Spread the Word: Branding and Marketing Your School Counseling Program

A few years ago my part-time counselor and I presented on branding and marketing a school counseling program at our state SCA conference. Here is a link to our PowerPoint
Spread the Word We chose the iHelp logo because that was the year our school began the one-to-one imitative giving iPads to all students. We continue to use the iHelp logo on our materials. Pictured above is my office door. The students think the see through (window) labeled "Live cam" is very funny. Public relations for counseling programs is an ongoing responsibility. Every year we have new staff and students who need to be informed about what we do. Despite all our efforts, not a week goes by that I don't receive an email from a parent that begins with a phrase like "I don't know if it is appropriate to ask you for this kind of help..." We also do LOTS of online marketing especially via our Blog and Twitter feed. We are beginning the process to lobby our school board to reduce our counselor:student ratio, hoping to eventually get to 1:250 at all levels. Please think about how you can promote school counseling programs and join ASCA and your state SCA so they can lobby for more school counseling positions! Follow me on Twitter @mbmccormac

School Counseling Program Annual Calendar

The ASCA National stipulates that each school counseling program develop and share an annual calendar with all stakeholders and update it regularly.  I like a simple one page calendar that I can post by my office door and easily copy and distribute where appropriate. I include the most important activities and events for the school counseling program for the entire school year.  These include monthly awareness, classroom lesson themes, small groups, and other activities like the advisory committee meetings, conferences, and analysis of data.  This calendar communicates the program's priorities and is a public relations tool that informs stakeholders about specific details like the dates of parent workshops. I update it at least quarterly and adjust for changes in planned activities, snow days that require changes, etc. I have the calendar drafted before the start of the school year so I can get important dates on the school-wide calendar and avoid conflicts.

School Web Site

We have not gone back to school yet so I spent several hours today updating my school web page. See it here nottingham.apsva.us/counseling/ I still need to tackle the calendar and a few formatting issues but otherwise it is ready to go. The primary audience for my school web page is parents but I do have a Counselor to Counselor page.

We have to use a standard format as part of  our school's web page but after a year I have adapted. I like the Blog embedded feature. The Blog and the calendar are the parts I update most frequently during the school year. When I make a new blog post on my school web site there is a button I just click and it goes to my Twitter feed. My Blog posts are read by many more parents than the monthly newsletters I use to spend much more time writing. There are many more features I can add but last school year our school had no IT support. We have a new staff member this year for that role so check back later, I am hoping to make some improvements once I get some training and technology support.

Advocacy

As school counselors return for a new school year it is the perfect time to focus on our role of advocacy. Events like Open House, first day of school, and Back-to-School Night provide face-time with families so it is imperative to have a plan to maximize these opportunities. Remember to use data to show how students are different as a result of the school counseling program. An advocacy orientation involves not only systems change interventions but also the implementation of

empowerment strategies in direct counseling.
Advocacy is
1) an ethical and legal imperative for school counselors.
2) the desire to be a voice for students so that the school acts in students’ best interests.
3) teaching students to be self-advocates.
4) educating legislators, school board members, parents, administrators, and teachers about the school counseling program.
5) joining a professional organization which provides school counselors with a legislative voice.

Technology offers many tools for advocacy. A well designed counseling program web page, a blog, electronic flyers (smore.com), and social media like Twitter are a few I use on a regular basis. For example, all of our school board members follow me on Twitter so when I share what lessons, groups, workshops I am doing and their impact they can see in the comfort of their own home or office the impact of the school counseling program in my school!
Here are a few resources if you do not have a lot of training in advocacy. I print copies of the ASCA National Model Executive Summary and share it frequently with stakeholders.

Ascanationalmodel/ExecSumm.pdf
azsca/advocacytoolkit.pdf
School-Communication-Planning-Guide.pdf

Follow Me on Twitter!

My favorite technology tool is Twitter and its companion Tweet Deck (dashboard for the hashtags I follow most closely). I use Twitter professionally  in so many ways, but most importantly to network with people and groups that interest me. I do NOT use it to share anything personal, that I save for my Facebook friends. I do belong to the Closed Facebook Group Elementary School Counselor Exchange which is a part of my online Professional Learning Network (PLN). You simply search for the name of the group and ask to join; there are more than 14,000 members and it is a great place to ask questions of other elementary counselors or share your ideas if you feel like you have something that would help another elementary counselor. The advantage (and sometimes disadvantage) of Facebook is there is not a limit to number of characters like Twitter so posts can be longer.

My school uses Twitter to communicate with our Tech savvy parents. I have had parents say to me, "I feel like I talk to you every day and know exactly what you are doing." At first those comments gave me pause but that is exactly what I want. I send out pictures of my classroom lessons so parents can ask when the child comes home, tell me what you learned from Dr. McCormac today? Keep in mind that a Tweet may contain photos, videos, links (count as 23 characters) up to 140 characters of text. I send out links to good articles on parenting, information about upcoming activities like College Wear Fridays, and ideas for helping the whole child to name a few. I do not follow parents (or students including former students). I am very aware that administrators and school board members follow me so I use it as a way to showcase my school counseling program.  It is very important to school counseling that we market and advocate for our programs and inform stakeholders how students are different based on the services we provide.

As I mentioned I am #notatasca17 but am closely following that hashtag and #asca17.  That is how I was able to learn that my Twitter account and a few other counselors who love Twitter were shared as part of an ASCA Conference presentation (slide above) and better yet get the link to the PowerPoint for Angela Cleveland's PowerPoint presentations Angela is very tech savvy and through Twitter I have learned a lot about how to improve my counseling program from @rsabella and @CounselingGeek

A big part of my PLN are Twitter Chats. These provide an online opportunity to engage with other school counselors around the globe! My two favorites are #scchat the first Wednesday of each month at 8 PM EST and #escchat usually two Thursdays a month. These chats typically don't "meet" during summer vacations. Sometimes they have co-hosts like ASCA or a graduate school counseling program. The moderator(s) select a specific topic like Small Groups or ADHD and pose about 8 questions in an hour and give participants an opportunity to respond. Just like on Twitter you don't have to "Tweet" you can just follow the chats called lurking (especially until you feel comfortable). I follow the chats on TweetDeck but you can also use TweetChat (search on your computer and bookmark).

Another feature of Twitter that many users don't take advantage of is the Advanced Search tool. Once you do a search say "elementary school counseling" then click on the Search filters on the left, then Advanced Search. Here you can add exact phrases, hashtags, a range of dates, etc. This can help you find a post you want to read again, a subtopic of your search, etc.

Twitter allows you to have a diverse and innovative network and drive your own professional development. As school counselors we sit through many required staff development activities that are great for classroom teachers but not helpful to us. With Twitter you control who you follow. For example when I first started using Twitter I only followed other elementary counselors and counselor educators but quickly realized I can learn a lot from secondary counselors as well. I also follow organizations that explore issues I am passionate about like mental health, mindfulness, trauma-sensitive counseling to name a few. As a user you get to decide how many people and groups you follow!