how to use the ready-made handouts, presentations and advisement guides. There will be opportunities throughout the session for attendees to share best practices and tips to avoid pitfalls.
Sharing these free resources will arm counselors with the tools needed to support student success. Counselors will walk away with information and materials they can use to implement in their schools without having to re-invent the wheel.

Laura Ross
Nicohl Shelton Webb

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

Twitter conjures up the worst of the internet: disjointed, meaningless phrases, unrecognizable abbreviations, mean tweets,  and endless drivel about what someone is wearing. So, why Tweet? School counselors can use Twitter to create a Professional Learning Network (PLN) to connect them with counselors from all over the world. Download the twitter app and learn Twitter basics, what Twitter has to offer school counselors, who to connect with, and experience a mini twitter chat. Get ready to learn Twitter #OneHashtagAtATime!

Twitter chats are a vital part of professional growth. This is where personalizing professional development through social media comes into focus. Here, individuals can share ideas, links to resources or inspirational quotes. Chats can also be the starting point for collaboration sessions with other educators.

At the end of this session, participants should be able to:

• understand the basics of Twitter
• recognize the benefits of building a Professional Learning Network (PLN) as a school counselor

• begin building their own PLN
• understand how to participate in a twitter chat..

• learn how to set up a Twitter account
• find people to follow
• learn about Twitter abbreviations and lingo
• participate in a live twitter chat at the end of the session (Please note: You must have at least 10 followers on Twitter before you can take part in Twitter chats. This is a way that Twitter protects against spam.)

Handouts will be minimal, but participants will be given a QR code with a link to a list of Twitter chats, including a manual for educators on how to grow their PLN and a Twitter cheat sheet will be given.  

Martine Mahoney

Secondary

Learn how your school can take advantage of Georgia's revolutionary career guidance program - YouScience. YouScience, which has been approved for use by the Georgia DOE and TCSG, uses aptitude based brain games to help students identify their natural talents. The program gives counselors analytics to help put the right students into the right programs. Presentation will include a demo of the YouScience assessment, the talent pipeline reports perfect for CTAE programs and post secondary pathways and implementation best practices.Find out how you can join, for FREE, the 100+ schools in GA already using YouScience.

George McMahon, John Lash, Ashlee Perry

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Discipline disproportionality is a persistent issue that has devastating long term affects for those students affected. Restorative practices provide an intriguing, evidence-based alternative to typical approaches to discipline, and can be integrated into a school counseling program, enabling school counselors to address disproportionality while staying out of the role of “disciplinarian”. Come learn the basics of restorative practices in schools, and see a multi-tiered model for incorporating restorative practices into your school counseling program.

With increased attention being given to the glaring discipline disparity between students of color and White students, as well as the implications that disparity has on crucial outcomes including graduation, college attendance, and even incarceration, schools are being challenged to re-think their approach to discipline. In fact, there is increasing consensus among researchers and policy makers that traditional approaches to school discipline rarely improve school safety, and may exacerbate issues related to discipline disparity (Anyon et al, 2016).

 

Restorative Practices (also referred to as Restorative Justice and Restorative Process) present an intriguing alternative to typical approaches to discipline. Rather than identifying and punishing an offender, Restorative Practices focus more on the experience of the person who was harmed, asserting that it is important to understand the subjective experience(s) of those that were negatively affected by an event, and encourages other actors to address the needs of those persons.

 

Restorative practices can take many forms, from large restorative circle interventions to smaller, one-on-one conflict resolution negotiations. Recent research has shown that schools adopting Restorative Practices at a school level has led to several encouraging academic and behavioral outcomes, including lower suspension rates and a reduction in the “suspension gap” between Black and White students (Gonzalez, 2015; Lewis, 2009, and Reistenberg, 2013). These studies have often included administrators, policy makers, teachers, and school psychologists. However, in a recent review of the outcomes associated with restorative practices in schools, school counselors were not mentioned (Anyon et al, 2016).

 

The omission of school counselors from restorative practice programs is disappointing, particularly because the core features of many restorative practice programs (e.g., nonviolent communication; perspective-taking and empathy building; emotional management) are core components of social emotional learning, and fit easily within the ASCA Mindsets.

 

Therefore, the purpose of this program will present an innovative model to incorporate essential components of restorative practices within a comprehensive school counseling program as a mulit-tiered system of support (MTSS) intervention. In addition, this model incorporates an ecological approach that considers interventions at student, teacher, administrator, parent, and community systems. The learning objectives for this program are below.

 

Participants will:

• Learn the theoretical foundations of restorative practices,
• Learn about basic components of restorative practices,
• Conceptualize restorative practices across a multi-tier (RtI) pyramid model,
• Learn specific restorative practices to implement with students, teachers, parents, and communities
• Develop strategies to gather feedback and self-assess for level of efficacy while implementing restorative practices.

 

This presentation will include an introduction to the basic philosophical tenets of restorative practice, as well as experiential exercises for participants to actively engage in restorative practice exercise. Presenters will then discuss the multi-tier model for restorative practice implementation, and encourage participants to conceptualize how the model could be used to begin using more restorative practices in their school counseling programs. Finally, presenters will discuss specific strategies to evaluate the efficacy of implementation, and how to use that feedback to improve the program.

Keely Harris, Jordyn Mills, Gabrielle Van Stekelenburg, Shellie Marino

Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

An in-depth look into a year’s worth of targeted interventions implemented by school counseling interns. Our presentation will explore - from start to finish - several different data-driven approaches within all three domains - academic, career, and social/emotional development. This session will be helpful for both graduate students looking to contribute to their internship sites, as well as supervisors looking for direction with their interns. Attendees will leave with concrete activities, ideas, and plans.

Content:
“A Year in the Life” will take a look into a year's worth of targeted interventions carried out by three school counseling interns at Centennial High School in Roswell, Georgia. Facilitators will present an overview of the many interventions that were created based on an identified need within the school.  Presenters will discuss the development and results of each approach, including data collection, objectives, procedures, and evaluation throughout implementation, as well as at the conclusion of the intervention.  All interventions were created and delivered above and beyond departmental responsibilities.

• Dollars for Scholars - Scholarship Club
• Cyber Safety Core Curriculum Lesson
• Financial Aid Core Curriculum Lesson
• Grief and Coping Skills Group
• Decoding Your GPA Core Curriculum Lesson
• Mini College Options Core Curriculum Lesson
• Centennial Scholars Group
• Scholarship Twitter Page
• Life After the Loft Core Curriculum Lesson
• Hello, College Core Curriculum Lesson
• Assessing Interests & Abilities in Choosing a Career Core Curriculum Lesson
• Elevate! Group
• The AP Posse
• Working with Credit Recovery Seniors
• Matching Skills to Careers and Majors Core Curriculum Lesson
• Goal-Setting Group
• College Search, Application, and Scholarship Group

Learning objectives/outcomes: Audience members will learn about the variety of interventions that they could implement during their internship/practicum and beyond. They will also get an in-depth look into the creation, data collection and analysis of several of the targeted interventions. Attendees will leave with an understanding of how they can serve their school in a multitude of ways while also maintaining accountability for their counseling program.

Audience participation: We will provide the audience with opportunities to participate in 1-2 of the classroom lesson and/or group session activities that we discuss throughout the presentation. We also welcome discussion surrounding other perspectives and insights into their own internship/practicum experiences.

Handouts/resources: Handouts and resources will be provided electronically to all audience members. The handouts will include the powerpoint presentation,  lesson plans, activities, data collection materials, as well as any other materials used for each intervention covered - approximately 15 different interventions.

Dr. Amy M. Smith

Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Learn ways to directly engage and inspire students to take personal responsibility and lead positive change with active bullying prevention, intervention and respect-building strategies. This session is based on research-based content developed for HEAR – Helping Everyone Achieve Respect. HEAR is an interactive workshop developed for middle and high school students by experts at Harvard Graduate School of Education and The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 

The content of this session is intended to help counselors support students' understanding of ways to build a more respectful, supportive school environment. This includes supporting students with social emotional learning that fall under ASCA's Standard A, such as recognizing that everyone has rights and responsibilities, respecting diversity, respecting individual differences, effective communication skills, decision making and consequences, seeking help when needed, identifying resources, making safe choices, developing a positive attititude and applying appropriate behavior in social situations. 

Session attendees will leave the session with ideas for enaging students in discussion about the following:

• Forms and consequences of kindness/respectful behavior vs. forms and consequences of disrespectful behavior, what is and is not bullying, strategies for what to do if you witness or experience bullying, including cyberbully
• How to use case studies and literature to talk with students about difficult topics, such as bullying
• Simple, practical ways to inspire students to lead positive change in the school (The Harvard Graduate School of Education has created a list of 10 questions that students can act on to improve school climate.)

Like the interactive, discussion-based HEAR student workshops, participants will participate in short role play scenerios, brainstorm solutions, read and respond to brief written bullying scenerios and benefit from time for Q&A. 

Participants will also leave the session with a printed educator guide that list tips for supporting students in bullying situations, as well as other free resources, such as a free parent guide that can be provided to families. 

Shamela Scott

Secondary

Apply to College Day can be a very helpful and fun event for students. This session will give participants strategies and ideas on how to organize and plan an eventful day for students. Participants will be given information about activites that can be done to lead up to Apply to College Day that will get the whole school involved.

This presentation will give the audiance information about organizing and planning a successful Apply to College Day. The audience will learn about different activites they can do to get students prepared for Apply to College Day. These activites will include: marketing the day, paperwork prepartation, activies during the month of November that lead up to Apply to College Day (door decoration contest, college fair, FASFA Day, dress up days, etc), getting college reps to attend, and activites throughout the day.

Audience members will be able to ask questions and will be given handouts I use during planning.

Lakisha Bonner, Coordinator of Counseling and Career Development, Fayette County Schools

Secondary

With the passing of SB 132 (MOWR), student participation in dual enrollment opportunities is growing fast. How can school counselors manage the administrative challenges? This presentation will provide counselors with the academic advisement tools needed to implement a successful collaborative MOWR plan for their school/district. Presenters will share their experience of how to work collaboratively with counselors, building level administrators, and college admission representatives to establish consistent MOWR advisement procedures.

Christy Conley, School Counselor, North Oconee High School
Leslie Dooley, School Counselor, Russell Middle School
Mike Kulp, School Counselor, Social Circle High School
Amanda Dale, Senior Associate Director of Admissions, University of Georgia
Jessica Jaret Sant, Director of College Counseling, The Lovett School; President-Elect, Southern Association of College Admission Counseling (SACAC)

Secondary
Post-secondary/Admissions

High school counselors, do you often find yourself sticking to the status quo to survive?  Give your program a jumpstart and hear about the best kept secret in college advisement /admissions that could change your counseling program.  This presentation will equip you with information, strategies, and resources gained from joining and participating in the Southern Association of College Admission Counseling.  We want to share our experience and help you break free of the status quo!

The focus of this presentation is to make Georgia School Counselors aware of the advantage of being an active participant in the dialogue of the college admissions process.  Most of the applicants to colleges and universities are students enrolled in a public high school, yet, public high school counselors are the most underrepresented in the dialogue.  By being advocates for our students, we can become aware of the trends, requirements, and tips that can make an applicant most appealing for admissions and scholarships.  The mission of this group is to make public school counselors aware that we can utilize the experts to work smarter and not harder to guide our students appropriately.  SACAC and NACAC provide a variety of resources and opportunties for public school counselors to learn how to fine tune their program, becoming more efficient and effective.  By having a variety of public school counselors on the panel as well as the Senior Associate Director of Admissions from the University of Georgia, we hope to provide insight from both sides of the desk.  Jessica Sant, the President-Elect of SACAC is also joining the conversation to see how SACAC can better partner with public school counselors to increase conversations regarding college admissions.  

Vance Sims

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

Using data that is extracted from your school Student Information System can be confusing and difficult. This session will show you how to use simple functions in Microsoft Excel and Google to allow you to see information and data more clearly and in several ways (those of your choosing). Even if you are a novice with these technologies, you will leave to resources you can use throughout the years to come.

In this session, you will learn about the beauty and simplicity of several Microsoft Excel functions that will be able to save you hours of time when attempting to find and use data extracted from your school's student information system (SIS). You will also walk away with ways to personalize letter of communication, both printed and emailed, from these data from your SIS. Here are the Microsoft componenets:

Text To Columns - How to take that garbled data that makes no sense and place it in useful columns to be sorted

Conditional Formatting - How to have Excel (or Google) to automatically find the data that you're looking for

Mail Merge - How to take data from your SIS and create personalized email and/or mailed communications in just a few keystrokes and clicks

Pre-Post Test - How to access and simple pre-post Excel file to give you results following administration of pre and post tests

Mentor Rubric - How to use a rubric for determining need when resources are thin that has time waiting built in

Drag Dates and other numbers - How to create long data or time ranges or extend number patterns in one click

Column Sort - How to sort columns in multiple ways and keep up with your data

With Google Forms and Spreadsheets:

We will reviewing quickly how to make a Google Form. We will then look at how to capture the data that stored in a spreadsheet and connect to other Google Spreadsheets that can answer questions such as PBIS BoQ or sort data such as a universal screener (Behavior Screener Checklist III) and how to sort that data.

Nancy Pittard Jones

Elementary

Calling all BOOK-A-HOLICS-for the 20th YEAR! Come join “the book lady,” Nancy Jones, who is back to bring you dozens of children’s books to use in your counseling program. This practical, fast-paced workshop will feature books new and old, plus ideas that could go with ANY book you choose. Come get a MINDSET of great children's literature, with a complete bibliography of books arranged by subject so you can become a Book-A-Holic yourself!

I have presented this program at GSCA for nineteen amazing years, and it humbles and inspires me to see the interest that remains in this important topic!  It has been gratifying to me to travel to many other states to share my love for children’s books and tell them what Georgia counselors are doing with quality children’s literature.  I get calls from counselors in many parts of Georgia looking for a book on a particular topic, or requesting that I focus on a certain area at the upcoming conference.  This is a practical workshop for counselors, who can return to work and use this information immediately. 

GOALS OF THE SESSION:

Participants attending this session will learn:

1. A rationale for school counselors to use children’s literature on topics such as self-confidence, changing families, mindset, and other appropriate topics as a base of their programs.
2. How school counselors can plan lessons using children’s literature.
3. How props and tools can accent literature-based lessons.
4. Ways to incorporate children’s literature lessons in to every part of their counseling programs.
5. Methods for organizing and storing children’s literature and lessons so that they are easily accessible.
6. Practical lessons that are simple to implement.

 

STRATEGIES TO BE UTILIZED:

Strategies that will be utilized to achieve the stated goals include:

1. Exposure to resources from catalogs, bookstores, and the Internet.
2. Instruction in techniques that can be adapted to any elementary level.
3. Previewing materials provided by the presenter.
4. Participation in sample lessons.
5. Providing participants with an extensive bibliotherapy list of dozens of books to use on a variety of age-appropriate topics.
6. Overview of specific props (music, food, puppets, etc.) that turn a single book in to an entire lesson.
7. Power Point presentation of sample book covers and pages

           

EXPECTED SESSION OUTCOMES:

Participants attending this workshop will gain:

1. Insight in to the simplicity of the school counselor planning and implementing a bibliotherapy program.
2. Specific techniques that are grade level appropriate for kindergarten through fifth/sixth grade to utilize children’s literature.
3. Information for finding and ordering appropriate books to enhance a counseling program.
4. A list of resources available to assist them in their planning and development of a bibliotherapy program.
5. A practical tool that can be implemented immediately with the suggested books as well as books of their own choosing.

Kimberly Hodges, Ed.S., CTP

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

   School system employees are constantly charged with the task of implementing new academic platforms and approaches designed to increase test scores or decrease dropout rates.  While some of these initiativs may prove effective for some students, none will impact lasting school-wide gains until we address the elephant in the room-childhood trauma.  Join me to learn how this trauma manifests and how to implement simple interventions now to impact positive change for all students.

  The effects of childhood trauma have been negatively altering the lives of individuals long before the 1990's when the DSM-IV finally recognized that PTSD could be applied to children as well as adults.  Today, the effects of untreated and undiagnosed childhood trauma reach into our homes, schools and communitites to impair emotional, cognitive and social functioning.  The devastation has reached epic proportions in the United states.

  The Trauma-Informed Classroom addresses ways that professionals can begin to transform the school setting into a trauma-informed environment.  Participants will learn about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study and what can be done to counteract high ACE scores in students.  Participants will also discuss the connection between trauma and toxic stress and how trauma impacts the brain in areas of social, emotional and cognitive functioning.  In addition, participants will identify the three types of trauma according to the National Institute of Trauma and Loss in Children, learn the symptom overlaps of trauma with medical and mental health diagnoses and why trauma is often misidentified.  This session will provide the opportunity for questions throughout and will provide participants with the knowledge they need to become trauma-informed practioners in the school setting.  Copies of the ACE questionnaire, resiliance questionnaire and a list of additional resources will be provided. 

Dr. Tamika Hibbert
Dr. LaVerne Ware
Mrs. Keala Edwards-Cooper
Mrs. Keli Carter

Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

The goal of this session is to provide information to Professional School Counselors, Counselor Educators, Supervisors, Counseling Students and Educators concerning the importance of knowing the rights of the LGBTQ high school student. Participants will receive information about how the law requires all educators to protect LGBTQ students in the public school setting.

Throughout the session, information will be provided that is beneficial to Professional School Counselors, Counselor Educators, Supervisors and Counseling Students regarding the following topics:

• Review the rights of the LGBTQ high school students as it relates to harassment, privacy and freedom of speech.
• Review the suggested approaches for educators to use when supporting the transgender and nonconforming students.
• Explore information regarding the federal Equal Access Act and the Gay-Straight Alliances.
• Provide different strategies that counselors can use to support the LGBTQ students’ academic, personal, social and career development in the school setting.
• Examine the general steps that students can take if they suspect discrimination.

Overall, members of the audience will have a better understanding of the LGBTQ student rights. Professional School Counselors will develop a greater understanding of the personal, social and college/career counseling strategies that could be used to support the LGBTQ student, which is significant for establishing an effective school counseling program. Handouts will be provided to the participants and audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions.

Alexandra Huguelet & Danielle Mabeus

Elementary

Are you looking for a creative way to reach your early elementary school students? Using games is an engaging way to teach students the skills necessary for social school success. From taking turns, to not interrupting, to handling disappointment and challenges, these basic skills are integral to school success and can be taught through games with excitement and ease. A small group guide will be presented along with perception and outcome data.

- Attendees will leave the session having learned about creative, game-based interventions to take back to their schools.  They will gain the knowledge and confidence to try new interventions with their students.  Attendees will have the opportunity for participation in the form of Q and A and also, time permitting, to play some of the games themselves.  The presentation with information about the small group intervention in addition to other useful games will be provided to attendees.

Mrs Anna Duvall
Dr Crissy Roddy

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

It's been said you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. Come and discover ways to alleviate your stress, engage in selfcare, and prevent compassion fatigue. Learn how to recharge your batteries, reflect on your passion for your career, relate to other counseling professionals, and realize how awesome you truly are!

Goal of the session : To assist professional school counselors in meeting the ASCA Ethical Standard of "Monitor their emotional and physical health and practice wellness to ensure optimal professional effectiveness."
Audience Participation : Participants will have the opportunity to practice several techniques presented in the session.
Learning Objectives : 1. Gain a working knowledge of self-care techniques. 2. Understand how implementing evidence based self-care techniques can prevent compassion fatigue. 3. Implement these techniques in order to practice wellness and ensure optimal professional effectiveness.

Beth Perryman
Rachel Read

Elementary
Middle
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Learn how to build student leaders that embrace a growth mindset.  Traditional student leadership programs award high achievers with special jobs that are often easily accomplished.  iChangers embraces the idea that students of all abilities, backgrounds, and temperaments are capable of meaningful service and contributing to the school community.   The iChangers program teaches leadership skills through 5 distinct tracts capitalizing on students’ passions and interests.  Sample student leadership lessons and implementation resources will be shared.

This presentation will outline the creation of our school student leadership program called iChangers.  We have developed a programs leverages students’ interests and passions to grow student leaders who apply the principles of social emotional awareness to serve others and lead fulfilling and successful lives.  Attendees will learn how to create and implement a school-wide student leadership program that moves to connect the ideas of the SEL from words to actions.  Influencing a student’s physical and mental habits will always be more effective through deeds than through words. 

The importance of this program is realized in the fact that a student’s success or failure isn’t only determined by cognitive skills, as once thought; Social Emotional Learning (SEL) skills, or those most related to character, including grit, optimism and self-awareness, are other important contributors to student success. In addition, the 7 Mindset research shows that the most reliable predictor of an individual’s success is the way a person thinks.  The most accomplished people believe everything is possible; they identify and follow their passions; they understand that collaboration is essential; accountability is key; they are grateful for the lessons of failed attempts and the opportunities for challenge; they understand that creating value for others is the greatest legacy, and lastly successful people live in the moment with positive and purposeful actions. 

Traditionally, student leadership programs are filled with compliant high achieving students that are given responsibilities that can be accomplished with little or no training.  iChangers embraces the idea that students of all academic abilities, cultural backgrounds, and temperaments are capable and desiring of relevant and meaningful responsibilities that will contribute to the school and community.   Instead of rewarding responsible students with special jobs, the iChangers program will intentionally teach leadership skills in large group and small group formats to all students through leadership service. 

Attendees will learn the following:

• How to design a school leadership program effective for all students
• How to change school culture through servant leadership
• Logistics and best practices of running the program (including an implementation guide)
• How servant leadership and SEL education data from our program can be used to support your counselling goals and your school’s improvement plan/CCRPI. 

 

Attendees will be given a link to use on their device to interact with the presentation, as well as freebies for audience participation! Attendees will also be given a link to download the presentation, resources (including implementation guides for elementary and middle school, student application templates, classroom presentation materials, sample student materials, student leadership lessons, student recognition ideas and template). 

Sloane Molloy and Robin Zorn

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

The Counselor Keys Effectiveness System (CKES) is a counselor evaluation tool, developed by and for members of GSCA, and is aligned with the ASCA Comprehensive School Counseling model. The CKES instrument has been in development for four years including a pilot study, reliability and validity studies, an ongoing training series and a recent revision. This workshop will share the revised CKES Performance Standards and Rubrics and give the attendee sample indicators and examples for performance Levels III and IV.

Dr. Julie Chi9bbaro, Dr. Lacey Ricks, Dr. Christy Land

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Today, the internet has become part of daily life providing global communication, access to information as well as a providing a provision of entertainment (Anderson, Steen, & Stavropoulos, 2016). However, the use of technology can become compulsive and develop into addictive types of behaviors.   Abstract

Today, the internet has become part of daily life providing global communication, access to information as well as a providing a provision of entertainment (Anderson, Steen, & Stavropoulos, 2016). However, the use of technology can become compulsive and develop into addictive types of behaviors.   Internet addiction is viewed by researchers as being important for further study due to its negative consequences and its impact on interpersonal relationships, everyday functioning, and emotional well-being (Akin, 2012; Baker & Algorta, 2016; Young, 1998; Zhang, Brook, Leukefeld, & Brook, 2016). In fact, internet addiction and its symptoms mirror those from substance related addictions including: depression (Young & Rogers, 1998) unpredictable behavior and mood (Hsu, Wen & Wu, 2009), alcohol and substance use problems, affective disorders, and conflictual parent-child relationships (Zhang, et al.).  Counselor educators must be prepared to educate counseling students about the methods of treating clients/students with digital addictions. The goals of this presentation are to discuss the signs of digital addiction, the consequences of digital addiction, and the tools for the fusion of digital addiction awareness into school counseling programs. This connects to the theme by promoting awareness of emerging trends in counseling and by promoting best practice for school counselors.  Due to the increase of technology uses in our lives, it is obvious that digital addiction will remain an area of concern.

Audience participation is expected and handouts will be offred to all attendees

References

 

Akin, A. (2012). The relationship between internet addiction, subjective vitality,

and subjective happiness. Cyber psychology, Behavior, and Social

 Networking, 15, 404-410.

Anderson, E.L., Steen, E., & Stavropoulos, V. (2016). Internet use and problematic

internet use: A systematic review of longitudinal research trends in

adolescence and emergent Adulthood. International Journal of Adolescence

and Youth, 1-25.

Baker, D.A., & Algorta, G.P. (2016). The relationship between online social

networking and Depression: A systematic review of quantitative studies.

Cyber psychology, Behavior, And Social Networking. 19, (1), 638-648.

Hsu, S.H.,Wen, M.H., & Wu, M.C. (2009). Exploring user experiences as predictors

of MMORPG Addiction. Computers and Education, 53, 990-999.

 

Young, K.S. (1998). Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder.

            Cyber Psychology And Behavior, 1, (3).

Young, K.S. & Rogers, R.C. (1998). The relationship between depression and

            internet addiction. Cyber Psychology and Behavior, 1 (1), 25-28.

Zhang, C., Brook, J.S., Leukefeld, C.G., & Brook, D.W. (2016). Longitudinal

            psychosocial factors related To symptoms of internet addiction among

adults in early midlife. Addictive Behaviors, 62, 65-72.

Angela Cleveland, Maria Grovner

Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Learning objectives: Participants will leave with:

• A new sense of what computer science is and who's right for it;
• An understanding of accessible new courses (including AP Computer Science Principles) that are changing the face of CS education
• Concrete tips for talking about computer science education and careers with students and their parents, teachers and other influencers;
• Confidence that they are supporting viable pathways, whether students' postsecondary plans are for 2- or 4-year college or military service;
• A Counselors for Computing kit with useful resources such as the "What computing major is right for me?” handout and the magazine called Careers with Code (published by Google).

Outline: 

1. Introductions
2. Importance of computing to society and as the backbone of innovation in all STEM disciplines and business sectors. Includes brief icebreaker game: "Computing Is Everywhere"
3. Distinguish between using and creating technologies - Create a quiz - sort among "use" and "create:
4. Computing job growth projections to 2024 for the nation and for Georgia
5. What this means for students and advising students: Jobs are available, they are cross-disciplinary, and given commensurate levels of education and time to graduation, computing occupations are more stable and pay better than other jobs. (Show employment and salary data for voc. certification, 2-year, 4-year, advanced degrees)
6. Why Diversity? Explore the association between diversity of thought and innovation; how having all minds on the job: enhances innovation, expands the qualified employee pool, improves the bottom line, and most importantly (from the counseling perspective), promotes equality. All youth should have access to creative and high-paying jobs in computing.
7. Young women have potential yet aren't selecting computing education or careers. Explore why, discuss solutions
8. How to talk to young people about careers in computing (talking points card)
-Show opportunity (where the jobs are, salary expections)
-Connect to Interests (art -> create software to aid art restoration, healthcare -> develop mobile "vitals" apps)
-Connect to what kids, and esp. girls want out of a career: WGBH Study: good pay, feeling passionate about their jobs, doing interesting work, having the power to make a difference
10. Tips for telling the story to kids: Paint a positive picture about who does computing, show what real people accomplish with computing, use evocative language (participant quiz!)
11. Tips for telling the story to adults: Computational thinking as source of 21st c. skills
12. Materials showcase, including Google Careers with Code magazine. Together, brainstorm scenarios in which counselors present computing as a viable education and career pathway 
13. If time allows, practice talking to a "student" or "class" about computing.

 

 

 

Dr. Eric Parker
Dr. Karen Griffith

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Session participants will be provided examples of effective school counseling models that use and embed ASCA frameworks to successfully collaborate with school administrators. Additional information will be provided on methods to engage principals in the work of school counseling as well as innovative ways school counseling programs can partners with universities.

Session objectives include: 

• examples of efective school counseling in urban and rural districts 
• examples of counselor and school leader collaboration 
• counsleor education university partnerships/collaboraiton
• how counselors collaborate will principals for school leadership opportunities 
• research models for school counselors programs focused on student social-emotial learning 

Shellie Marino

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

You have planned and prepared a school counseling curriculum focused lesson or activity for your students. But how will you know if the lesson was a success? Pre and Post Surveys are commonly used by school counselors to collect perception data to determine if students acquired the attitude, knowledge and skills being targeted. However depending on the type of questions being used on a pre/post survey and how they are presented may not end up collecting the information you intended. Do your pre/post surveys fully or accurately reflect student growth or the effectiveness of an activity? Come expand your knowledge and skills on pre/post survey writing and learn how to increase the reliability of the measurement tools you are using to collect accurate perception data as well as how to calculate and analyze the results.

School counselors frequently utilize pre/post siurveys to colect perception data, however often times the survey is not a reliable interusment for collecting the information the school counselor is seeking. Surveys are often poorly planned, poorly written, and/or there is not a clear understanding of what to do with the data once it is collected. In this session, attendees will understand the process invovled in pre/post survey pre-planning, writing and framing quality survey questions and items, variations of survey measurement methods and how to calculate and interpret the results.

 

This session is to provide school counselors with the knowledge and skills to create more reliable and accurate pre/post survey measurement tools for the collection of perception data.

Heather Haynes
Jennifer Moore
Clarissa Pavcik

Elementary
Middle

Transitioning to middle school is no easy task.  It can be even more difficult with a large student body and/or multiple feeder elementary schools.  Come gain new ideas and pick the brains of counselors who work to successfully transition 600 fifth graders (and their families!) from four feeder schools into sixth grade.  Ideas for supporting students, teachers, & parents through the process will be discussed.

This session will cover student visits to the middle school, teacher visits to the middle school, & parent visits to the middle school, communication with fifth grade parents & teachers, scheduling students for success both academically and socially, a sixth grade transitition summer camp, and vertical teaming amongst counselors, all from the perspective of a larger school (approximately 600 rising sixth grade students).  Audience members will be invited to ask questions, share in the discussion, and brainstorm new ideas, and handouts/resources will be provided via a Google Docs link.  Handouts will include a timeline, copies of brochures/handouts/etc. that are shared with parents, students, & teachers, a mock schedule for a sixth grade visit to the middle school, and other important planning tools.  It is our hope that participants would walk away with not only new ideas, but also the concrete tools necessary to implement an effective transtion program for all involved.

Dr. Susan Ripple, Visiting Assistant Professor
Dawn Mann, 2017 Finalist, ASCA National School Counselor of the Year

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent

Implementing an effective counseling core curriculum requires school counselors to develop quality lessons – lessons that are experiential, participatory, image-rich, and connected (EPIC). Thus, this interactive session will provide both veteran and novice school counselors with a model for developing counseling lessons that are more engaging and effective. Participants will walk away with practical ideas that can be implemented immediately in their school counseling programs.

“We must learn to evaluate our work critically. Teaching does not happen in the absence of learning. So, the harsh reality is this: if your students haven’t learned it, then it means you haven’t taught it – period!” ~ Dr. Shirley Haley-James

Whereas school counselors are charged with designing and delivering engaging classroom lessons, variability in three key factors impacts the quality of counseling core curriculum lessons:

 

1. The counselor’s level of expertise in lesson design
2. The counselor’s confidence and utility in the classroom
3. The counselor’s access to students in the classroom.

Simply put, school counselors’ time in the classroom is precious; therefore, it is imperative we maximize it by designing creative, high-impact lessons that make the learning stick! Rather than focusing on parlaying information to our students, counselors must consider how to engage students more deeply in the learning. Consequently, we must define more explicitly what it means to develop data-driven, student-centered, and relevant lessons.

Thus, the presenters will: 1) define the elements of an effective lesson; 2) demonstrate effective and engaging lessons/activities; 3) provide participants the opportunity to work on a sample lesson.

 It is important to note that the framework for the presentation lies in the work of Tim Elmore, who describes effective lessons as EPIC:

 E          Lessons must be experiential in nature: they must be framed within the context of personal experiences – students’ experiences, your own, or even the experiences of others.

 P          Lessons must be participatory: we must invite students to engage in the learning by presenting them with a conflict, problem, or issue, and then enlisting their assistance for resolving it.

 I           Lessons must be image-rich: we create focus in the lesson and ground students’ learning by attaching an enduring image to the central message or theme in a lesson. This central image can include analogies or physical images, but it also could mean creating what Elmore calls “narra-phors” in which to embed new knowledge.

 C         Lessons must be connected: students must be given the opportunity to connect with each other and to develop solutions to complex problems.

Demetria Williams, Assistant Principal, Brookwood High School, Gwinnett County Schools

Secondary

At Brookwood High School, over 40% of our student body is involved in either the Move On When Ready (MOWR) Program or the Advanced Placement (AP) program, or both. We have seen dramatic growth in our AP program over the last 10 years and in MOWR over the last 2 years. Even with this dramatic growth, our students have continued to be successful on their overall pass rate on the AP exams and in their coursework at the local colleges as part of MOWR. The increase in participation of these programs has caused us to evolve our processes and procedures related to planning, communication, registration, and maintenance of these opportunities for our students. This presentation will focus on some best practices learned throughout our journey and how help both programs thrive in a school.

See above.

Shaquila Wise and Melanie Cannon, GSCA Graduate Student Liaisons

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

How can GSCA better assist school counseling graduate students in preparing for the hiring process and feel more acclimated with the responsibilities of a practicing school counselor? This session will provide graduate students an opportunity to ask a panel of school counselors and school counseling district coordinators about the hiring process, daily tasks, and any other questions. This session is intended to connect graduate students from different school counseling programs as well.

The panel will consist of 2 first year counselors, 2 counselors that are more experienced, and 2 counseling district coordinators. The goal for the first half of the session is to provide graduate students an opportunity to ask a panel of school counselors and school counseling district coordinators about the hiring process, the first year of school counseling, how to obtain data, how do school counselors effect CCRPI scores, how to implement a data driven school counseling program, and any other questions. The second half of the session will allow for graduate students from different programs to bond with each other. The goal of the second half is for graduate students to get to know students from other graduate programs, share internship and graduate school experiences, exchange study tips for state exams, and connect with one another. The goals for this session will be met through a panel discussion in the first half and small group discussions amongst the graduate students in the second half. As a result of this session, we hope that graduate students will have a better understanding of the hiring process, first year of school counseling, and be able to find answers to any other questions they may have. We hope for this session to be a time for graduate students to get to know one another and network also.

Moya A. Pope

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Consultation is an essential part of a professional school counselor's job responsibilities - falling under system support and responsive services of the ASCA Model.  Effective consultation can be used to support teachers and increase/influence student achievement.  If a school counselor is going to develop and maintain a viable comprehensive school counseling program, consultation has to an integral part of their program.  This presentation will discuss the importance of consulation and several consultation models.

Consultation is important to the comprehensive school counseling model.  It is important to a student's academic success that the teacher know the whole child - social, personal and academic - so that they can be best served.  Counselors are able to use consultation to assist parents in learning their children on different levels and with teachers to best help their students in the classroom.  Consultation with the counselor also allows students the opportunity to vent and learn themselves, and learn how their behavior, home life, and or lack of grade level knowledge can affect them adversely.  This presentation will discuss the importance of consultation, three models of consultation - triadic-dependent, collaborative-dependent, and collaborative-interdependent and which model is best used in different situations.  The presentation will also discuss how collaboration can assist in bettering the counselor-teacher relationship, which will positively affect student's behavior and academic achievement.  Audience members will have scenarios to demonstrate consultation models and the PowerPoint will be available for distribution or email.

Beth Ruff, Ed.D. LPC
LaShawn Thomas, M.Ed.

Elementary

Counselors are uniquely qualified to help students overcome barriers that are negatively impacting their academic achievement. Come learn how two school counselors turned their love of Dr. Seuss into an innovative strategy to build confidence, motivation, and interest in reading. Put on your striped hat and come play with "Oobleck," while we discuss how this cross-grade level peer mentoring program fosters positive relationships, good character, and confidence in reading. 

Professional School Counselors will identify their unique qualifications to help close the gap in reading achievement data.

Professional School Counselors will be able to discuss underlying negative attitudes and beliefs that could be influencing  student performance in reading.

Professional School Counselors will be able to identify data sources and utilize surveys to assess reading achievement gaps in their school. 

Professional School Counselors will participate in creative interventions to encourage positive relationships and confidence in reading.

Professional school Counselors will gain valuable resources and interventions on building confidence in disinterested and /or unmotivated readers through a cross grade level peer mentoring program. 

Professional School Counselors will be able to identify data sources and utilize surveys to measure the impact of their counseling program. 

Outline 

1) Ice Breaker - Fox in Socks - find your peer mentor (Audience Participation)

2) Dr. Seuss Quotes  about Reading

3) Why do some students hate to read and what can we do about it

4) How to identify "Bubble" students to impact school achievement data

5) Striped Hat Readers- Specific examples of the intervention and lessons 

• Specific Dr. Seuss books to foster confidence, motivation, and responsibility

6) Dr. Seuss on the Loose- Examples of activities to extend lesson and reading comprehension  (Audience Participation) Green Eggs snack and play with Oobleck (Handouts - Oobleck recipe and chart with breakdown for Dr. Seuss Books) 

• Book Title	Character Lesson	Activity
  The Cat in the Hat	Choices and Consequences	Paper striped hats
  Horton Hatches the Egg	Responsibility-Trustworthy	Decorating plastic eggs
  Green Eggs & Ham	Perseverance	Green Eggs & Ham snack
  How the Grinch stole Christmas	Appreciation-Positive attitude in the face of adversity	Grinch ornaments
  Oh The Places you’ll Go	Goal Setting	Goal setting craft
  Bartholomew and the Oobleck	Taking responsibility for your actions	Make Oobleck
  Happy Birthday to You	Positive Self-esteem	Birthday cupcakes

7) Analyzing your Data - Post-test,  Benchmark scores, and teacher feedback (Handout -Post-test examples) 

8) Questions and Give aways 

Brittany Woolf

Elementary

Students have an extraordinary level of access to the internet, and are often the internet experts in their homes. This presents a new challenge for teachers, counselors, and other educators.  In this presentation, I discuss staggering need for internet safety education in our schools, present the interactive intervention I created to educate 3rd-5th graders about internet safety, and report the positive student outcome data and supportive community feedback from the intervention.

The internet has seeped into every aspect of our lives; this is especially true in our education system.  Today's students have more access to the internet than those that have come before them, often having access to phones, personal computers, Ipads, video games, and other internet capable devices. With students having never known life without the internet, they are often the experts in their homes, as their parents likely did not have internet access like what is seen today.  With this “internet overload”comes a unique set of challenges for keeping children safe, informed, and aware of the role they play in their own safety.

After noticing the need for internet safety education at my internship site, I developed a program for students grades 3-5 that can be delivered as part of a school counseling curriculum. There was a great deal of community support and many counselors, parents, and teachers were vocal about the lack of internet safety education, evidence-based interventions, and clear role designation of who should be giving these kinds of lessons.

 Therefore, as a result of this program, participants will:

1. Be more aware of the severe need for internet safety education in our schools,
2. Learn about an innovative internet safety program developed and delivered by a school counselor,
3. Learn how to incorporate the program into their school counseling curriculum, and
4. Learn about the positive outcome data from both students and community members about the program

The program would be interactive, as I would have the audience participate in a selected scenario, the way that my students did.  I would also be providing any counselors or teachers who wanted to incorporate the intervention in their schools the scenarios/power point lesson I created, the pre-test and post-test questions used to collect data, and the parent brochure that I provided to all parents in my school. 

Rebecca Burkhart

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Whether or not devices are encouraged in your school, teaching students how to relate to peers and adults using whole body listening in a face to face environment is essential. As we prepare our students for the world, teaching soft skills is of utmost importance. Participants will learn how to create exercises which allow for positive human interaction using “gamification” and theater. You will leave with ideas to boost confidence and communication skills.

Attendees will be active participants in social skill games, which they can adapt and take back to their schools. Participants will learn theatrical techniques to ease anxiety and boost confidence levels of students regarding speaking in class. Sample activities and their directions will be given to all in attendance.

Amy Taylor

Elementary
Middle

Do you know students who are neglected, abused, homeless, and/or live with parents who abuse alcohol or drugs? Do you know students who are aggressive, have poor impulse control, lack focus, learning difficulties, lack ability to regulate emotions? If you answered yes, then you have students who might be struggling to deal with their traumatic experiences. Come learn what you can do to help your students be successful.

Participants will learn about adverse childhood experiences, trauma’s impact on health, relationships, and education. The session will also cover how participants can help counter the impact of trauma by fostering resiliency and compassion. We will look at behavior management, discuss some appropriate strategies, and practice some techniques related to mindfulness and breathing that can help. Participants will also learn about self-care due to compassion fatigue. Resources will be shared and lists of resources will be provided.

Sheila Garth

Elementary

Are you interested in making your lessons more engaging and creative? Arts Integration is for you! Arts Integration combines Art Standards (music, drama, dance, and visual arts) within the ASCA Behaviors and Mindset standards to create innovative, insightful, creative, and meaningful lessons.

The learning objective of the presentation is to provide counselors with take home lessons that contain Arts Integrated lesson plans that can be applied to ASCA Behaviors and Mindsets.  These lessons are comprised of drama, dance, music, and visual arts. Throughout the session, counselors will be acting, drawing, dancing, and singing/ listening to music as we explore the lessons that I am providing them. The outcome of my presentation is not only provide counselors with highly engaging lessons, but to also show them how we can collaborate with other content areas by considering their standards as well as our own. This “whole child” approach is a part of best practices in teaching and counseling. Below is an article that I have written (published on Education Closet.com) reflecting my own insights to the power of Arts Integration.

 

https://educationcloset.com/2016/11/10/social-emotional-connections-arts-integration/

Ken Jackson
Kimberly Jones

Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Counselors are trained to deliver tier 1/foundation (core curriculum) as well as crisis responses, but what about the before- or after- the crisis? What can we do to support the students with mental health issues so that they manage and thrive?  We will explore what we can do as we approach a crisis and how to respond as follow up support.

Objectives- participants will:

*Re-examine and reframe how they can look at their role

*Consider specific interventions and strategies that they can apply in their work settings.

*Leave with at least one intervention to begin applying in their work setting.

 Summary- Supporting students’ emotional/social development is a high priority for school counselors. While school counselors do not provide extended therapy to address emotional disorders, they do offer support and short-term interventions in order to address barriers to student success.

Counselors are often trained to present core lessons and programs that provide preventative support for all students. They also are trained (or become trained) in responding to crisis situations. They often have less training in (1) how to support students who are moving toward a potential crisis situation. They also have little training on (2) how to support students once they are stabilized (perhaps in an outside setting) and then return to school to continue their learning and work on their emotional/social growth.

 

This session will focus on the following areas:

This session will focus on the following areas:

I. Claiming our role: We may be their fist or only access to mental health. We are the mental health specialists in the building who can look at the whole picture.

1. Medical (ex. micro traumas in soccer)
2. Developmental
3. Environmental (minority stress)
4. A first responder with mental health issues

II.Understanding the few cases in which our role may expand: ex. We are only access for some students

1. Family income
2. Family as the stressor
3. When do we get DFCS involved (neglect)

III. Initiating Post –crisis: reintegrating into the school setting.

1. Let families know when they leave the treatment facility, they should have a treatment plan from them
2. Re-entry and safety plan meetings (and who may be in it)
   1. triggers and supports

IV. Bridging between professionals (therapist, doctor, psychiatrists, treatment facility) and school

1. Sadly communication between professionals may not exist
2. Do we routinely offer our authorization to speak/release form to families (with student assent when possible)

V. Educating the student and family (and ourselves)

1. The benefits and need for outside mental health support
2. Resources suggestions/referrals
3. Confidentiality (teach the student what to expect from the therapist)
4. Talk therapy in conjunction with meds
5. Med reactions (note-many students may spend less than 30 min with a doctor before getting meds and may know little of them)
6. The need for their follow up with outside professionals (med reactions, concussions issues)

VI.. Advocating for the students

1. With family
2. With the school

 

VII. Implementing specific Interventions-a sample

1. Check in/Check out

           a. Academic check up

           b. Emotional check up

1. Inform teachers of strategies
2. Informs teacher how to monitor and inform you
3. “Open Hall Pass” to counselors and safe place (Note the ways to monitor this and not overuse it)
4. Strategies to use in class

            a. Panic disorder strategies

            b. Seating

            c. Triggers and supports

            d. Info on possible scenarios and how to respond

     6. The Student Life Center model

               Groups, outside counselors, professionals

                 See as—and make it—a supplement not a replacement

VIII. Tying to the goals of the school (Emotional/social-mental health relates to the school mission, CCRPI, and strategic plans: academic and post HS success); we must be the ones to advocate for this

IX. Increase our knowledge and skill level

1. DSM changes (we are often the interpreters and the referral source!)
2. Seeking supervision and continued training in clinical skills
3. Know our therapeutic skills—and our role in the school setting
4. Case notes and case plans—not just for outside counselors
5. Professional organizations- ASCA, GSCA (of course); LPCGA; ACA

X. Remembering who you are: the person of the counselor

1. Belief and worldview
2. Affect
3. Self-care

 

The program format is designed to use multiple methods of delivery (didactic presentation, interactive discussions, role play, etc.)

Dr. Karen Griffith

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

ASCA has developed a process that ensures school counselor interventions are well targeted and effectively measured. It represents best practice and ensures that students are receiving the best possible services and that school counselors can authentically measure those services. This session takes you through that process and includes how to best use the ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors to drive content and assessments. If you want to implement a comprehensive program or plan to apply for RAMP in the future, you need to understand this process.

Molly Ream
Jamie Hamrick

Secondary

Do you struggle with your role as the counselor of MOWR students?  Come discuss Best Practices to get our students into MOWR programs yet keep our sanity at the same time.  We will share forms, processes, and presentations on how to better serve your MOWR students and save yourself some time.

These past few years have brought big changes to the Move on When Ready program in Georgia and not everyone is aware of them.

Some schools promote MOWR and some schools dissuade involvement.  Why the difference? 

What type of student is successful in MOWR? 

How do we, as counselors, best advise and monitor these students along with the rest of our caseload?

These are the questions we would like to address in this workshop.

• We will cover the new legislation passed during the past two years.
• We will give examples of the different types of students who have been successful in MOWR programs.
• We will discuss the pros and cons of part-time and full-time students as well as on-college campus vs high school campus classes.
• We will go through our process of meeting with potential MOWR students as well as share best practices for maintaining current MOWR student information.  We will share all of our processes and forms with you and encourage others to bring theirs to share, too.
• We will discuss different ways MOWR students are assigned to counselors in both block and traditional schools.
• We will share our Information night presentations as well as our methods of informing all necessary students in order to meet the Bridge Bill requirements.

 We hope to see those counselors who work with MOWR students the most at their school and will encourage a sharing of best practices by all.

High school counselors will be our target audience, but middle school counselors are welcome!

 

Lee Edmondson Grimes and Natalie F. Spencer

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Has a student experienced the death of a loved one and struggled to find a balance weeks or months later?  Grief and loss are experienced by almost all students, and school counselors are there to provide the support students need in the school setting.  Come and learn about implementing a small group using mindfulness techniques to help students who are grieving.

Participants will gain insight into the impact grief can have on the emotional/social and academic lives of students.

Participants will gain insight into the relevance of using mindfulness with grieving students.

Participants will gain the skill to develop a small group intervention for students in grades K-12 and how to differentiate mindfulness techniques for each developmental level.

The session will be a presentation from Prezi and also will utilize group discussion.  Handouts will be given so that participants will have the materials necessary to implement a six session small group for students.

 

Angela Guy

Elementary

Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) is a system that has helped many school systems decrease behavior issues significantly. More than that, PBIS provides a system for students that have needs for additional support for behaviors. Our role, as counselors, is to help advocate for our students, and facilitate them and their parents through the MTSS process.  This session is designed to help explain PBIS for beginners as well as provide some resources for counselors.

Learning objectives:

-Understanding PBIS

-Understanding how the counselor can use PBIS to advocate for students

-Sharing of resources

-Sharing of PBIS behavior interventions

There will be little audience participation.  There will be a list of resources and interventions distributed.

Jen Soloff

Elementary
Middle

 

You asked, and of course we listened! We are counselors, after all. In a response to last year’s session on small group activities, this session will explore more in depth ideas for using games and play centered activities with small groups ranging from K-8. We will discuss specific group topics and activities for each session, data collection, and aligning your small group counseling goals with ASCA mindsets and standards for student success. Participants will leave with a range of activities to put into “play” for their small groups when they return to their schools!

In this program, the format will be group discussion and idea sharing delivered through PowerPoint and demonstration. 

The outline of the program will be:

• Opening with an inspirational quote/video and check in.
• An open discussion with participants as an opportunity for all to share the biggest challenges they feel with running small groups.
• A discussion on; ideas for identification of members for small groups utilizing school data and teacher referrals, organization and logistical pieces of running small groups, data collection, and aligning small group counseling goals with ASCA Mindsets and Standards.
• Idea sharing of specific group topics with specific, ready-made outlines for each session with opportunities for audience participation.
• Question and answer time
• Closing
•  Learning Objectives/Outcomes of Session:
• Participants will be able to identify at least 2 new ways to utilize school data to identify small group members.
• Participants will be able to identify at least 3 small group topics with specific activities that they can utilize at their schools.
• Participants will be able to identify at least 3 new ways to collect perception and results data from small group counseling interventions.
• Participants will be able to identify at least 3 ways to align small group counseling goals with ASCA Mindsets and Standards.
•  Opportunities for Audience Participation:
•  In an opening dialogue, participants will have an opportunity to discuss what challenges they are facing with small group counseling.
• In demonstrations of games, the audience will have the opportunity to participate.
• There will be a question and answer session.
• Handouts/Resources for participants
•  A detailed list of all books and resources used will be provided. In addition, presenter contact information will be provided for future questions and support.

Natalie Edirmanasignhe, School Counselor and Doctoral Candidate, Gwinnett County Schools and Travis McKie-Voerste, Doctoral Candidate

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent

In 2015, over 40 million people living in the U.S. were foreign-born. Georgia is one of the top ten states in the country with foreign-born residents. However, school counselors have received little training on helping these students and families. This session will offer a discussion panel for counselors to ask questions to better support their immigrant populations. Ask questions and get answers from people who can help you better serve your immigrant families!

See above.

Brent Henderson, Ed.S., NCC, NCSC
Amy Shipp, LCSW
Beck Schillizzi, B.A.

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Do you have the skills it takes to work with transgender youth in your school? This interactive presentation will equip you with the knowledge and confidence to support and advocate for this vulnerable population. Through videos, activities, and discussion of personal experiences, you will learn to use transgender affirmative language, increase your understanding of gender identity and expression, identify the impact of discrimination on the wellbeing of transgender students, and promote transgender student success.

This interactive presentation will equip conference attendees with the knowledge and confidence to support and advocate for transgender and/or gender nonconforming youth.  The presenters will utilize videos, activities and personal experiences to engage the audience in an informative and thought-provoking discussion of how to best serve these vulnerable youth in their schools.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn to use transgender affirmative language.
2. Increase understanding of gender identity and expression.
3. Identify the impact of stigma, prejudice, violence and discrimination on the health and well-being of transgender students.
4. Promote transgender student success.

Handouts/Resources:

• Copy of PowerPoint Presentation
• Glossary of Relevant Terms
• Multiple Handouts from Trans Student Educational Resources
• List of State and National Resources

Opportunities for Audience Participation:

• Experiential Activity
• Guided Discussion of Video Clip

Q&A Throughout the Presentation

Melanie Cannon
mmrackley@valdosta.edu
Cell Number: 229-854-9774
Valdosta State University School Counseling Graduate Student

Cherelle Townsend
cltownsend@valdosta.edu
Cell Number: 229-588-1820
Valdosta State University School Counseling Graduate Student

Stuart Evans
stuevans@valdosta.edu
Cell Number: 951-491-1506
Valdosta State University School Counseling Graduate Student

Elementary
Middle

In recent years, Growth Mindset has gained attention in the school setting. This presentation will inform the audience the basics of Growth Mindset, evidence base practices related to Growth Mindset, person-praise, and how to start implementing this concept in the schools. Participants will learn if they have a fixed or growth mindset and how to develop a growth mindset throughout their school.

Learning Objectives: Participants will learn the basics of growth mindset, person-praise, and how to start implementing growth mindset in their school.

Participation: Learn if they have a fixed or growth mindset, practice person-praise.

Handout: Growth Mindset basics handout, Growth Mindset Quiz, Person-Praise handout.

Growth Mindset Proposal

The power of yet. That is the basis behind this phenomenon known as growth mindset. Growth mindset is the belief that basic abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work; whereas, a fixed mindset is the belief that abilities are fixed traits that should be documented, not developed. Those with a growth mindset will challenge themselves to learn that which they do not know, they listen to feedback so they can learn from it, and they believe effort and facing challenges are developing their intelligence (Dweck, 2006). Those with a fixed mindset see challenges as weakness and would rather not try than look unintelligent. Carol Dweck (2006) who is a psychologist at Stanford University has discovered this idea during decades of research on success and achievement. Since then many studies have been conducted on growth mindset and the benefits for students, teachers, and school systems as a whole.

Mindsets are simply a person’s beliefs on their abilities and intelligence. Like any other belief, mindsets can be changed. Those who suffer from a fixed mindset can develop a growth mindset. This begins by teaching someone that intelligence is malleable (Dweck, 2006). That is why it is important for school systems to have a system wide growth mindset focus. Developing a growth mindset environment starts with the adults. Teachers, school counselors, and administrators first need to develop their own growth mindset. Carol Dweck (2006) gives four easy steps to doing just that. First, the person must hear their own fixed mindset, then recognize that they have a choice. Change the fixed mindset to a growth mindset. For example, do not say “I cannot do this” instead say “I cannot do this yet”. Finally, take action. Someone with a growth mindset will face the challenge and learn from it.  Once the adults have a growth mindset, the students can begin to learn to have a growth mindset as well.

To begin implementing a growth mindset in a school system, it is important to establish high expectations of student and make sure they know they can reach these expectations.  Praise students for their progress, not for perfection. Allow the students to face challenges and learn from their mistakes. Help students to understand that the brain is malleable and people learn from mistakes (Dweck, 2006).

Rationale

Research has shown the benefits of training students to have a growth mindset. These benefits include improving test scores (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007), helping students to use deeper skills to solve problems (Grant & Dweck, 2003), and even closing the achievement gap for minority students and females (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002). School counselors aim to help students with academic, personal/social, and career development. Implementing a growth mindset focused school environment will help the students in every aspect of their lives. This will support the achievement of the mission and vision of a school counseling program. A growth mindset will be taken with the students throughout the rest of their lives, which will help them be productive members of society.

Growth mindset is an easy intervention to implement because it can align well with any school counseling program. Workshops can be implemented to teach administrators and teachers about this concept. The ideas behind growth mindset can be a support for small groups, classroom lessons, and individual sessions of all topics.

Theory

In reviewing the literature, the best theory to use with the concept growth mindset is Rational Emotive Based Therapy (REBT). The ABC model of REBT is a great way to help change students from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. The first step for students to overcome a fixed mindset is to be aware of it. In the ABC Model, the antecedent is the belief that the student has the ability to do something but are presented with a problem that eludes their current understanding. Then the behavior is that the student chooses not to try to solve the problem because they do not want to look unintelligent. The consequence is that the work is not completed, and the student does not learn (Corey, 2016). The school counselor can help change the fixed mindset by implementing interventions focused on a growth mindset. School counselors can also create workshops with teachers to help them break the mold of fixed mindsets. For the teachers, they must first create a growth mindset for themselves before they can help students.

People with a fixed mindset tend to document their talents and believe that only their current abilities will solve whatever problem they are faced with (Dweck, 2010). When the student realizes that their talent cannot get them through the problem, they become bored or frustrated with whatever it is they are working on. The student may give up or not believe that they can grow their talents to solve the problem. These mindsets are not simply dichotomous because there is room to have a growth mindset in one area while having a fixed mindset in another (Mercer & Ryan, 2010).

The assumption behind Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is that the counselor works with the client to help them identify their irrational beliefs and change their worldview. It is the duty of the school counselor to help the students create a growth mindset. For many cases the students need to understand that they have irrational beliefs about their own intelligence. The counselor can make this known to the student that they have a fixed mindset, but this mindset can be changed to a growth mindset. The students self-fulfilling prophecies need to be addressed. In an article by Sparks (2013), the author explains that students who were always labeled as ‘smart’ by the system had a closed mindset and always thought themselves to be intelligent. When these students faced a challenge that was too difficult for them, they began to shut down. This closed mindset set led them down a path where they no longer believed they had enough potential to be smart anymore. By using a REBT intervention, students will overcome that self-defeating fixed mindset. When the school counselor changes their own mindset, they can begin to transform the mindset of the students that they counsel.

By doing a workshop with teachers, the counselor can educate the teachers about mindsets and how they can help implement this intervention in their classrooms. Working with the teachers to implement a growth mindset classroom will immensely help the students develop this growth mindset. A study conducted by Dweck (2010) shows that students can change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset when teachers are properly taught how to implement this intervention. Dweck (2010) has stated that when teachers foster a growth mindset, the students are better able to identify what they need to improve on.

Research Literature

Ever since Carol Dweck introduced the idea of a growth mindset with her book Mindset in 2006, researchers have created studies to learn more about this concept. Carol Dweck (2006) explained what a mindset is and how her research on achievement led her to this discovery. She found that in the United States around 40% of students have a fixed mindset, 40% have a growth mindset, and the other 20% have a mix of both (Dweck, 2006). An intervention was done with middle school children to teach them to have a growth mindset, and these students began to receive higher grades (Dweck, 2006).

A study conducted by Blackwell et al., (2007) implemented an intervention with African American and Latino students who were going into the seventh grade. These students had poor grades and were continually declining. Both the control and experimental group went through an eight-week study skills training; however, the experimental group also received training on growth mindset. Results show that those students who were in the experimental group began to improve drastically in regards to their grades.

Aronson et al. (2002) conducted an experiment with a growth mindset intervention for college students. The control group did not have a change in achievement, while the growth mindset intervention showed an increase in achievement. The most significant part is that the achievement gap between Caucasian and African American students no longer existed. Boaler (2013) came to the conclusion from her study that “fixed mindset beliefs contribute to inequalities in education as they particularly harm minority students and girls; they also contribute to overall low achievement and participation” (p. 143).

A study conducted by Grant and Dweck (2003) showed that students with a growth mindset were able to bounce back from a poor grade. This is not to say that a student with a growth mindset will not be upset by a poor grade; however, the actions they take afterward are much different from someone with a fixed mindset. The students with a growth mindset studied more effectively and ended up doing much better on the next test, while those with a fixed mindset did poorly again.

Finally, a study conducted by Claro, Paunesku, and Dweck (2016) in Chile showed that even students who had a low socioeconomic status were more likely to achieve higher grades if they had a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. This shows the importance of students to have a growth mindset, especially if they also suffer from other obstacles such as a low socioeconomic status. Students with similar characteristics and socioeconomic status were more likely to be successful if they held a growth mindset.

There is an abundance of research that supports the beneficial impact of teaching growth mindset to students. It is in the best interest of school systems to take this information and begin implementing a growth mindset intervention.

Best Practice

 

Social-Psychological interventions are relied on heavily when implementing a growth mindset. Social-Psychological interventions are brief interventions used in education that target a student’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in and about school (Yeager & Walton, 2011). Social-Psychological interventions come out of the theory of social psychology. Social psychology theory asserts that people’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. 

These interventions increase academic achievement even though they are not designed to teach the student academic related information. By changing the student’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about school and education, allows the student increased learning capacity because they believe that they can learn and achieve (Wilson & Burrick, 2016). Social-Psychological interventions use several different strategies and methods. Using specific types of praise and teaching short lessons on the intelligence malleability theory (brains ability to grow), and implementing a growth mindset culture and system are most commonly used.

When using praise, evidence suggests that receiving feedback is beneficial to students, there have been many studies focused on whether process or person praise is most efficient. Supporters of growth mindset support the idea that process praise is more beneficial than person praise. In 1999, Carol Dweck and Melissa Kamins described person praise as being based on a specific behavior or performance of an individual student. This type of praise teaches children to appraise themselves by their performance and ultimately produces more helpless reactions which can result in learned helplessness. Carol Dweck developed her theory of Growth Mindset because of her study of learned helplessness in animals and attribution theory.

During her studies, she concluded that how people attribute the cause of their success or failure influences how much effort they apply in the future (Yeager & Walton, 2011). If the way individuals evaluate their selves is cognitively, evaluation leads to a positive emotional outcome. Also, if there is a high expectation of future success, the person typically shows greater willingness to undertake such tasks in the future. Conversely, if the attribution leads to a negative feeling and low expectation of success, the person tends to act in a more helpless manner when placed in a similar situation. In contrast, process praise is focused on effort and strategy behind a behavior. This type of praise is focused more on the mastery of a behavior rather than the results yielded from the behavior. Phrases such as “you found a really good way to do that”, “I can tell you’ve really been practicing that”, and “you seem to really understand the process”, are all examples of process praise and are phrases that may be used when implementing a Social-Psychological intervention.

In general, intelligence is thought to be a result of genetics and environmental factors. The intelligence malleability theory asserts that human intelligence can be changed and increased. A study by Jones, Rakes, and Randon (2013), concluded that Malawian students who viewed intelligence as malleable and able to change and increase, did better academically than those who saw intelligence as a fixed construct. Therefore, teaching lessons that present intelligence in this manner supports the concept of growth mindset in its entirety.  

 A growth mindset culture consists of having small groups using growth mindset curriculum, educating teachers and staff about growth mindset, and making growth mindset a school wide theme. Research shows that kids who are taught about Growth Mindset perform better (King, 2016). Small group topics should include lessons on mindfulness, identifying brain basics, and self-talk. Classroom curriculum should also include these topics but will be taught on a larger scale to all students. It comes as no surprise that as the concepts of growth mindset is taught to students, faculty and staff will become interested. Conducting staff professional development training on what growth mindset is, is vital to successfully creating a school climate that promotes growth mindset.

Conclusion

In conclusion, fostering the development of a growth mindset will help to move students out of their fixed mindsets that they often find themselves trapped in. By teaching students how to view intelligence as being malleable, they can go from believing that they cannot accomplish something to believing that if they do not have the ability, they can gain that ability to do so. Students with a growth mindset have been shown to have better test scores and problem solving skills. By using a theoretical background of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, school counselors can help students break out of their fixed mindset and be on the road towards a growth mindset. Many studies have shown that by having a growth mindset, there can be a great amount of growth in the students' academic work, social lives, and eventually careers.

By using brief Social-Psychological interventions, the students can foster their own growth mindset. Teachers and counselors can implement change by praising student's work instead of praising their intelligence. By doing this, the students will believe that they can gain the ability to succeed instead of languishing in their fixed mindset. This comes from the irrational belief that since they are smart, then they should automatically be able to do anything, without the effort. By having a growth mindset culture, the students and teachers can have a better time in working together to accomplish their goals.

References

Aronson, J., Fried, C. B., & Good, C. (2002). Reducing the effects of stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38(2),113-125.

Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78(1), 246-263.

Boaler, J. (2013). Ability and mathematics: The mindset revolution that is reshaping education. Forum, 55(1), 143.

Claro, S., Paunesku, D., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(31), 8664-8668.

Corey, G. (2017). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Dweck, C. S. (2010). Even geniuses work hard. Educational Leadership, 68(1), 16-20.

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

Grant, H., & Dweck, C. S. (2003). Clarifying achievement goals and their impact. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 541-553.

Jones, B. D., Rakes, L., & Landon, K. (2013). Malawian secondary students’ beliefs about intelligence. International Journal of Psychology, 48(5), 785-796.

Kamins, M. L., & Dweck, C. S. (1999). Person versus process praise and criticism: Implications for contingent self-worth and coping. Developmental Psychology, 35(3), 835-847.

King, L. (2016). Mindset matters: a counseling curriculum to help students understand how to help themselves succeed with a growth mindset. Chattanooga, TN: National Center for Youth Issues.

Mercer, S., & Ryan, S. (2009). A mindset for EFL: Learners' beliefs about the role of natural talent. ELT Journal, 64(4), 436-444.

Sparks, S. D. (2013). Growth mindset gaining traction as school improvement strategy. Education Week, 33(3), 1-21.

Wilson, T. D., & Burrick, N. R. (2016). New directions in social psychological interventions to improve academic achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 392-396.

Yeager, D. S., & Walton, G. M. (2011). Social-Psychological interventions in education: They're not magic. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 267-301.

 

Dr. LaVonna Groce

Secondary

Undocumented students can attend college and there are resources to help them with college access.  However, because of their lack of citizenship status undocumented students can confront many obstacles while trying to access college but college is still possible.  This session wants to help dispel myths to college access for undocumented students and give resources and support to school counselors trying to help undocumented students access college. 

There seems to be some incorrect information amongst individuals in education right now about undocumented students and college access.  This session hopes to confront and define some of the myths and issues in the field of school counseling.  The session presenter will lecture using a PowerPoint with information on DACA, Lawful Presence, and Scholarship/Financial Aid tools and Information for undocumented students.  Helpful tips will also be included on how school counselors can help undocumented students access college.  The PowerPoint will be handed out as a resource that includes websites, tips, and tools that session attendees can use to help undocumented students access college.

Amy Lancaster, Director of Workforce Development, Metro Atlanta Chamber

Joyce Chandler, Retired School Counselor. Georgia State Representative

Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

The "Your Talent-Your Future" program will review occupational demand and correlating degrees and certifications needed to meet that demand to Georgia's supply of these degrees and certifications.  Program attendees will receive valuable information for their students including the degrees and certifications that are oversupplied and under supplied in Georgia at all educational levels, the top occupations and industries in the state, and recommendations for closing the skills gap.  

A widening gap between employer talent  demand and skilled worker supply is a challenge in the global marketplace and, more specifically, for states and cities across the United States that are concerned about growing local economics.  With 15,496 job postings between 2010 and 2015, Georgia is similarly situated.  The Metro Atlanta Chamber, in collaboration with partner Accenture, developed the "Your Talent-Your Future" report that compares occupational demand and correlating degrees and certifications needed to meet the demand to Georgia's supply of these degrees and certifications.  The findings from the Metro Atlanta Chamber will be presented.

 

 

 

Torri Jackson, GSCA Immediate Past President, Liberty County School System

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

Are you ready to use your innate leadership skills within the best school counseling professional organization in the nation? Come to this session to learn more about the governance structure of GSCA and how to become a leader within the organization. A variety of leadership roles will be explained in detail and specific instructions on how to nominate and apply for all roles will be provided. All school counselors are gifted with leadership and advocacy skills, and it is time to take the next step in your school counseling career and become a GSCA leader. Utilize the information gained from this session to help you begin your GSCA leadership journey!

See the abstract.

Beth Mines

Elementary

Students experiencing trauma represent 20% of school populations.  Neuroscience shows that trauma affects the development of the brain, which then affects student's behavior and ability to learning.  Children of trauma are frequently less responsive to traditional supports such as positive reinforcement, consequences and behavior contracts. This presentation expands the awareness of types of trauma affecting children and describes easy-to-teach strategies counselors can share with teachers.   Become an advocate for trauma awareness at your school!

Learning Objectives:  Participants will

1) Be able to name criteria for trauma described by ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences).

2) Be able to understand the impact of trauma on the brain's development

3) Become familiar with resources to learn more about trauma 

4) Learn a variety of strategies to share with classroom teachers about how to respond to and build positive relationships with these students.

Content for the presentation is gathered from the presenter's research over the past three years including multiple texts (The Social Neuroscience of Education; Reaching and Teaching Children Who Hurt; The Dance of Attachment; Helping Children Succeed; Treating Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolexcents), 20 hours of webinar training presented by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and attendance at Georgia Association for Play Therapy conferences over the past 6 years.  

Participants will be encouraged to share experiences with partners (while maintaining confidentiality), and to ask questions.  Participants will leave with powerpoint notes, and a list of resources and descriptions of easy-to-teach interventions for counselors to share with classroom teachers.

 

Gizani Netherland-Maxie, Professional School Counselor
Shamira Pierson-Porter, Professional School Counselor
Emily Flaaen, Professional School Counselor
Monica Garcia, Professional School Counselor

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Training school counselor interns is a huge commitment. Professional school counselors, school counseling interns, and graduate students, are encouraged to colloborate during this session. Topics of discussion will center around best practices for school counselor supervisors to provide training and support of school counseling interns so that they eventually become professional school counselors that promote comprehensive school counseling programs.

This session intends to allow dialogue that will help to create a positive experience for both the supervisor as well as the school counseling intern, by identfying best practices in those perspective roles. A tip sheet will be provided from both the supervisor and counseling intern perspectives. Resources to be shared that will help "break the ice" and begin to foster a trusting relationship between supervisor and intern.

Catherine Roberts, EdD
Reva Robinson, MA

Elementary
Middle
Secondary

The College & Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI)is a tool that help provides accountability and communication to all stakeholders about the promotion of college and career readiness for Georgia public school students within your school.  This presentation will provide you with helpful tools in increasing your attendance and career development, which is two of five of the ways School Counselors can impact the increase in your school's CCRPI performance index.

The participants will have an opportunity to learn about how to impact their school's CCRPI school's Performance Index through interactive dialogue and an informational powerpoint presentation with handouts.  The participants will also receive strategies and interventions to aid them in providing guidance lessons with students to increase attendance and the career development.  The learning objectives are: the state itself are preparing students for the next educational level. It provides a comprehensive roadmap to help educators, parents, and community members promote and improve college and career readiness for all students.

To obtain strategies to help prepare students for the next educational level

To understand the five ways School Counselors can impact the CCRPI performance Index (i.e., Attendance, School Climate, Achievement Gap, Career Development, and Positive Behavioral Interventions and supports - PBIS)It provides a comprehensive roadmap to help educators, parents and community members promote and improve college and career readiness for all students

To develop a plan to promote and improve college and career readiness for all students

Chastity Williams
Ashley Chennault
Lisa Miller

Elementary
Middle

A successful college and career readiness program begins with collaboration amongst stakeholders in order to provide real world foundational and supplemental experiences for kindergarten through 8^th grade. Various strategies include researching career clusters with an interdisciplinary approach, building relationships with community members through apprenticeships, and creating a capstone project will prepare our scholars for success.

During this session, the presenters will focus on providing attendees with specific and practical strategies for successful delivery of a consistent culturally competent college and career readiness program. We will discuss the importance of equalizing access to career information. In addition, we will distribute examples of a calendar, integrated lessons, and morning meeting/advisement activity plans to create a common language for scholars, teachers, parents, and community members. Attendees will engage in Think, Pair, Share activities, an application brainstorming session, and a Kahoot to assess their knowledge.  

Sarah Wenham

Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

Researching postsecondary options can be an overwhelming task for some high school students.  School counselors play a crucial role in helping students understand their options and staying on course for meeting admission requirements.  Please join us to learn more about the University System of Georgia (USG) admission requirements, including the high school curriculum requirements and the new SAT score requirements.  This session will also highlight the USG resources that can help students in their research.  

This session will provide many opportunities for participants to ask questions.

Sample materials will be available for viewing during the session.  Participants will learn where to find the resources of the USG website.

During the session:

• Participants will learn about the four types of postsecondary institutions that comprise the University System of Georgia.
• Participants will learn how the USG freshman admission requirements vary by institutional sector.
• Participants will learn how the changes to the SAT have impacted the USG freshman admission requirements.
• Participants will learn about the USG’s Required High School Curriculum (RHSC) and the high school courses that satisfy the RHSC.
• Participants will learn how the University System uses the Accuplacer test to determine admissibility and placement.
• Participants will learn about the USG dual enrollment/MOWR admission requirements.
• Participants will learn about the requirements for a freshman to be classified as in-state for tuition purposes.
• Participants will learn where to find various admissions resources and related information on the USG website.

Ruth Bowen, EdS, LPC, NCC
Summit Hill Elementary School, Fulton County
RAMP Recipient 2016
Fulton County School Counselor of the Year 2016-17

Elementary

Learn innovative ways to use play in your school. Not only will this session provide creative ideas for working with students in lessons, small groups, and completing CCRPI requirements, but also for working with teachers and even parents. Hear results from a parent play group, see a playroom in action, and walk away with your own tool box of strategies you can use in your program.

 

Learning Objectives:

This session will help participants identify at least three methods of utilizing play in school counseling.

This session will help participants apply creative and play-based techniques in their counseling programs.

This session will help participants understand data related to the effectiveness of play-based techniques.

This session will help participants feel confident in using play in their programs, even if this is a new method for them.

Session Summary:

This session will discuss using play in a comprehensive school counseling program. Participants will hear examples of core curriculum lesson activities, as well as small group activities that incorporate play. Session attendees will learn about using centers and break out groups for career lessons, as well as implementing a wax museum of careers to satisfy the CCRPI portfolio requirement. They will see pictures and videos from a school-based playroom and will understand how the playroom has been utilized this year. This session will cover data about the effectiveness of the playroom lessons. Session participants will also hear a unique take on social stories, a creative method for use in individual sessions.

After hearing about using play with students, session attendees will discuss play with teachers and parents. The session will address the importance of morale in the school. Participants will explore boosting morale in playful and fun ways, using treats, games, and signs throughout the school year. The session will exhibit the details of a parent group conducted by the presenter with the moms of her small group students. Participants will see data about the group and the impact it had both on the moms and the students.

Leaving the session, participants will walk away with new ideas, will feel more confident in their own ability to utilize play in their programs, and will have handouts they can use to implement some of the session’s activities or lessons. They will also have the opportunity to win give aways throughout the session that will get them started in using play at their schools.

 

Leonissa Johnson
Malti Tuttle
E. Ken Shell

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

English Learners, are often referred to the Response to Intervention (RTI) process for academic support. School counselors frequently promote student success in RTI as advocates, supporters and/or facilitators. Many counselors take part in these practices with limited training or experience with RTI or English Learners. The purpose of this presentation is to share school counselor experiences in the RTI process with English Learners. Implications for training and practice will be discussed.

Learning Objectives/outcomes

1. Participants will define Response to Intervention and English Learners.
2. Participants will describe school counselors’ experiences with the Response to Intervention Process for English Learners.
3. Participants will discuss the content and experiential needs of school counselors and school counselors in training.
   

Opportunities for audience participation

Presenters will facilitate a presentation in three parts.

First the presenters will provide an overview of the Response to Intervention process, needs of English Learners and School Counselor roles. Presenters will use Total Physical Response activities (Stand up/sit down, thumbs up/down, signage) to assess what participants know about RTI and English Learners. Participants will ask members to describe their roles with RTI and English Learners at their schools.

Next the presenters will share the research literature and methodology that led to the study.  They will also share themes and quotations that describe school counselors' experiences taking part in the RTI process with English Learners. Presenters will invite audience members to identify any findings that resemble or differ from their RTI involvement.

Finally, the presenters will discuss implications for school counselor training and practice based on the research findings.  Audience members will be invited to describe any helpful or desired RTI with English Learner training needs.  Presenters will generate a list based on the dialogue with the audience.

Handouts/Resources

Participants will receive a handout with key information and findings from the presentation. Audience members will also receive a list of relevant literature and resources.

Jason Moore

Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

RPM is a partnership between the Richmond County School System and Textron Specialized Vehicles. The program mission is to motivate students to stay in school, graduate, and become career ready by providing classroom instruction, on-the-job training, key work/life skills, mentoring, and employment opportunities. Session participants will hear about a community and business partnership that re-engages students at risk of dropping out of high school and provides true work based learning opportunities.

Session participants will learn the following:

How to develop a program to reengage and intervene with students at risk of dropping out of high school

How to develop community and business partnerships for true work based learning opportunities

How to create and maintain a program culture focused on preparing students for graduation and career readiness

How to create classroom structures to support students with academic and attendance deficiencies

The two most important objectives of the session will be:

1. Reengaging students in relevant, real world experiences will help reinstill academic, social, and attendance confidence.
2. Students in intense family, social, economic, and academic deficient situations require the most intense and consistent means of school and community support.

There will be a question and answer session following the presentation.

Participants will receive and handout and brochure with information pertaining to the program.

Ashley Wood

Elementary
Middle
Secondary

The right story can make a difference! Inspire your Tier 2 and 3 students to read while developing resiliency through literature based small groups. Discover creative ways to implement literature groups in elementary, middle, and high schools that will support your school improvement plan and the ASCA Model. Participants will leave with book lists, lesson plans, methods for data collection, and inspiration!

After attending this session, participants will be able to: 

• Determine ways that literature based small groups benefit Tier 2 and 3 students and support an ASCA model program. 
• Develop a lesson plan for a literature based small group.
• Determine appropriate implementation models for elementary, middle, and high school settings.
• Identify methods of data collection and use of data to develop future interventions. 

Session Process:

This session will utilize mixed media (PowerPoint and student/counselor created videos) and literature samples.

Agenda

Introduction 

• Prologue
  
  • Discuss the research behind literature groups 
  • Review different models for implementation
  • Discuss ways to obtain materials for literature groups with little or no funding
• Plot Development:  
  • Participants will be divided into groups.  
  • Each group will utilize a literature sample (provided) to develop a lesson plan for a small group session. 
  • Groups will present/discuss their literature sample and lesson plan
• Resolutions and Sequels: Discuss methods of data collection and use of data to drive future interventions
• Ask the Author: Questions and answers

Handouts/Resources: Electronic booklists, sample lesson plans, and resources for developing literature groups will be available to participants

 

Ken Jackson

Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

When it comes to supporting LGBTQ students, counselors often have good intentions, but challenges translating into meaningful action.  They often do not know what to do when situations arise or they are consulted. Participants will examine an LGBTQ Student Action Decision Making Model. They will then review a sample professional development created for middle school teachers to support a transgender student.  Participants will then look a real life scenarios and apply the decision making model.

The session will cover three areas:

1. LGBTQ Student Action Decision Making Model- They will look at an approach that I have used for 19 years when consulted about LGBTQ issues in schools. It covers equality, equivalence, and equity.

2. Particpants will review a real professional development given to middle school teachers who were seeking ways to support a transgender student in class. The focus on this is both practical applications for teachers and a model counselors can use when asked to created a professional development.

3. Scenario discussion- Particpants will be grouped and given one of ten real life scenarios. They will then apply the decision making model to the scenario. All of the cases are adapted from real events that have occured in schools.

 

Mrs. Aleah Brown
Dr. Lenice B. Horton

Elementary

Our students are experiencing high levels of anxiety that is triggered from home and school. Anxiety is basically fear, and this fear can cause worry, depression, irritability, hyperactivity, and/or aggressive behaviors in children. The Mindful Counselor Toolkit contains researched based tools and strategies that are useful in helping students to de-escalate anxiety daily. 

Learning objectives: CWBAT utilize various strategies and tools IOT support students in decreasing misbehaviors.

Participants will engage in mindful exercises and be provided with resources.

Anxiety is a normal part of childhood.  It is basically a form of fear. It is perfectly normal to see anxiety in children. However, to keep anxiety from taking over a child’s life, it is important to provide them with strategies and tool’s so that children can gradually manage or overcome their fears. The Mindful Counselor Toolkit was created just for this reason.

The practice of mindfulness brings quick results to these situations.  Mindfulness means focusing on the present moment. This is particularly helpful for anxiety because anxiety is often the result of focusing on the past or the future. The busy counselor needs quick methods to assist children in de-escalating worry, irritability, hyperactivity, and aggression.  This workshop will provide resources and materials on how to make, utilize, and implement tools and strategies to improve student social and emotional well being.

Katrina D. Wilson, M.A., LPC, School Counselor, Pine Street Elementary, Rockdale County Public Schools

Elementary
Middle

Do you sometimes feel like you are working in a crisis center?  Are you stressed in your school counseling role?  Do you feel like you lack resources and are stuck in a tailspin of anger outburst, DFCS cases, and broken family systems? This fun, interactive session will help you better understand how to collaborate with your social worker, behavior specialist, parents, teachers, administrators and mental health clinicians. Come and explore the “family” of student support. 

Participants will learn how to successfully collaborate, utilize and access members of their student support team.  We will dissect a complex case scenario and examine the steps that a student support team took to successfully address several issues facing a high-needs student.  Through an interactive role-play, participants will learn how to construct an interdisciplinary team that will touch the “whole” child with appropriate interventions and resources. 

 

Dr. Jolie Daigle
Dr. George McMahon
Dr. Karen Griffith

Counselor Educator, Supervisor

This presentation will highlight current preparation trends in school counselor education. Changes in the CACREP 2016 Standards, school counselor certification, and licensure will be discussed. Additionally, trends in school counslor preparation such as embedding behavioral health and post-secondary planning in the counseling curriculum will be presented. 

A panel of school counselor educators will provide updates/changes on the new CACREP 2016 standards, certification, and licensure as it relates to the training of counselors. Additionally, examples of embedding behavioral health and post-secondary planning in the counseling curriculum will be discussed by the panel members. After each panel member gives a brief presentation, audience members will be able to ask a few short questions. After all the panel members have presented the presentation content, audience members will then be able to ask additional questions and panel members and audience members will be able to have deeper discussions. A power point will be included in the presentation as well as a handout for audience members. Learning objectives for this presentation includes: 1. Learn how the changes in the CACREP 2016 Standards impacts counselor preparation, 2. Understand recent changes in state certification and licensure, 3. Understand new trends in counselor prepration such as behavioral health and post-secondary planning and ways to embed the content in an exisiting school counselor preparation curriculum. 

Ms. Shironda Brown

Dr. Natacha Billups-Thomas

Middle

GCSA Proposal

Cutting On the Edge: The Self-Injury Puzzle and How It Is Trending During the Middle School Years

 

 

 

 

Ms. Shironda D. Brown,   MS, Ed.S

8^th Grade School Counselor/ Lead Counselor

Burke County Middle School/ District Burke County Public School

356 Southside Drive

Waynesboro Ga 30830

(706) 554-3532- Work

(706) 993-8879 – Cell

Educational Background- Fort Valley State University, Cambridge College

Honors: Featured in May DOE  Spotlight  Counselor’s  edition

GCSA Proposal

Cutting On the Edge: The Self-Injury Puzzle and How It Is Trending During the Middle School Years

 

Self-Injury behavior such as cutting is becoming prevalent during the middle school years. The notion is that students are doing this as a suicide attempt, but the main emphasis according to research would be that it could be linked to emotional imbalance, depression or attention seeking behaviors. However, it is interesting during the twenty first century to discover that self- injury behaviors are trendy and an area of concern during the middle school years. It is also a known fact that the most popular students preferably “girls” will demonstrate cutting out of peer pressure or just simply keeping up with this newfound trend. Boy’s in the middle school year’s typical display self- injury behavior like cutting because of depression. Consequently in this presentation risk factors will be explained about prevalence and onset warning signs that are typically linked to this self inflicted injury. Moreover this presentation will captivate techniques that can be utilized in such a way could be helpful to teachers, parents, and administrator’s since some self injury behaviors occur during the middle school sector. In this presentation, it will be also be explained how self- injury usually occur repeatedly and is impulsive by students.  The most common methods are demonstrated by these young people are: skin cutting (70-90%), head banging, and burning.  Other forms of self-injury include excessive scratching to the point that blood is drawn; this injury could exemplify a therapeutic feeling to release pain or being infatuated with the sight of seeing blood drawn. Furthermore this presentation will also demonstrate how common self- injury occurs, and how research indicates that this occurrence can also happen with adults in the United States (approximately 4%). Research also emphasizes that rates are higher among adolescents, who seem to be at an increased risk for self-injury with approximately 15% of teens reporting some form of self-injury behavior. Students who participate in self-injury report they feel empty inside, lonely and not understood by others, so cutting may be the alternative approach to increasing self-esteem. Self- injuries are often a way to cope and relieve painful situations or when students can’t express themselves, but generally do not become a suicide attempt. Students who engage in self- injury behavior resolve interpersonal difficulty, like a disagreement with friends, or deal with interpersonal problems of boredom. However, since counselors are in the business of a helping profession, it would be good to encourage the students to safely release painful feelings of journal writing and discuss the writings with those particular students.    Last, this presentation will exemplify a sound structure process of forms that can be utilized when encountering students who are displaying self –injury behaviors.

 

 

Ms. Shironda D. Brown,   MS, Ed.S

8^th Grade School Counselor/ Lead Counselor

Burke County Middle School/ District Burke County Public School

sbrown@burke.k12.ga.us

356 Southside Drive

Waynesboro Ga 30830

(706) 554-3532- Work

(706) 993-8879 – Cell

Educational Background- Fort Valley State University, Cambridge College

Honors: Featured in May DOE  Spotlight  Counselor’s  edition

 

Sherilyn Narker

Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

Are you interested in free digital, print, and consumable materials to help students become college and career ready? If so, the Atlanta Fed has the answer! Using Navigate: Exploring College and Careers, students receive a workbook that becomes a portfolio for their post-secondary path as advisors lead them through the activities. Invest in What's Next is a similar program in digital format that begins with lifestyle choices. Free professional learning for your teacher advisors is available.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta provides free instructional materials and professional learning to educators. The purpose of this conference presentation is to share all of the materials we have available to school counselors and their teacher advisors (if applicable). We have a free comprehensive curriculum on college and career exploration called Navigate. There are lesson plans for counselors and teachers to use when leading the program with students. All students receive their own free Navigate workbook designed to be a portfolio of their college and career plan. All participants in the session will receive a sample copy of the teacher and student guides. In addition to this formal curriculum, we will also share many other free digital and print materials they can use to teach students about topics such as college and career readiness, soft skills, personal finance, entrepreneurship, and understanding workplace and tax documents. All participants will receive an Opportunity Occupations infographic poster, a set of Personal Finance infographic posters, and a USB drive filled with materials, lessons, and activities as well as instructions for how to access and use our online resources. Participants will find out how they can arrange free professional learning from the Atlanta Fed for counselors and teacher advisors in their school systems throughout Georgia.

Lucy Mason, Dr. Wendy Rhodes, Jennifer Morse, Heather Brindle

Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

FREE COLLEGE CREDIT! TWO FOR ONE DEALS! MOWR THE NEW WAY OF DUAL ENROLLMENT! 

This program will focus on how to set up a successful on and off campus MOWR program at your high school.  We will review every step involved starting with the parent presentation to students picking their classes. We will address those tough AP vs. MOWR questions and discuss the student and school benefits to the program. 

The following learning objectives/outcomes will be presented during this session

I. What is MOWR?

We will briefly review the state's MOWR program and the opportunities that it provides students. We will educate the audience on how to market and sale the program to students, parents, your school and administration.  We guide you on how to answer those difficult AP vs. MOWR questions. We will discuss the student and school benefits to the program. 

II. Partnership with Colleges 

We will discuss the importance of a partnerships with your local colleges and how your local colleges can help you. We will present the MVHS MOWR on campus program and discuss the benefits to having a MOWR program on your high school campus. We will present data to demonstrate the effectiveness and growth of the program since implementing the on campus program. We will present a guide on how to set up the program in your own high school.  

III. The MOWR maze of paperwork 

We will share our step by step guides to help parents and students with the paperwork. We will discuss the roles and ways that teachers, clerks, administers and counselors can support the program. We will present the additional supports that you can provide at your school to help with parent questions and walking students through the paperwork. 

IV. Questions 

We will address FAQ and allow the audience to ask the presenters questions. 

 

Shiva-Binet Walker

Middle

Developing an effective 6th grade Peer Helper Program that can be adapted school-wide.

In many cases, School Counselors with limited time, have difficulty implementing the number of programs and events desired without assistance. Incorporating a peer helper program into your school counseling program can help relieve this concern. Join me in exploring how peer helpers enhance the effectiveness of your program by increasing outreach and the expansion of available services. During our session you will learn how to implement a peer helper program to your sixth graders, seventh graders and/or eighth graders. You will also be provided with the tools to start the program once you return to your school.

Lauren Butler, School Counselor Gwinnett County Public Schools, Laura Spencer, School Counselor, Gwinnett County Public Schools ,

Elementary
Middle
Secondary

Scientists are actively studying mindfulness and the positive impacts it can have on our brains.  In the book, Masters of Mindfulness, the fifth grade students in Mr. Musumeci’s class, who are the authors of the book, describe mindfulness as “a precious thing.”  Join this interactive session as we explore the data driven uses of mindfulness in your School Counseling program.  

Join the Ivy Creek Elementary Counselors as we share fun, innovative ideas to engage students in mindfulness. Students in Kindergarten- Third grade report mindfulness helping them fall asleep easier, handle peer/sibling conflict better and have overall increased calm in their lives.  Various resorces such as, GoNoodle to Masters of Mindfulness will be highlighted.  Participants will leave with a clear understanding of mindfulness, a list of resources to use immediately within their counseling program and outcome data to share with stakeholders.  Come see what Mindfulness is all about and leave feeling.... well, more mindful. :)

Christina Cotsakis Cordón
Farhana Rahman
Olivia Beck

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent

Do you need money to enhance your school counseling program? Grant writing seems scary, but it does not have to be. In this step-by-step grant writing seminar, you will learn how to find, evaluate, and write successful grant proposals to buy evidence-based programming, build your resource library, or begin an innovative new program. Resources will be provided.

School counselors may often find themselves desiring additional funding to enhance their comprehensive school counseling program. This session explores the opportunities that grant writing could provide for school counselors, outlining the steps in the process of writing, obtaining, and executing grants. The focus will be on finding grant opportunities and writing successful grant proposals that will help school counselors fund specific projects or programs in their school.

As a result of this program, participants will:

1. Learn the steps of the grant process,
2. Be aware of available resources to find grant opportunities,
3. Learn how to evaluate grant opportunities, and
4. Understand what makes a strong grant proposal.

We intend for this session to be interactive, and will give the participants opportunities to discuss their own ideas in small groups and with the entire group. This session will have a seminar-style format in which we will provide information pertaining to grant writing that participants will be able to discuss and apply to the unique needs of their school counseling program.

We will provide a few handouts to participants that will include:

1. An overview of the steps of the grant writing process,
2. A list of online resources that house grant opportunities, and
3. A list of resources for further learning related to grant writing.

Toni Dickerson
Melissa Lynch
Dawn Mann

Middle
Secondary

Survey Says. . . Game Show Lessons Engage Students is a workshop that teaches professional school counselors how to incorporate creative lessons to generate student engagement.   Adapted game shows incorporated with counseling curriculum support an array of different learning styles plus information preview and reinforcement. Who says learning isn’t fun anymore…the workshop brings the fun back.  Kind of like bringing sexy back!  

 

One Hour Format: 

Learning objectives:  

• Presenters will equip participants with innovative tools to differentiate real life learning for all students.     
• Participants will learn how to use creative programming to engage and teach all learners in a relevant manner that fits their visual, kinesthetic, and auditory needs.   
• According to Tim Elmore, “They [students] love narratives. They love interaction. They love pictures. They want us to make the complex simple (Growing Leaders, 2017).  Survey Says. . . Game Show Lessons Engage Students will walk participants through the steps to create game shows featuring school counseling curriculum.  To include: 
• Determine audience size. 
• Determine curriculum. 
• Determine time limit. 
• Determine which game show is appropriate for the lesson type. 
• Determine if students are familiar with game show format. 
• Determine materials needed. 

After presenters walk the participants though the steps to create a game show, presenters will show examples of adapted game shows previously used.  To include: 

• Big Brother 
• Family Feud 
• Jeopardy  
• Password 

 Presenters will leave time for questions and answers.   

 Resources: Participants will receive the link to all game show templates, list of materials, and video files. 

 Two Hour Format 

One hour format plus time spent modeling actual game show activities with audience participation.   

 

 

John Nwosu

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor
Post-secondary/Admissions

How are Waldo and equity related? “Where is Waldo?” presupposes that Waldo exists. We tend to assume the opposite when it comes to bias and discrimination. We want to believe that “those things" don’t happen "here" even in the face of disparate outcomes. In this experiential session participants will explore topics designed to reduce discrimination: udpates in multicultural and social justice counseling competencies, implicit and explicit bias research, structural marginalization, and tools for increasing equity.

How are Waldo and equity related? “Where is Waldo?” presupposes that Waldo exists. We tend to assume the opposite when it comes to bias and discrimination. Kids of all ages invest considerable time and patience searching for Waldo, but in the age of colorblindness we fail to search for bias and discrimination with a similar level of commitment often because we don’t believe they exist in our space. Both public and private institutions in our society continue to reproduce disparate outcomes with respect to race, gender, and other marginalized group statuses. We now know more about bias than ever before. The data, contributed from many fields of study, suggest that biases are pervasive - we all have them - and have a significant impact on our interactions and outcomes. 

In this interactive session participants will explore topics designed to identify and reduce discrimination. We’ll first discuss the difference between equity and equality and take a brief look at the most recent multicultural and social justice counseling competencies. We’ll then use experiential learning activities to explore theories of implicit and explicit bias and also take a look at findings from recent reserach. Participants will then learn about structural marginalization. Next they will engage in group activities designed to help them learn about tools and strategies for identifying and reducing structural bias in their own setting. Participants will be provided with resources for further steps on how to increase equity in their system.

After this session participants should be able to:

• Explain major shfits in the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (2015)
• Explain what implicit and explicit bias are and how they are different
• Discuss different levels and types of marginalization
• Discuss strategies and tools for reducing structural bias in counseling systems

For more information:

• http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/
• http://haasinstitute.berkeley.edu/
• http://www.centerforsocialinclusion.org/
• http://www.racialequityalliance.org/

Dr. Kelly Walter, Mariela Medina, Aprell Hamilton-Taylor

Secondary
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

 “To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” 
― John Dewey

This session will help counselors define their roles in the school-to-work pipeline and how best to prepare Georgia’s future workforce. We will examine ways to provide a full array of options to help students make the best career decisions for the benefit of the individual and community. 

This presentation will examine school counselors’ role in developing the career interests of students as related to career academies. One might say the goal and aim of education is to produce an educated workforce which benefits both the individual and the community as a whole. This goal is complicated when one considers the clientele is young and still trying to discover themselves in a world that is changing very rapidly. Helping students make informed choices must start with career information delivered in a systematic way that benefits all students and makes available viable options at all levels. We will use our Architecture and Construction Academy to illustrate a clear pathway to the workforce and how school/community collaboration makes this possible. 

In high need schools, graduation rates take center stage leaving little time to spend with students on post-secondary planning and with the high counselor-to-student ratios, playing a role in the academic, social, emotional, and career development of individual students makes having a positive impact difficult at best, impossible for most. Knowing a little about everything, but not enough about what matters most makes collaboration a must. The effort to move students forward must include not only the school counselor, but also the faculty, administration and community stakeholders. 

The development of career academies helps narrow the focus to a specific career cluster so that school counselors can become experts on a few, rather than many, and thus become instrumental in helping students find the right career path for their interest and skills. Another benefit of career academies is the emphasis on partnerships. In this model, the school and community are working together in a concentrated effort to provide students with practical experiences that will shape their interests and chart a positive trajectory. In this regard, the school counselor is not alone in guiding students into a career path that best fits their individual needs, be they academic or economic.

Learning Objectives:
Counselors will be able to:
1. Identify at least three “hot jobs” sectors and be able to name one career in each
2. Discuss the current labor trends in Georgia as they relate to their schools career preparation programs
3. Evaluate their schools career pathways in relation to the population their schools serve
4. Prepare a career pathway for students at each education level: HS diploma, certificate, diploma, associate degree and bachelor degree

Audience participation:
1. Anonymous submission of their schools career programs and their assessment of effectiveness (obj. #3) 
2. Creation and sharing of career pathway for each level (obj. #4)

Handouts

1. List of current “Hot Jobs” for Georgia
2. Online resources for professional development pertaining to career development
3. Tips for working with advisory boards

 

Morgan E. Kiper Riechel

Elementary
Middle
Secondary
Independent
Counselor Educator, Supervisor

ASCA’s Ethical Standards includes a 9-step process for ethical decision-making, the first of which is to “define the problem emotionally and intellectually.” Many ignore this important dual step, focusing primarily on the intellectual examination of issues at expense of the counselor’s emotional response, which can be a barometer in decision-making. This session will discuss research in decision-making and provide additional resources for school counselors to consider both the “emotional” AND “intellectual” aspect to ethical decision-making.

• Become re-acquainted with Stone’s (2010) Ethical Decision-making model that is included in the ASCA National Model, with an emphasis on the first step, “define the problem emotionally and intellectually.”
• Understand that a school counselor’s ability to make ethical decisions begins with a sensitivity, both intellectual and emotional, to ethical issues. Subsequent steps in the ethical decision-making model cannot occur without this first step.
• Become familiar with the literature in embodied decision-making which uses the ethic of care and compassion to understand how our physical, bodily reactions and emotions to the environment can help us understand ethical dilemmas in context better than using our intellect alone. Neither process (intellect or emotion) is sufficient on its own
• Receive resources and tools to enhance sensitivity to ethical issues using both our intellectual and emotional capacities as professional school counselors.