School Counselors Are Creative Specialists

When you got into school counseling you probably did not think you signed up for a career in the arts. After all, when we think of art we tend to think of people who are crafty. People who can draw, sculpt, paint and create beautiful objects out of nothing. You may think this is not something you do.

You are wrong.

All this time, you have been a creative genius; you just didn’t know it. You spend hours figuring out the best way to communicate so students will listen. Your nights are spent racking your brains with innovative ideas to help build relationships.

Your art is confidence building. Your medium is people.

Your work is to carefully mold broken pieces into something beautiful. When your subjects (i.e., your students) come to you with tears and despair in their eyes, you help them cope. You challenge them to change their narrative. You take their broken pieces and empower them to build something amazing.

Some may wonder how school counselors do what we do. After all, we have so many hats to wear and so many other duties as assigned pulling us in different directions.

The answer is simple, and the answer is hard.

School counselors effect change by building relationships.

As James P. Comer, Maurice Falk professor of child psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center, has said, “No significant learning can happen without a significant relationship.”

Relationship building is hard as a school counselor. Many times, we see our students for less than three minutes at a time. Our necks are developing arthritis from the pressure of all the hats that we wear.

But it’s time to put on another hat. This hat is the most important. In extreme cases, it could quite literally be the difference between life and death.

It is the hat of creative specialist.

Below are some easy, creative ways to build relationships with students, even if you only have three minutes.

1. Give accolades. Everyone wants to feel noticed.
2. Give up your chair. Your chair can be intimidating. Since the student is the authority on their life, why not let them feel like it by giving them your chair?
3. Make eye contact and smile. Smiling will encourage comfort.
4. Use humor when appropriate.
5. Admit your own mistakes – this helps them to admit theirs.
6. Set up Remind 101 and give encouraging messages periodically.
7. Sit on the floor. I’ve been known to sit under the table with students because that’s where they were.
8. Ask for help. Students will feel special teaching you something.
9. Be visible. The more students see you, the better.
10. Greet students by name.

Relationship building extends far past the student/school counselor relationship. School counselors are the nucleus of the school. Our fingers are on the pulse of students, staff, parents and stakeholders. If we don’t create an atmosphere of safety and trust, it will become difficult to move any initiatives forward.

When building relationships with students or adults, a few things never go out of style:

1. Listen more than you speak.
2. Validate emotions.
3. Come from a place of curiosity rather than a place of knowing.
4. If a conflict arises, disagree respectfully.

The concept of relationship building is not hard, but it does take the touch of an expert to bring it to life.

That expert is you.

Monica Fugedi, LPC, NCC, is a wellness counselor at Groves High School in Birmingham, Mich.