Workbook for Teens Resource

The end of the school year is soon approaching! Only 9 more days until the last day of school.  Currently, I am working on a list of ideas that I would like to implement next year.  Even though the students' last day of school is in 9 nine days, my last day is June 28th.  That means, senior college planning meetings, cleaning the counseling office, organizing and planning, planning, planning.  

I want to share a resource workbook that I came across in my search for anxiety and stress activities for individual counseling sessions.  Structured activities work best for my practice as a counselor and I have found that they keep my counseling sessions on track and the students can follow them easily.  

The workbook for teens series was created by Lisa M. Schab, LCSW.  I purchased the anxiety, self- esteem and anger workbooks. I plan to purchase the stress reduction workbook in the future.  Many of my high school students have a difficult time managing stress.  There's also a bullying, shyness, ADHD, social success, executive functioning, DBT skills for mood, and depression workbook.  They are affordable, costing between $11.00 and $30.00.  I only bought 3 workbooks because they were the topics I encounter more frequently and I was not sure how effective they would be.  

Currently,  I am using the anger workbook with a student I meet with for personal counseling once a week.  The activities are manageable and easy to follow.  The workbook encourages homework so that the teen can continue to work on the skill.  The anger workbook consists of 36 activities. 

www.amazon.com

Once I get more familiar with these workbooks, I may be able to adapt them to small group counseling in the future.  These workbooks are also great for parents to use with their teen.  

I enjoy finding resources to use with students and sharing these resources with other counselors.  

I am always looking for resources for high school students.  What are your suggestions? 

Counselor Planner for 2013-2014

Organization is a big deal in high school counseling as I imagine it would be at all levels.  I have lists and lists of daily and monthly things to do as well as future plans.  I make lists for every single college task that students need to complete and I have separate lists for personal and academic counseling.  It's a lot of lists and notes.  

I am known for changing my organization system during the school year.  I have always used some kind of planner/agenda.  In college, this was a must.  Currently, I am using an Erin Condren Life Planner and before that, a Filofax.  Both are beautiful and wonderful organization systems, but I like to have my personal, work, and school organized together.  This is becoming less and less of the case as I have realized that work organization needs to be its own system.  I have come to terms with this so I decided to make a personalized counselor planner. There's a plethora of options for teachers but not too many for counselors-I think I found one.  

As it is close to the end of the school year, 18 days!, I am thinking about how I will organize for next year.  The counselors share the senior class so I am in the process of making appointments to meet with my caseload of rising seniors in the summer.  As I started to make a sign- in sheet in a word document, my colleague showed me a fabulous website called www.worksheetworks.com.  This is when I came up with the idea that I could make my own counselor planner! Previously, I was inspired by jyjoyner who showed a counselor planner using the Five Star Mead Flex.  I will use the Five Star Mead Flex, add dividers and the worksheets that I found on www.worksheets.com.  

Some ideas...

Week Planner- I can write down daily "To Do's" here and even use these forms for small group and classroom guidance planning.  

Annual Calendar/Planner- I plan to use this as an annual planning tool to plan the college fair, Red Ribbon Week and bulletin board ideas.  

Hourly Planner- I will use this to schedule college planning meetings with the seniors this summer.  This form can be personalized to include the appointment times and five or seven days in the week.  

Once I decide on the names of the sections, I will post it.  I have many ideas, but need to see what my needs will be next year as I plan to do more small group counseling and classroom guidance.  

Happy Planning! 

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

To all of my teachers out there!  Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!  I will always have a place in my heart for teachers.  I started my career in education as a teacher and it was my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Blackmore, who inspired me to become a teacher, to love English Literature and to love Shakespeare.  I still remember watching the film Westside Story along with clips from the original Romeo and Juliet.  I was in awe of this fellow they called William Shakespeare.  What can I say?  I love the drama! 

I get wrapped up in all of the college counseling items that I do not get the chance to do cute things for the teachers.   This year is different.  I purchased some colorful notecards and envelopes and typed a message.  I put them in the teachers' mailbox.  Hopefully, they will enjoy it.  It is just my little way of saying "thank you."  The teachers make my job a little more easier and really make a difference when they talk to students and let students come to the counseling office (they do much more for the counseling department).  They do so much inside and outside of the classroom and I am truly blessed to be part of an amazing team.  My mantra, "What we do is for the students" is absolutely true.  

Note to teachers 

Colorful notecards and envelopes, Target 

Next year, I will try to do something different.  Any ideas?