Advocacy Toolkit

School counselors engage decision-makers at the school, district and state levels to inform and educate others about what school counselors do and why this support leads to better student outcomes. Following are helpful tools to use when navigating discussions with or making formal presentations to families, teachers, administrators, district leaders, school boards, lawmakers and more. Providing specific examples to this information helps to personalize the impact of the work.

School Counseling Program Advocacy

• ASCA Position Statement: The School Counselor and School Counseling Programs
• Who Are School Counselors Infographic
• The Role of the School Counselor
• The Essential Role of Elementary School Counselors
• The Essential Role of Middle School Counselors
• The Essential Role of High School Counselors
• Student-to-School-Counselor Ratios (2023–2024)
• ASCA National Model Executive Summary

Research on School Counselor Effectiveness

• School Counselors Matter
• Effectiveness Research (Empirical research demonstrating school counselors' impact)

Get the Facts Campaign

Get the Facts is ASCA’s advocacy social media campaign highlighting the work school counselors do. 

• Download printable Get the Facts posters
• Download all Get the Facts images for social media (or right click on individual images below)

Templates
Use the Canva templates below to highlight advocacy issues in your school, district and/or state.

• Generic version 
• Detailed version

Need content ideas? Review the ASCA Student Standards, ASCA Ethical Standards and the ASCA position statements.

Link Tracking
ASCA uses linktree to have all links associated with Get the Facts in one place: https://linktr.ee/asca22. If you don’t already have a linktree, we highly recommend it; it’s free to create one and you will get basic analytics for the links in your campaign.

The Legislative Process

Understanding the logistics of legislative advocacy can be vital to share information at the most effective times. In addition to participating in your state school counselor association advocacy events, school counselors can always initiate contact with lawmakers as private citizens to share information about the profession. Get tips for setting up an appointment with your state legislators.

Learn more about the federal legislative process here. You may want to access your specific state to note when your general assembly is in session and the specific bill- to-law process.