Dates: 8:30 -3:30 pm
March 12, 2010

Location: LAPDA Montpelier, VT

Cost: $125 for LAPDA members
$150 for nonmembers

Registration: http://www.lapdavt.org

Appropriate for school counselors

Course Description:

Graduate school counseling programs prepare students in counseling skills and fundamental knowledge of comprehensive counseling models.  They focus not on the policies and procedures of a particular school system, but on wider skills school counselors would need in any setting.  Some of the specific tools counselors need, such as making referrals, advising on college selection and financial aid, and working closely with parents, are relegated to internships and practicum experiences.  Here, attention to these matters vary.  What is absent in counseling courses and internships is the experience of being a part of a school community and a departmental team.  Interns are spared the bureaucracy and red tape that exists in all schools.  Interns haven’t yet learned to pace themselves against the burnout that troubles so many in the helping professions.  The National Model of School Counseling places school counselors in leadership roles within their schools; graduate school rarely, if ever, provides leadership training or discuss the counselor’s role in the total school operation.  The Counseling 202 workshop offers guidance in these areas.

This course is intended for school counselors, K-12, in their first few years of practice.

Topics will include:
•    Taking care of yourself
•    Practicing prevention
•    Knowing your craft
•    Working with students
•    Working with parents
•    Developing professional relationships
•    Advocating for your professions
•    Surviving in a bureaucracy
•    Becoming an educational leader.

The workshop will provide an opportunity for new counselors to connect with other new counselors, establish a network for mentoring, and raise questions about the practice and procedures of school counseling.

  Kate Wilson, Ph.D. was a practicing school counselor for 30 years. After 28 years in Maryland as a counselor, department chair, and high school counselor specialist in Montgomery County Public Schools, she worked in Vermont as a secondary school Director of Guidance and Counseling.  She has a Ph.D. in school counseling from the University of Maryland, with an emphasis on program administration. She has taught in the counseling graduate program at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins. She has served as a reviewer for The School Counselor, the professional journal of ASCA, and as President of the Maryland Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors (ACES).  She consults with schools regarding the development and implementation of their counseling program as well as providing counselor supervision.  She was the keynote speaker at the Vermont School Counselor Association Fall '08 Conference.