Support Services

Role of the TIS School Counselor

You may or may not have had a school counselor in your high school or growing up going through school. If you did, you probably used them only for college planning or perhaps when going through a sad time. Today’s school counselors play an integral role in schools; a school counselors’ main function is to support students in achieving their full potential. For example, a student may come to school after a fight with a friend and have a difficult time concentrating on anything much less math class. In that situation, a student knows that the school counselor can be used as a sounding board and confidant to help them express their feelings or perhaps to use as a resource for further action. By seeing a counselor and dealing with their problem, the student is then able to concentrate in class again. What follows is a discussion on topics that are the main areas of focus for counselors in international schools.

Transitions

Being in an international school environment means that some of the families in the school are there for a while and are then transferred to another country or back to their home country. Leaving friends and familiar places can be very difficult. While there is always an edge of excitement at the thought of a new place with new friends, the transition between leaving a place and going to a new place is important and can potentially be a very stressful time. Counselors can help deal with future fears of “what will be” and “what if’s” as well as deal with finding closure and saying goodbye in a time that is filled with unknowns.
Similarly, being at an international school also means that friends come and go, and even if you or your child are not the one leaving, your child may also be affected by those close friends leaving. They have finally found a good friend, and now they are moving away again! Making new friends over and over, as well as keeping in touch with friends over long distance can be very time and energy consuming. Dealing with this separation and abandonment must be taken seriously as it can affect academic success.

Academics

Students often have a difficult time with time management and organization- who doesn’t? This, however, is also a big component of stress management. If you can manage your time and organize your school and after school activities, procrastination will be less of a problem, therefore your child will be less stressed. If a child can learn healthy strategies that actually work, dealing with increasing levels of stress later on in life becomes more manageable. Such strategies may include time tabling, prioritizing, identifying and eliminating distracters, learning how to ask for help, etc. TIS counselor teach classes that involve psychological or emotional perspectives on subjects. This includes discovering oneself, puberty, healthy relationships and making healthy choices for oneself with regards to sex, diet, exercise, balancing social and school life, and stress management. Life skills education classes are offered classes are offered in the secondary school about feelings exploration, tattling, tolerance, decision-making, friendship and conflict mediation etc.

Learning support

Each one of us has varied abilities, likewise for students who may have differentiated learning needs. A referral procedure is established, and recommendations are made to support the student in all possible way. As per need a student can also be provided with individual learning support. Progress is closely and regularly monitored.

Health

Growing up is not always easy. Sometimes difficult problems arise: abuse, eating disorders, self harming behaviors, suicidal ideation, bullying, fears, and general adolescent angst. Counselors have resources and information to help students and their families get through trying times. Confidentiality is very important in this situation. In any counseling situation with a student, it is made clear that what is shared during a session remains between the counselor and child unless three situations arise: there is a threat to the child’s well-being, another child’s well-being is threatened, or something illegal is happening. To enable the primary goal of counseling (that of assuring children’s well-being) such cases must be reported to the administration after a second opinion from another counselor has been obtained. As the counselor works together with different experts (outside psychologist, school administration, teachers, parents, etc) an overall understanding of your child’s situation can often be achieved when asking the school counselor’s involvement in health-related issues.

Emotional well-being

Sometimes our emotions interfere with the learning that could be taking place at school. Changing families (going through divorce/separation), abuse (emotional, verbal, and physical), any of the health-related issues mentioned above, and depression, are just a few of the many emotional difficulties a student may encounter on a day to day basis. With help from the counseling office help can be given sooner than later, when not only academically the student begins to slip, but emotionally become less social, less motivated, less lively and less driven. Through individual, group and class interventions, counselors are able to touch your children in a way that many adults and friends are not able to. In addition, there is this mutual understanding of trust and confidentiality that assures a safe environment for sharing, allowing for children to open up and allow feelings to be expressed that otherwise would remain repressed and bottled up, possibly leading to explosive behavior somewhere down the line. Yet there is only so much a counselor can do to help and advice. These obvious limitations lead to the topic of the counselor being a good resource for further help.

Resources
With the above mentioned responsibilities as well as monitoring of students, counselors may not be able to always give the individual attention that a child or family may require. This, however, is not a problem, as the school counselor has many resources available for every family, no matter what cultural background. Few such resources include outside referrals (to hospitals, doctors, psychologists, counseling agencies, etc.), publications (newspapers, journals, internet research, books, etc.), and facilitation meetings (where the counselor has gathered feedback from the teachers and the parent just needs to meet with the counselor for general advice, or meetings with teachers and parents are facilitated by counselors).
In an objective position, the counselor is able to retrieve information from different perspectives (teachers, administration, the law, books, internet, parents, other students) working within confidentiality and help your child make a responsible and informed decision or choice in life. It can be useful to have another responsible adult listen and know what your child is going through, as well as be able to give informed input to your child who may not want to tell their mom and dad exactly what is going. Making use of the school counselor benefits not only the child then, but you as well. When getting older, teenagers start to naturally push their parents a bit further away, grasping for independence. With another adult in their life, parents can be rest assured that the moral well-being of their children is still considered important as they become young adults. It is, therefore, important as a parent to feel comfortable contacting your child’s school counselor at any point of the school year, whether a problem is occurring at home or not, if you need information pertaining to your child’s social and emotional health, and/or academic performance.

Some useful links:

www.kidshealth.org
www.schoolsattuned.org
www.waytogrowonline.org
www.aboutourkids.org
www.tck.com