President's Letter: Those Who Brought Us Here

I wish you all a happy National School Counseling Week! This is one of my favorite holidays to celebrate school counselors. This week, I thank all of my constituents – students, families, faculty, administrators and the board of education. I use it as a time to promote school counseling and school counselors' work. In the past, I ran contests for my students and recognized staff for their support using certificates and little gifts. After thanking the team and having fun with my students – it was most important to me to advocate for the school counselor role – I sent lots of promotional material for families and the community.

All this has been important to me due to my very first supervisor in school counseling. In the second year of my 30-plus in school counseling, she asked me to write a press release for our district. I used the ASCA promotional materials for NSCW and submitted to her the press release reflecting our local school district. (These resources from ASCA to recognize our work and the support of others in our programs are user friendly and copy ready. Please open the link and use something today!)

I want to share with you about that supervisor. In 1992, she held the title of assistant director of school counseling in a central Jersey school district. Dr. Dorothy Jeanne Sherman Youngs was a quiet, persistent leader in our state's school counseling field. She was on the executive board of NJSCA. She helped write and create The New Jersey School Counseling Initiative: A Framework for Developing Your Comprehensive School Counseling Program and the updated second edition. In our district, she encouraged our growth as school counselors. We spent the summer writing a K–12 school counseling curriculum, ensuring that we focused on 80/20 and included social/emotional, academic, and career components. She hired elementary school counselors, initially having one counselor sharing two schools; within a few years, every elementary school had its school counselor. She made sure we had multicultural training, and Dr. Paul Pederson came to train school counselors in our district. I am thankful to her for the post-master’s professional development she offered me. Dr. Youngs believed in school counseling and worked hard to ensure we knew what was expected so that our students had the best support from their school counselor.

In New Jersey, we are at a pivotal time. We have legislators working to codify our role and responsibilities as school counselors, illuminating the proper job responsibilities we are trained to do – we are the mental health professionals in schools. Our training is aligned with the mental health counselors we sat next to in our coursework; we just took a few additional courses to prepare us for our school counseling certificates. Most people need to realize that our training focuses on mental health, counseling skills, child and adolescent development and school counseling. The innovative work that Dr. Youngs began in 1992 is still happening: We all need to be part of school counseling departments, not guidance departments. Our supervisors must be trained in mental health and school counseling, and our professional development must meet our needs and desires. We cannot be left out of training or asked to join the PE, social studies, or special education departments for training.

In closing, this is a special week for school counselors. I encourage you to remember that mentor who has made a difference in your career. I invite you to continue to advocate for the school counselor role and enjoy even the smallest moments you experience that make your calling in this field so meaningful.

Contact Cindy Povall, NJSCA president, at cindypovall@gmail.com or 908-705-5526.