In recognition of National School Counseling Week 2011, Awareity would like to help focus your attention on the vitally important and long-lasting contributions school counselors provide in our nation’s schools.
School counselors can have a tremendous impact on students of all ages. Counselors not only help students plan for the future, but also help students deal with the everyday struggles and stresses of being a classmate, friend, peer, child, sibling, etc.
Students face escalating challenges with bullying, cyber bullying, violence, safety, truancy and many other stressors. Did you know these stressors can cause as many as 160,000 students skip school every day because they are afraid of being bullied? And did you know an estimated 500,000 teenagers consider or try to commit suicide each year?
Counselors and school administrators have a difficult job and they need help identifying at-risk students and improving ongoing efforts to ensure intervention and prevention efforts are not too late.
Numerous school tragedies are painful reminders and many schools and colleges nation-wide are reviewing their counseling and safety programs and asking some very important questions:
- Are we listening to students and do students trust our support offerings?
- Are we tracking warning signs and at-risk students and following up with students according to their needs and in a timely manner?
- Do all personnel in the school understand how to identify and report warning signs, red flags and suspicious behaviors?
- Do we have the right tools tracking, monitoring and documenting our programs to meet OCR Dear Colleague Letter mandates and more stringent state laws?
- Are we confident we have legal-ready documentation for increasing numbers of lawsuits?
- Are we connecting the dots and sharing information with administrators, prevention teams, threat assessment teams, security, law enforcement, mental health resources, counselors and others?
Awareity provides proven solutions for schools seeking better ways to listen and track troubled students and better ways to implement, manage, update, track and document actions and decisions made by school leaders, the school’s ‘prevention and intervention’ teams and counselors.
In recognition of National School Counselor’s Week, Awareity is providing a free 30 Day Trial of TIPS (Threat Assessment, Intervention and Prevention Services). Please visit www.tipsprevent.com or contact info@awareity.com to learn how your school and your counselors can begin improving intervention and prevention efforts sooner than later.
