How to build your counselling support team

A counsellor’s role is to support students in making post-secondary choices. But we should not work in a vacuum; support from school leadership and parents will enable you to be a more effective professional.

The following strategies could help you to advocate for your role and to strengthen your relationships with key stakeholders.

1. Remember: we’re all on the same side

Approaching relationships with senior leaders and parents with empathy is vital. Keeping in mind that all of us are on the same side – all wanting the best for the students – helps to temper frustration.

University and career decisions are emotional and stressful. Sometimes a lack of knowledge or understanding of your responsibilities as the counsellor can become a cause of tension when you receive an unpleasant, possibly accusatory email from a parent or your principal.

Also important in international schools is to consider the cultural backgrounds of your families, or the school or local culture. You do not always need to win the argument as long as you have presented good information and feel that the student has made some viable choices, even if these are paired with highly risky choices.

2. Focus on building relationships

Remember that managing stakeholders involves relationship building and might take time. I joined my first school when university advising was seen as weak by our senior leadership team (SLT) and by many parents. Using some of the strategies I outline below, my colleague and I raised confidence in our work over the year by showing through doing.

3. Absorb your school’s culture

Educate yourself on your school’s culture and mission by talking with colleagues and by observing senior leaders and parents during events and presentations. Read your school website thoroughly. How do senior school leaders talk about your school? Does your school have a formal or informal work style? Is it hierarchical or more flat in structure? How do parents interact with teachers and staff, and how frequently? How do parents receive information?

With this knowledge, you can better communicate with stakeholders and link university counselling work and outcomes to the larger goals of the school.

4. Become an advocate for your role

Inform parents and school leadership about your role. Describe the career and university planning services offered by the counsellors, for example by providing a written description to appear on the school’s website.

Ask for time during whole-year or class-group parents’ meetings at the start of the school year in order to introduce the counselling team – and make sure you frame your description appropriately for the group. Parents in the upper years of high school will need quite a detailed description; lower grades just need to know what lies ahead.

When I formally start working with students in their junior year (Year 12), I ask them and their parents to sign a student agreement that outlines the student’s responsibilities and what they can expect from the university counsellor.

5. Start spreading the news

Educate by sharing university counselling information with the whole school. At my current school, we publish a weekly guidance newsletter with reminders about upcoming events, notices for specific year groups and other information on university planning.

Although some of the details are aimed at specific groups of students, the guidance newsletter is included with the whole-school community newsletter, so that any parent, student or staff member can access the information.

We are also working on building a university guidance website that will house general information on university preparation and testing, as well as copies of resources and presentations we have created.

6. Communicate well – and often

Communicate regularly and proactively. For senior leaders, we have formal points in the year to report on university acceptance data. In addition, counsellors send “good news” emails to our SLT, not only highlighting acceptances at highly selective universities, but also successes on tough cases.

In addition to the weekly newsletter, I will send targeted emails to specific groups of parents about once a term. For example, for US applicants in their senior years, I will send a start-of-school-year message shortly before US early and regular deadlines, in March as decisions are coming in, plus a final message near the end of the school year. Each of these messages outlines what the students should be doing at this point in the process and what I am doing as their counsellor.

7. Summarise outcomes

Communication with school leaders and parents can also include data and summaries of outcomes. When presenting data, anticipate questions or concerns and include explanatory text to try to prevent misunderstandings.

Case studies can also be powerful. In my previous school, we conducted an annual survey of the graduating class about their university planning experience and shared those results with our senior leadership, including how the survey results would influence our planning for the coming year.

8. Be inclusive

Include senior leadership and parents in your events and activities. At my school we share the university visit calendar with parents. We invite senior leadership to major events such as the university fair. We might invite our assistant principal or IB coordinator to join parent presentations to show how we work with them.

I know peers at other schools who ask parents to volunteer to organise university visits or fairs, or to be in charge of updating displays and bulletin boards. The more SLT members and parents can see your work in action through these events, the more they will value the time and effort involved.