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Leah Esquivel, Arlene Nieves, Taylor Dorsett, Lauten Escobedo, and Kerry Salardino Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Angelo State University EDSC 6302 School Counseling Techniques Mrs. Ashley Atwood October 28, 2020

This group will assist students with issues including stress, self-acceptance, self-esteem, impulse control, anger management, and coping skills to help them overcome obstacles in stressful situations they may be faced with in their daily lives.

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ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors Students will Master

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ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors Students will Master

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Students will master the Social/Emotional Developmental Domain upon completing this group. Most of the social and emotional development falls under Category 1: Mindset Standards, however a few important skills fall under Category 2: Behavior Standards.
The Mindset Standards in Category 1 focus primarily on the beliefs and attitudes of the students involving their physical wellness, emotions, and overall mental health. This category also includes self-confidence, belonging, achievement, and positive attitudes.
The Behavior Standards in Category 2 touch base on coping skills and students being able to demonstrate these skills when they have a specific problem they are dealing with.
Upon completion of this group students will master the mindset of being positive, finding their place of belonging, self-confidence, coping, and overall achievement in their daily lives.
(American School Counselor Association, 2014).

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- Parents: will be notified by Remind 101, which is a communication application, and sent letters home from the counselors. These letters will be sent home a week before notifying parents that their child qualified for extra support provided by the counselors.

*Parents will have to give consent to child participating in small group counseling.

- Students: pulled in to discuss test results if shown that they are high-risk, or show need in counseling.

- Teachers: will be notified via email and by flyers in mailbox advertising how and why students will be pulled.

- Administrators: will be notified via email and will be invited to sit in on small group counseling sessions.

*Daily announcements will be made to communicate the upcoming testing to students and teachers. Flyers that are posted in the office and given out in teacher mailboxes will state testing dates and dates for conferring with individual students to notify them if they will participate in the group counseling sessions.

Counselors will develop a small group counseling curriculum that addresses students' emotional and mental development. Counselors will communicate with administrators via email, detailing components to be addressed with group counseling students. Administrators will be invited to observe lessons prepared by counselors. Specials teachers will also be notified via email about which students will need to be pulled out of their class for the group lessons. Parents will be contacted by phone/email about their child showing need for the lessons and asking if parents are comfortable.

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- Students will be notified by meeting with them one by one to discuss why they were selected to participate in the group counseling session. Teachers will be provided a list of students that the counselors will be pulling to discuss results after the testing is given.

- Counselors will give pep talk to classes before testing window opens. Counselors will 'hype up' the pre-assessment and encourage students to be as honest as they can so that way they can get the support they need.

- Students will be screened as individuals by completing a pre-assessment with situation-based questions. Students will complete the assessment in their classroom with set aside testing time.

*Students who are not selected will be given the explanation that although they will not be participating in the group this time, they may be selected for a future group in the future. The counselors will also reiterate that they these students will be leaders for others to follow in their classes.

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•       In December, before Christmas Break, the school counselor will meet with each class in 3-5 grade. During the meeting, the school counselor will define and explain small group sessions and their purpose. The school counselor will also explain that even though notes go home with every student, in order to promote advocacy and inclusion of all students, not every student is a candidate for small groups and it is a decision that will be made by the student's parents/guardians. It will also be stressed that a student may not participate in the group if the note acknowledging consent is not returned by January 7, 2021. At the end of each meeting, the school counselor will briefly take questions and distribute notes.

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•      The school counselor will use the four question model represented in Capturing Kid's Hearts. The group will develop a social contract that will become a centerpiece of the group's culture. The social contract is based on the four questions presented by Capturing Kid's Hearts:
- How do you want to be treated by me? (group leader)
- How do you want to be treated by each other?
- How do you think I (leader) want to be treated by you?
- How will we treat each other if there is a conflict?
The students will work together on creating this contract and will create a chart that each student and school counselor will sign and this contract will be placed on the wall where it can be referred back to when necessary. The school counselor will guide the process in creating this contract, however, in order for group members to fully take ownership of the contract, the students need to create as much as possible, cooperatively.

•       The school counselor will establish rules that will remain the same throughout each group.
- Disrespect is not allowed, period.
- Only helpful comments will be accepted.
- What is said during group sessions stays within the group. *
- One person talks at a time; no side conversations.
- Participation is required in order to benefit from the group. If a
student refuses to participate, they risk being removed from the
group.
- Do not touch anyone's personal property and respect their
personal space.

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The population(s) this group will serve is/are 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders (each within their own groups). Each co-ed group will contain 10, or less, students and will focus on strategies and skills needed to appropriately respond to stressful situations.

•       Stage 1- Will focus on allowing the students to build trusting relationships with each other and the school counselor. This will be done through meaningful conversations as well as ice-breaker activities. Conversations that support trusting relationships will be modeled to students by the school counselor, and students will be given an opportunity to exhibit this behavior through role-playing activities. Sentence stems will be provided for students to utilize when in role-play and conversations. Students will be encouraged to keep what is said inside the group at the group, and with parents only. The school counselor will also explain to students that sharing information that is discussed within the group to other students would be considered gossip, and that gossip works in opposition to the trust that is built within the group.

•       Stage 2- Will continue to build upon trustful relationships through each lesson's activities. The school counselor will check in with students outside group times to see how they are enjoying the group and what aspects are impacting them in positive ways.

•       Stage 3- Will focus on the group's closure by engagement in a culminating activity. In this activity, each student will decorate a keepsake box. Students will take turns writing something positive about each group's member on an index card and placing it into their box. (The school counselor will check these prior to the box being presented to its owner.) Students will take turns talking about their feelings about the group ending as well as the strategy they will use to work through that emotion. Students will be presented with their keepsake box and a certificate from the counselor that highlights a positive character trait that each possesses. A follow up plan will be discussed which will include future individual and group meetings. Students will be encouraged to reach out to each other if/when they are needing help working through stressful situations. They will also be encouraged to continue supporting each other by upholding their commitment to confidentiality.

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• The Adaptive Leadership model would work well with this group, because the ultimate goal is autonomy within the area of emotional intelligence.

• This approach would work well with this group because the leader is more of a facilitator. The types of "problems" that the members of this group will face have solutions that are more vague, meaning that there is not a set of rules needed to solve these problems (Corporate Finance Institute, n.d.). Instead, the leader will help to identify the problem, and rally the students to help brainstorm possible solutions (CFI, n.d.). The leader also knows that change is gradual and that members of the group may be resistant to change (CFI, n.d.).

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Yalom's Therapeutic Factors in Group Sessions

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Yalom's Therapeutic Factors in Group Sessions

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Members of the group may demonstrate many of Yalom's Therapeutic Factors.

Some of these factors include:

Instillation of Hope for members struggling with anger issues, stress, and self-esteem/self-acceptance. Members will learn different ways to contend with their anger, manage their stress levels, and to accept themselves for who they are. The Instillation of Hope gives members satisfaction in knowing the treatment is effective and they will find a solution to their issues.

Universality helps members who are coping with different problems in their life, whether it be death, divorce, changing of schools, etc. to understand that they are not alone and many other people have the same issues they are facing.

Existential factors allow members to share with others who may be feeling extreme loneliness or missing their place of belonging in the world or in their school.

Direct Advice is another one of Yalom's Curative Factors to help members struggling with stress, anger, controlling impulses, and coping issues by receiving different strategical ways to manage their problems.

(Yalom ID.,1995).

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School Counselors will create lesson plans identifying activities to be delivered, standards to be addressed, to whom activities will be delivered, how they will be delivered, and how data will be assessed to determine the impact on student outcomes (American School Counselor Association, 2019).

Demonstrate pedagogical skills, including classroom management strategies, lesson planning, and personalized instruction (American School Counselor Association, 2019).

Based on the ethical requirement, school counselors will create lesson plans based on the needs of the students that will be in a group setting. All group

settings will include classroom management and lesson planning to guide the instruction.

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A school counselor will Identify an appropriate evidence-based curriculum aligned to the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (American School Counselor Association, 2019).

School Counselors will develop other materials informed by research best practices if evidence-based materials do not exist (American School Counselor Association, 2019).

Based on the ethical requirement, school counselors must make sure that when providing group instruction, they must have an appropriate evidence-based curriculum. This curriculum can be adopted by the school district and used by the school counselor.

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American School Counselor Association (2014). Mindsets and

Behaviors for Student Success: K-12 College- and Career-Readiness

Standards for Every Student. Alexandria, VA: Author
American School Counselor Association (2019). ASCA School
Counselor Professional Standards & Competencies. Alexandria,
VA: Author.
Corporate Finance Institute (2015). What is adaptive leadership? Corporate Finance Institute.                              https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/soft-skills/adaptive-leadership/
The Flippen Group (2020). Capturing Kids Hearts
https://flippengroup.com/education/capturing-kids-hearts-1/
Yalom ID. (1995). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy (4th ed.). New York: Basic Books.