 May is Mental Health Awareness Month
Spotlighting May as Mental Health Awareness Month can help decrease the negative stigma surrounding what true mental health is and gives us the opportunity to share proactive strategies to reinforce positive mental health.
This Mental Health Awareness Month Toolkit provides many easy-to-implement resources and activities for a variety of stakeholders. Other useful tools include:
Final Statewide School Counselor Cadre
The last Statewide School Counselor Cadre of this school year will be June 6 from 9 a.m. to noon ET.
John Burnett, a fellow school counselor, will be the featured speaker. He will focus on rethinking self-care for school counselors, educators and families. Collaborative opportunities to network also will be available during the last hour.
Registration for the Statewide School Counselor Cadre is open through your local educational cooperative in-person or virtually. Effective Instructional Leadership Act credit will be given.
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Wrapping Up Your School Year
You made it! The finish line is near to end another productive school year for each of you.
Reflection and celebration are vital parts of closure to any school year. This includes the following ideas to consider before you take that much deserved rest and relaxation:
- Celebrate your small and large successes. Write them down where they are always visible to remind you of the accomplishments and resilience you faced and overcame during this year.
- Analyzing data is a key piece to any successful comprehensive school counseling program. Consider what services you offered through the use of time you have kept to help determine next steps in growing your access to students. What data supports your instruction delivered? What worked? What would you like to improve for next year?
- Organize your materials before taking your summer break. There may be items out of date or that are broken to consider eliminating. A different way to organize the books and resources in your office may be considered based on how frequently you use them and services offered. This includes the technology that has been useful for you this school year to ensure it is easy to find when the school year begins.
KDE Accepting Applications for the School Counselors Advisory Council
The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) is accepting applications for the School Counselors Advisory Council.
The KDE School Counselors Advisory Council is a vital component to building leadership, professionalism and advocacy among Kentucky's school counselors. School counselors are selected from the applicants by a group of stakeholders based on varied experiences and levels to ensure all areas and demographics are represented from around the state.
Most recently, the advisory council shared feedback regarding their roles and responsibilities within their schools and districts. This information helps drive guidance from KDE in order to inform not only school counselors, but also administrators, about the true role of the school counselor.
The advisory group also has provided input to create updates to the Kentucky Framework of Best Practices for School Counselors. Some members have submitted videos displayed on the KDE School Counseling webpage showcasing their expertise in different aspects of a comprehensive school counseling program.
Collaboration is encouraged, as this group will include a variety of different experiences, levels and demographics to continue making progress toward successful comprehensive school counseling programs.
If selected, school counselors would serve a term of three years beginning in the fall of 2023 and meet quarterly each year.
The deadline for submission is June 1. Please contact Heather Bushelman with any questions
Shout Outs!
Calming Space Round 2 Awardees
Kentucky received $90,000 funding from ESSER II to enhance social-emotional skills, specifically for self-management within the state's schools. This money will be distributed to eligible schools to support self-management strategies for all students.
Nine winners were awarded $10,000 each to fund the implementation of a universal calming space schoolwide. The winners are:
- Conkwright Elementary, Justice Elementary, Strode Station Elementary and Shearer Elementary (Clark County)
- The Phoenix School of Discovery (Jefferson County)
- Taylor County Middle School
- West Whitesburg Elementary, Letcher Elementary and Middle School (Letcher County)
- Dayton High School (Dayton Independent)
- Spencer County Middle and High Schools
- Camp Dick Robinson Elementary (Garrard County)
- Thelma B. Johnson Early Learning Center (Henderson County)
Collaborative Training for School Counselors
Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative school counselors attended three trainings to collaborate together to continue growing their school counseling programs.
Best practices for data-driven goal setting for students was a focus that included completing the American School Counselor Association student outcome goal. They also learned how to build a schoolwide behavior toolbox based on functions of behavior and matching interventions based on student-driven initiatives.
The school counselors now will be able to coach and model evidence-based practices for behavior with their staff.
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