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My name is Jessica Rojas. I am currently a first-year Spanish teacher to 200 7th grade students in Del Rio, TX. I am pursing my Master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling at San Angelo State University, with the hopes of finishing in Spring 2020. Upon completion of my degree, I hope of becoming a counselor in a secondary school. I hope to have the opportunity to guide students in their academic path, as well as in their personal life.

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Mrs. Cynthia Frausto is one of the two 7th grade counselors at my campus. She has worked for the district for over 25 years- 14 of those years as a guidance counselor to middle school students. The interview was based on the topic of legal and ethical issues she has encountered as a secondary guidance counselor.
#1
The most common legal issue Frausto has faced in her career as a guidance counselor has been dealing with parental rights. Many students come from a family in which the parents are divorced; therefore, counselors must be careful when giving out information about a student. Parents who are not on their child's academic records often get upset towards the counselors, who cannot distribute student information if the parent is not documented. Serious legal action can be taken if a counselor breaks confidentiality.
#2
Counselors must report child abuse and neglect to CPS as soon as the issue is brought to to their attention. This is something that is often hard to do because as Frausto stated, "you never know if their situation will get better." She referred to foster care and how students are often abused more for reporting such actions. Failure to report can lead to serious legal repercussions.
#3
Mental illness is seen in children as early as in their elementary years. Children often do not receive the help they need due to not seeking help from an adult. Students often keep their emotions bottled up, which then leads to bigger issues later down the road.
#4
Bullying is seen at every grade level amongst the students. Frausto stated that she deals with bullying issues on the daily. The biggest problem she faces is having the accused bully say he was only "joking." Regardless if it was a joke or not, a student's feelings and self esteem are still being affected.
#5
Counselors often come face to face with issues in which are considered "border line." Although the situation is being talked about at school, it is a problem that is going on in the child's personal life; therefore, counselors are left with nothing much they can do. For example: A student was telling her classmates about how she would sneak in boys into her house at 3AM. The parent thanked Frausto for letting them know but mentioned how her at-home life is none of her business and will be handled accordingly by the parents.
(C. Frausto, personal communication, March 22, 2019)

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STEP 2- OPTION #2 Student-to-Counselor Ratio

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STEP 2- OPTION #2 Student-to-Counselor Ratio

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This article highlights the problems of lack of counselors. This problem is seen at my school where there are 650 students split amongst two counselors. Counselors are expected to keep students on a successful academic plan, guide the students to college, address issues such as bullying and mental illness. Handling these problems in 325 students can cause failure of meeting the students' needs due to student-to-school-counselor ratio. (Fuschillo, 2018)

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Commentary

As students plan for what comes after high school, they need more support

Nationwide, public school counselors are overworked and under-resourced. The average student-to-school-counselor ratio is 482-to-1-nearly double the 250-to-1 ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association. In fact, only three states-New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wyoming-have statewide averages that fall at or below the recommended ratio.

The impact-or lack thereof-that school counselors have on students is easiest to understand in the high school context, where students face an increasingly dizzying array of choices about what comes next after high school.

There are more types of colleges with more specialties than ever before. For students looking for something other than the four-year college track, apprenticeships are gaining prominence once again. According to some, credential-based or technical-skill-focused modules are the new ticket to the middle class.

But even if high school students settle on a traditional college path, more questions follow: If they choose college, what kind of college-community or four-year? Is there a scholarship for that? And does anybody know how to fill out a FAFSA? (That's Free Application for Federal Student Aid.) And would a 16-year-old know she needed one without a counselor?

Without knowing their options, students inadvertently may miss out on the best path forward or simply make no choice at all. Unfortunately, some counselors are so overworked that they themselves may struggle to stay abreast of the latest trends and programs available.

Students fortunate enough to have engaged parents or other trusted adults in their lives to help them navigate their school years may not be harmed by a lack of in-school supports. Not every student needs the same level of attention. However, as is too often the case when it comes to school resources, the students who most need assistance often attend schools with the fewest supports. For low-income students or those who are the first in their families to attend college, the availability of good counseling can determine if they understand their options and are prepared to make informed choices.

To top it off, while many believe the school counselor's core function is to shepherd students into either college or career, counselors are also responsible for helping students manage their social-emotional health throughout their school years. Yet only a fraction of the up to 1 in 5 children who exhibit symptoms of a mental-health disorder receive help.

Professionals, such as school psychologists, dedicated to addressing mental-health issues are in short supply in school districts across the nation and often work across two or more schools. That means the average school counselor is often the first point of contact for addressing students' social-emotional concerns, academic readiness, and career- and college-counseling needs.

Counselors help students navigate a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed if students are going to make a successful transition to "what comes next." They might discuss students' interests and reviewing class schedules, help students cope with issues at home, and connect students in need of long-term mental-health support to the appropriate outside resources.

All of that requires time-the one thing that the average school counselor must severely ration. Many school counselors do their best, but no number of early mornings and office night shifts can fully make up for too little money and a lack of administrative support. The fact is that even the most dedicated, high-quality professionals can't give every student the necessary attention when juggling an unmanageable workload.

What steps, then, should we ask our school leaders and policymakers to take?

Starting at the district level, one option is for school leaders to monitor how existing counselors use their time. Advocates for the school counseling profession find that some counselors' time is monopolized by data entry and administrative tasks that could be handled by office personnel. Freeing counselors' time so they can focus more on providing the counseling they were trained to provide might not lessen their workload but would ensure they have more time to devote to students.

At the state level, legislators could mandate manageable caseloads for counselors and ensure a minimum level of access to counselors. Not every state requires that school counseling be available to students (particularly at the elementary level), and even fewer have instituted a cap on student-to-counselor ratios.

A mandate, of course, requires additional state resources. Some schools have adequate funding to support a more robust counselor workforce if they reallocate existing resources. But that is not true for all schools, some of which are severely resource-constrained.

Federal policymakers can help fill that resource gap. Currently, federal funding for school counseling is funneled through the Student Support and Academic Enrichment, or SSAE, program, a flexible block-grant program that replaces several targeted grants, including one for elementary and secondary school counseling. It is up to states to decide if they will prioritize school counseling programs when distributing funds to schools.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education's 2019 budget proposed eliminating the SSAE, which would have left states with no choice in the matter. Thankfully, Congress instead increased SSAE funding, providing $1.1 billion for the grants in this fiscal year's omnibus spending bill, a drastic improvement from the $400 million appropriated for the previous year. But ensuring school counselors have the time, money, and support they need to be an effective resource for their students requires sustained funding, which is why the Education Department's budget request remains alarming.

State legislators and the federal Education Department should allocate more resources to schools, not fewer. If you're looking for evidence of this fact, just ask a school counselor-if you can find one.

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The Troubling Student-to-Counselor Ratio That Doesn't Add Up

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Commentary Nationwide, public school counselors are overworked and under-resourced. The average student-to-school-counselor ratio is 482-to-1-nearly double the 250-to-1 ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association. In fact, only three states-New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wyoming-have statewide averages that fall at or below the recommended ratio.

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This article discusses the raising numbers of adolescent suicide throughout the nation. Treatment for mental illness is something often neglected in a child's life. Lack of treatment may be due to the student's choice to not open up about the issues and withholding emotions due to fear of what their peers may think of them. Mental illness needs to be advocated for within the schools' halls and talked about without the bad connotation.
(Blad, 2019)

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Parkland, Fla., is experiencing a fresh wave of grief after the recent suicides of two students who survived the mass school shooting there last year.

A swell of coverage of those deaths-and of an apparent suicide of the father of a child who died in the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn.-are driving questions about suicide contagion, trauma, survivor's guilt, and student mental health to the forefront. And those questions are relevant to educators around the country, even if their students haven't survived a collective trauma that dominated headlines.

Prevention experts say it's wrong to assume a single cause for any specific suicide, even those in Parkland. But, recognizing that students there have an obvious need for support, a coalition of schools, community groups, and faith organizations has organized to connect students to counseling and resources as the town grapples with more losses.

Even far outside of the affected communities, widespread news reports and social media posts about suicides can produce a contagion effect, some prevention researchers say. That's particularly true if the coverage sensationalizes the death, provides too many concrete details, or frames suicide as an inevitable response to mental health issues or difficulties in life, said Christine Moutier, the chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Education Week spoke about the events in Parkland with Moutier and with Michael Anestis, associate psychology professor at the University of Southern Mississippi and co-chair of the American Association of Suicidology's firearms and suicide committee. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or text TALK to 741741.

Moutier emphasized the important role that educators play in supporting students. Teachers should be mindful about changes in student behavior, and they should offer resources to students who share mental health concerns or thoughts of suicide, she said.
What would you say teachers need to know and think about right now as teen suicides are in the news?
Moutier: First of all, I would thank educators for doing the job that they do because it is so multi-faceted and they are being looked to for so many layers of youth development these days. And I would just try to make them aware, if they're not already, that at any moment in any of their classrooms, there's a certain percentage of students who are actively struggling but not necessarily showing it overtly. The stats on that from the Youth Risk Behavior Study [a federal survey of student risk-taking behaviors] most recently is about one in five students in the past 12 months has had serious thoughts of suicide.
Discussions about suicide and student mental health can be intimidating for teachers and parents. Do you have any recommendations?
Moutier: The most basic thing that any kind of adult can do is to model it, to say, "I've struggled before. I've faced challenges in my life because we all do. It's a matter of time before we do, or it's a just a question of what the details of that challenge will be." ...

Avoid filling the silence with too much of your own talking. A student can feel valued and validated by active listening. It's hard for us adults to do. And it's probably [hard] for teachers, too, who are used to giving more of a didactic kind of experience in the classroom.

And avoid quick-fix statements. And that's hard. Because you want to be hopeful... but avoid saying, 'That's no big deal. You've got this.' The minimizing of the struggle that they're in is what they're already afraid of when they take the risk of telling the adults what's going on. So avoid minimizing, avoid quick-fix solutions, avoid platitudes, avoid any kind of judgmental language around the struggle itself.

If a young person is sharing about symptoms of depression, or burnout, or sleep problems, or scary ways they are thinking or feeling, be extra compassionate. Thank the students for sharing about that, let them know that there's help available and that those experiences they're having are not a forever state.

The adolescent brain is in a state of transition where that primitive part of the brain-the fear response, the stress response, energy ,and impulsivity-are fully developed by age 14, but the cortical areas of the brain, that higher cortex of thinking-executive functioning, planning, and ambition-that doesn't finish developing until early to mid-20s. So kids are not thinking in terms of the long haul. Teachers can help students not only feel supported in the moment, but also to ... bridge through to this longer-term perspective of their life.
For a teacher in a school far from Florida, whose students haven't experienced a big, collective trauma like a school shooting, it might be difficult to see how these headlines might affect them. But is there reason to be concerned that these stories could affect them, too?
Moutier: Just because your local community hasn't experienced the trauma doesn't mean that individuals within the community aren't going through their own family and individual health circumstances. You have young people who are already carrying their own risk load, perhaps quite invisibly and undetected to those around them. And that's part of our job is to dial up the sensitivity on our radar so that we see the change when it happens.
And they might relate to one of these Parkland survivors for reasons that adults can't even understand. The link is real to them.
Moutier: That's a great point. The relatability of the circumstances may be quite invisible. And that is a real factor for many young people.

For youth, the potential for contagion is even greater because they're in that formative developmental stage where they're... looking for those ways of better defining themselves. And if they have had a traumatic background or some type of sensitivity in their past, then those stories may in fact feel much more close to them.

Anestis said it's important for families to safely store firearms and other objects that may pose a danger to a child in crisis. And it's important for schools to communicate with families about potential risks.
What are the unique concerns for students who've experienced a high-profile trauma like a school shooting?
Anestis: Any time you have a traumatic event-loss to suicide or gun violence or any other form of traumatic loss-there's always a risk around the time that it happens. There's always a risk that pops up around times like anniversaries.

The attention and the nature of what this past year has been for Parkland students, I think, has been relatively unique. The plus of it is that it's really changed the gun conversation, which I think is great, and I consider them absolute heroes for what they've been doing. The down side is probably that they've been in the limelight. There hasn't been a lot of time for them to be away from it. For some folks [activism around issues like gun violence and school safety] has been a great sort of healing avenue for them. It's been an outlet for them to be able to do some good with it. But for some other folks, it has probably been difficult in that it's hard to just have a normal day because it's always about that day.
What are some things schools that experience losses like this can do to help students?
Anestis: You don't want to create hysteria and create the impression that suicide is truly contagious. It doesn't come out of nowhere. People who are at risk for suicide or died by suicide, they don't catch it like a virus. Right? So the word contagion can be tricky that way.

At the same time, you don't want to underestimate what people are going through. One of the things that ...[researchers] have found in the research on folks who survived [lost someone to suicide] is that the people who are most impacted by it aren't always the ones you'd expect. And so yes, you'd expect people really close to these particular folks who died to be really hurting right now, and that closeness matters. But also there are folks that consider themselves loss survivors that didn't know the person very well and probably couldn't even explain to you why it has impacted them that much.

One of the things that a community needs to do is to make sure that everybody knows they can have access [to counseling and support], and that what they're feeling is valid and something that they can get help with. They need to make sure that there's a range of options. Not everybody wants to use the same hotline or identifies with the same group. Some people want to speak broadly to a suicide prevention specialist. Someone might want to speak to someone specific to their community-be it military or sexual minority or something like that. And so the idea is to reach out and take people seriously. Offer a variety of resources, and do your best to make sure those resources are grounded in some reason to believe they're effective.
I've heard survivors of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. say that they scrutinized their own trauma. They tried to rank it, and some felt like their emotions weren't justified because they weren't as close to the violence.
Anestis: That's not how it works though. People respond to different things differently and they also bring their own lives to that moment. Their lives didn't start at that moment, right? They were their own people with their own lens through which they saw their world. And so how they're impacted by that [event] is going to differ. So it's not a right or wrong.

People feel what they feel, and what they feel is valid. And so if somebody was right there and they're not feeling traumatized, they don't need to feel bad about that... And on the flip side of that, if someone was really far from it and it's really impacting them, they also don't need to feel guilt about that. We have very little control over what we feel. We have more control over what we do about it. But what we feel can be made worse if other people or we ourselves try to talk ourselves into feeling badly about it.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has assembled resources to help parents, educators, and the public understand and discuss suicide:
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or text TALK to 741741. You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. Follow @evieblad on Twitter or subscribe to Rules for Engagement to get blog posts delivered directly to your inbox.

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After Suicides of Parkland Survivors, Here's What Educators Should Know About Supporting Students

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Parkland, Fla., is experiencing a fresh wave of grief after the recent suicides of two students who survived the mass school shooting there last year. A swell of coverage of those deaths-and of an apparent suicide of the father of a child who died in the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn.-are driving questions about suicide contagion, trauma, survivor's guilt, and student mental health to the forefront.

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STEP 3- Legal & Ethical Issues with Mental Illness

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STEP 3- Legal & Ethical Issues with Mental Illness

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A topic that I will always advocate for 100% is mental illness. As someone who has had personal experiences with mental illness and never received the help I needed, I believe I went through rough patches that could have been avoided or much easier to go through had I opened up to my counselor or a teacher. Mental Illness can lead to self-harm and/or suicide. I believe if the appropriate support is available to the students, they will benefit and flourish from the help they receive.

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STEP 4- Researching Mental Illness // Peer Reviewed

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STEP 4- Researching Mental Illness // Peer Reviewed

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While researching mental illness in Angelo State's library data base, I came across the article, "Relationships Between Social Support Sources and Early Adolescents' Mental Health: The Moderating Effect of Student Achievement Level," written by Tiffany Stewart & Shannon Suldo. The article states how mental illness is often seen as second, after academic success. The article highlights the importance of social support in adolescents and the positive impacts it can have in different aspects of one's life. In addition, the article states the affects one can have if they lack parental support. Overall, the article discusses the significance of seeking help and support.

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Angelo State University - Library Online Resources

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Unauthorized use is prohibited; Usage may be subject to security testing and monitoring; Misuse is subject to criminal prosecution; No expectation of privacy except as otherwise provided by applicable privacy laws.

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This article emphasizes one in five students will face problems with mental illnesses throughout their school years (NASSP, 2018). In paragraph 2, it states how school nurses, school psychologists, and school social workers are shared amongst different campuses; therefore, it is difficult to find help with limited resources. One statement that stood out was how mental health is not a priority of many campuses but a dramatic event occurs, such as a school shooting or the loss of a classmate due to suicide.

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Mental illness is not limited to depression and suicide, but on a much larger spectrum which includes ADHD, eating disorders, autism, and more (NASSP, 2018). As a future counselor, it will be my responsibility to guide students not only on their academic success, but encourage mental health as well. Mental health needs to be encouraged and talked about in order to reduce the negative stigma students may have of it. Talking about mental health allows students to be in favor of seeking the help they need in order to grow positively as a person.

School counselors must be ready to assist any student that comes in seek of help for mental illness. Students must know that regardless of their ethnic background, socio-economic background, academic standpoint, reputation, they can confide in a school counselor and together, work for solutions. Students are often scared to open up to someone due to the fear of being judged, therefore as a counselor, one must always welcome the student with open arms as they have found the courage to open up about things that they might have been holding in for a long time.