Thursday, November 12, 2015

Organizing My Counseling Services for the Day

I am currently running 28 small groups. Our program relies heavily on small group counseling because it has been shown to help our students acquire specific skills that can be practiced. For each group topic I have a binder and for each group I have an accountability sheet to capture process data and notes and each child has an individual folder. I hold on to all work and send folders home when group ends. These are the groups I am leading just today.  Every morning I make sure I have what I need (books, handouts, materials, etc.) and line them up in front of my book case.  The pink folder at the end holds my classroom lesson I will teach at the end of the day. To manage a comprehensive counseling program requires a lot of time with the organization and management part.  I am lucky because my Kindergarten team gives me 2 slots I can use as does my second grade team. That allows me the flexibility to run 6 groups in both of those grades.  First grade only gives me one slot so I run 5 first grade groups (one each day of the week). Third grade I do a lunch group every day. In grades 4 and 5 I run 3 lunch groups each.  I will start more groups after some of these conclude.

5 comments:

  1. I am incredibly amazed at your organization! And the number of small groups at the same time- what are the varying topics?

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    1. I lead groups on friendship skills, self-regulation, resiliency, empowerment, emotion management (especially anxiety), and sometimes changing families.

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  2. Do you do classroom lessons right now as well? Or do you take a break from those while doing 28 small groups?

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    1. I teach all classes once a month for 30 minutes throughout the school year (all students get 10 lessons a year that way).

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  3. Do you do classroom lessons right now as well? Or do you take a break from those while doing 28 small groups?

    ReplyDelete