Blogs

Virtual School Counseling

By LaTraci Aldridge posted 02-26-2019 14:33

  
My name is LaTraci Aldridge and I have been designated as the Virtual School Counseling SPIN Facilitator. A little background on why I choose this as a Special Interest. From 2013 until 2018 I worked at completely virtual school in the role that is similar to that a traditional school counselor in a brink and mortar school. Over those 5 years I learned a lot and became very interested in learning more about what a virtual school counselor looks like Are they different from traditional school counselors? Do they still follow the ASCA standards? I knew how I did what I did every day, but what about the other virtual school counselors?
Currently, I am working on my doctorate in Counselor Educator and Supervision and my research focus is Virtual School Counseling. I am researching the roles and functions of virtual school counselors. It is my hope that I will be able to show, through data, that virtual school counselors' roles and functions are very similar to that of traditional counselors. From my own experience, one big difference is that I did have the nuisances that a lot of us have to deal with such as lunch duty, bus duty, etc. I was able to be just a school counselor. That's not to say that there were other things I did have to deal with. As far as similarities my thought process was that I could do just about anything that a traditional counselor did, but I had to put a virtual spin on it.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have about virtual school counseling as well showing any interesting topics under the umbrella of virtual school counseling
8 comments
257 views

Permalink

Comments

12-08-2020 14:17

Yes, Traci, this is helpful.  Attendance is so difficult now that we are virtual. (just about 60% are even typically in attendance)  I guess that we all struggle most not being able to see the students and interact in-person.  Our students don't like to even be "on" when teachers hold "zoom" classes...students most commonly turn of the video.
   So it feels like we are missing a lot.

12-08-2020 13:53

@Laura Monroe Yes we actually had a referral system that teachers would use to refer students to me.  It was a form shared on our SharePoint​.  The teacher would have to state the reason for referral: grief, anger, etc.) Once it was submitted my supervisor would review all referrals and then approve them and send to me if it was a social/emotional concern or to someone else if it feel under a different category.  As far as consent, I used an informed consent letter that I would email to parents that they would have to sign and scan back to me. Now I would just use the same letter but put in on a google form or Microsoft form for them to sign electronically. And just like in a traditional setting only information that needed to shared was shared and the platform that was used was a secure one and only those with our logins within our system could access it.  

And working at a virtual school for years I learned very quickly that truancy and attendance were a bigger issue than in a traditional setting. Most assume that because they don't have to leave their house that wouldn't be the case. We would us home visits as well to figure out what the issues were. In some cases, it was understanding the technology, but that wasn't always the case.  For extreme cases, we would submit a CPS referral for education neglect, but that was really difficult to push through sometimes because most DCS offices didn't understand virtual schooling. With everyone being virtual now maybe that will help with this. 

Hope this helps!

12-08-2020 13:31

Hello LaTraci,
   I am the school counselor at a rural school in Oregon.  We have about 200 students.  We are virtual this year, with the exception of set cohorts of students (no more than 10) able to come in, once or twice a week to meet with a teacher (shop or drama teacher) are examples of cohorts.  The students cannot stay longer than 2 hours and it is the same teacher and same group meeting together.
   We also have several cohorts, same set-up for students who do not have reliable internet access.
   Our staff feels unable to identify accurately the students that may really need interventions now. Our attendance is poor and many students wil not use the camera during class. We do have a "care-team" and sometimes a team of two, teacher or counselor or administrator goes to check-in, ususally on the front porch.
   Have you ever used a survey to assess student needs and mental health?  If so, how do we address parental consent and privacy concerns and effective follow-up protocols?

11-27-2019 08:50

Hello LaTraci. I saw your post about virtual school counseling from this past February. Could you message me, I have a couple of questions.

Kelly Fox

06-11-2019 18:47

@Tamera Foster I haven't posted it yet, but it will be my next one :)​

06-11-2019 17:26

You mentioned that you might blog on Virtual Career Fair. Have you blogged that yet? if so is it elsewhere than here?

02-26-2019 21:34

@Kirstyn Jennings Yes there is a way to do online supervision, but not widely used at this point to my knowledge.  I have seen this more with mental health counseling than school counseling. From some of the research I have done in virtual counseling there are some guidelines for virtual counseling/supervision, but nothing mandated.  I do think that will change in the future as virtual counseling...school and mental health...increases. ​

02-26-2019 21:25

Are there supervision/internship opportunities for someone interested in online counseling? How might this supervision work if this opportunity does exist?