Component 2 Mission Statement

"The school counseling mission statement provides the focus and direction to reach the vision, creating one focus in the implementation of the comprehensive school counseling program," according to ASCA.  The vision statement states where you want your program to take your students, the mission is how you will get them there. The mission statement tells what the counseling program does, its purpose.  A mission statement can change but it must reflect the beliefs of the counselors.  We chose to revise ours from several years ago because our district's mission statement had changed and our beliefs were slightly altered by the third edition of the model.  We began by looking at our district's new mission statement, reviewing our school's mission statement, and reflecting on our draft beliefs and vision statement.  The focus must be on the students which we choose to call learners.  It should address ALL students and have a future focus. Think about what is unique about  your program compared to the overall school's mission. Most counseling program mission statements will talk about addressing academic, career, and personal/social development. In the narrative you must talk about what you chose to include or exclude in your mission statement. For example, all our school rules are about creating a safe, caring, and respectful learning environment so we chose to use those words in our mission statement.  Our advisory council was very involved in the development of our original mission statement and they made suggestions and reviewed changes to our newly revised mission statement.  The advisory council has staff, parents, and students which represent the main audience for the mission statement so it makes sense to involve them in the development of the mission statement. We think our new mission statement is clearer and its shorter which our council thought was helpful.