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Reflection on Importance of Self-Care in the Helping Profession

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Reflection on Importance of Self-Care in the Helping Profession

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In a helping profession, counselors may become overwhelmed with the day to day demands of being a school counselor. Self-care is important because school counselors work with children who are facing issues that can be extreme in nature and occupy a great deal of their time, leaving other counseling duties unfinished. Overtime, this can lead to counselor burnout.

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Identification & Description of Personal Self-Care Strategies

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Identification & Description of Personal Self-Care Strategies

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Listed are a few self-care strategies that may help avoid school counseling burnout:

Take time for yourself: It is important to take some time to do the things that are important to you. I enjoy getting a hotel room and ordering room service every quarter. Other times, I enjoy getting massages.

Connect with family and Friends: As a school counselor, you are willing to give all of yourself to help others, but you must remember to take time for your friends and family to keep a work life balance. I enjoy planning girls night out with my friends and weekly game or movie night with my family.

Communicate with peers: As a school counselor, you may begin to feel overwhelmed with the workload demand, but it is important to make connections with other school counselors that you can vent to or learn from. Having another counselor who understand what you are going through from day to day is important to finding ways to take time for yourself. This will be beneficial in my future role as a school counselor.

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This graphic represents me taking the much needed time alone to reflect and relax. My life is busy and I always give so much of my time to my family and I always focus on their needs, but I need to stop and smell the air. I need to focus on myself more.

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Professional “Take Away” from Reviewing Resources

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Professional “Take Away” from Reviewing Resources

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Self care is important for counselors. School counselors work with others to help and support their mental and emotional well-being, and sometimes lack focus on their own mental health. According to ACA ethical standards, counselors should practice self-care and focus on their own health (American Counseling Association, 2014). Some ways to practice self-care in an profession that requires a person to give more of themselves is to never forget to seek support and set appropriate boundaries to avoid counselor burnout. School counselors usually don't have a peer or a direct supervisor on campus, but it is important to build relationship with other peers to help avoid burnout.

Reference

American Counseling Association (2014). ACA code of ethicswww.counseling.org