Personal Narrative: Creating School-Based Interventions

As the standards of the counseling profession are continuously being shaped, I desire to play a role in the educating

My pursuit of becoming a School Counselor led me to apply to the School Counseling Master’s Program at University of Maryland, College Park. I am a former student at University of Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. After graduating and teaching for two years in Prince George’s County Public Schools, I discovered my true passion lies not only in the classroom and students’ academics, but playing a pivotal role in the growth of their career, social, and personal development. Although I am no longer teaching full-time at the moment, my interaction with students from diverse backgrounds left an indelible responsibility to continue making a difference in our students. The objectives and mission of the School Counseling Master’s Program at University of Maryland can best help my goal of becoming an effective counselor and leader who is an agent of change to students and service the mental and emotional well-being of the younger generation.

The experiences that I shared with those students presented me with great satisfaction. This influenced my decision to apply for a graduate degree in school counseling. Although, at this point in time I do not hold any experiences in school counseling I have researched ways to gain that experience. Volunteering at both public schools to shadow licensed school counselors and independent counseling centers will provide me the necessary experiences to gain hands on knowledge for the field. The ability to relate interpersonally to individuals from different cultural backgrounds is extremely important for a counselor. Being knowledgeable of a client’s culture, identity, ethnicity, race and gender play a major part in the counseling process. Possessing cultural competent is key to engaging a diverse clientele. Culture norms and rules change the way an individual interact. I understand the importance of identifying the barriers and bias in interacting with individual from different cultures. Through my previous years of education and current work experiences I obtained valuable interpersonal skills. These skills assist with communicating effectively with a diverse group of individuals. Those skills involved effective listening, problem-solving, decision-making, assertiveness, and verbal and non-verbal communication. In detail, while working as teacher, I was afforded the opportunity of advising interns on making practical

Counseling has many components in different fields such as a school counselor, marriage and family counseling, addiction counseling, individual and private practices, and many more. For my project, I interviewed Mrs. Ross Freeman, a school counselor who talks about her journey of becoming an Elementary School Counselor. We discuss what the requirement and cost were to receive a license in the counseling field. We were also able to discuss the average salary and hourly wages for a counselor in WISD. Mrs. Freeman then goes on to enlighten me about the rewards, challenges, demands and frustrations of a school counselor.

I believe counseling is a collaborative partnership between client and counselor. Furthermore, this collaborative partnership is built from trust and acceptance of both client and counselor. I hope in conjunction with clients to understand the issues and concerns so to help them tap into their wisdom, creativity, and strengths to meet their current challenges. I believe in a comprehensive perspective through which clients can better comprehend themselves in the framework that our thinking about events can lead to emotional and behavioral upset. Moreover, counselors are to provide a safe environment for clients to explore their challenges and identify ways to move differently in overcoming these challenges.

For my interview project I interviewed a counselor named Cristina Kleinfelter who works at Pottsgrove Middle School with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Her and a colleague split 400 students in the school and meet with each one of their 200 assigned students when needed. She sees students when she goes to the classroom to teach social skills, and help with college. They both have a mixed population of students they work with whether it be students from broken homes, good homes, etc. She has her Master’s Degree in Counseling and is certified in school counseling, she has been in this field for 14 years so far. She works with the 8th graders the most, with their high school schedules, she explains to them how to pick classes and how to apply to

On a bright and crisp morning of March 25, 2015, I interviewed Joni Roche and learned what a typical day was like for this Professional Counselor. Mrs. Roche has owned her own practice for nearly eighteen years and has truly loved every single part of it. Mrs. Roche has received a Master of the Arts degree and is a Licensed Profession Counselor and a Nationally Credited Counselor. During my interview with Mrs. Roche, I truly learned so many things from different counseling techniques, what it is like to have a private practice and the good and bad things counseling comes with that people do not necessarily speak about.

I could confidently say meeting with her confirms the many reasons I’ve considered a career as a school counselor and plan to apply to school counseling graduate school programs. Her job clearly has its demanding moments however I sensed that overall her satisfaction with her job was very high. She plays an important role to enriching the lives of many students and through that she finds much purpose in her job

My video followed the story of Frances Collins-Moore, a counselor at Marshall Fundamental High School. Her story highlights many topics related to school counseling including the importance of being flexible with professional duties, working directly with your student population, communicating with parents, student and teacher advocacy, and the importance of self-care. She worked as a teacher for ten years before transitioning to school counseling and has worked in a direct counseling role for the last ten years. I really appreciated her holistic approach to school counseling. She recognizes that different approaches are needed with different students in order to properly motivate them and address their concerns. She also sees herself as a

The more she studied counseling, the more she found it fulfilling and had honestly believed that she found her calling in life. Amy has been at the Methodist Children’s Home for about three and a half

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Felicia Garret. Felicia is a professional counselor who works at the ODU counseling center. I chose to interview her for my class assignment for a couple of reasons. One reason was I’ve always had an interest in being a counselor. Another reason, was it would give me the opportunity to learn more about the resources the university offers to students. The interview went smoothly and I learned a lot about how the counseling center operates.

The Girls, Inc., internship site is a great place for students who are seeking to prosper in a psychology career dedicated to counseling and mentoring school-age children, the facility offers many learning opportunities for school psychologists, teachers, guidance counselors, or simply any student who has a desire to offer their services in a field that is conducive of serving as a positive role model for school-age (K-12) young girls. Girls, Inc. offered me the opportunity to collaborate with professionals from the Executive Directors, including classroom instructors that offered a wide variety of educational backgrounds, together serving as an invaluable resource in my future. The facility offers interns nothing more valuable than hands-on

I enjoy talking to people, especially when addressing their problems. I enjoy and find listening to people’s problems and giving them a possible solution to their problem interesting. That is why I want to pursue a career in the clinical/ counseling field in psychology. There I would be working with a certain population of people and deal with a certain issue. Careers that fall into these field include school counselors, industrial psychologists, and even a teacher. When talking about my internship, I was a mentor for a club and worked with elementary schoolers on a weekly bases. Even though I had a high position of authority, I approached them as a friend and along with my peers, we were able to observe the students amazed at all the STEM activities that were presented to them. In a way, I acted like a teacher and was able to participate with the students as they were engaged in their

This semester, I participated in a phone interview with Guidance Counselor, Heidi Guse from North Cedar Elementary School. She wanted to talk to me about some of my previous experiences in the classroom in order to see if I could potentially be a good fit for a school counseling internship for the Spring of 2018. This position would be flexible to the needs of the school as well as her own wishes for me to fulfill.

During this past month I was able to observe Lisa Porter, the counselor at Columbia Elementary School. Lisa Porter works with elementary age students from Kindergarten well on into fourth grade. Due to the lack of funding Lisa Porter is also the school counselor at Mountain View Middle School where she works with middle school grades 5th through 8th grade. Lisa performs a multitude of things with the students from academic, behavioral and emotional counseling. I was able to observe the staff interactions when dealing with the children, individual student sessions, as well as group sessions.