Dear Student,
Making your way through school is a long journey—one that may include many twists and turns. In West Virginia, we want to make sure that all students can get help from your school counselor as needed for academic, career, and personal-social planning and development. It is important that you know how your school counselor can help you. We hope that you will feel that your school counselor is your partner in school success and in helping you plan for future success. School counselors are trained to help you with the following:
Academic Planning and Development
- Helping you take the right classes
- Helping you understand your test scores and how they relate to academic and career planning
- Helping you improve your academic skills and locate help such as:
- Tutoring programs
- After-school programs
- Study skill aids
- Study skill groups
- Academic improvement groups
- Helping you understand your learning style and how to plan ways to improve your learning based on how you learn best.
Career Exploration and Planning
- Helping you recognize your strengths and weaknesses and how that relates to planning for a career
- Helping you explore a variety of career choices
- Helping you begin to plan early for a career you might like
- Helping you develop strengths that will prepare you for a variety of career choices in our Global 21 world.
- Providing resources to help you explore careers with your family at home
- Helping you understand your high school “Programs of Study” as it relates to course selections and career options.
- Meeting with you and your parents/guardians and possibly your advisor to update your school plan each year.
- Helping with the post-secondary application process including locating scholarships, financial aid and the training option that best fits you
Personal Problems and Social Skills
- Providing a caring person to talk to that you can trust to keep what you say between the two of you
- Helping guide you when you have personal problems that interfere with school success
- Providing individual counseling, as needed.
- Working with you in a group with other students expressing similar concerns, when needed.
- Providing classroom lessons on topics relevant to your age group that may prevent you from making poor choices
- Responding to a school-wide or individual crisis through individual counseling, group counseling, or classroom interventions.
- Responding to your concerns when things happen at home and you need someone to listen and care
- Helping you adjust to relationship and friendship changes.
- Contacting community agencies on your behalf or providing you the information you need
- Working with other school staff, as needed, to support you
- And much more …
An important thing to know is that your counselor must keep everything you talk about “confidential” except the following:
- Threats of harming yourself
- Threats of harming others
- Someone else is threatening to harm you
………OR
- You shared that someone else has harmed you
Keep in mind, the counselor’s main priority is to help you succeed, so it’s important that they protect you from yourself and others.
It is our desire at the West Virginia Department of Education to support your success in school and to encourage you to build a strong relationship with your counselor to support you every step of the way. Please talk to your counselor and seek help when needed.
If have questions or concerns, please contact me.
Respectfully,
Barbara Ashcraft, MA, LPC
School Counseling Coordinator
bashcraft@access.k12.wv.us
304-558-2348 |
