The School Counseling Temptations No One Talks About

Navigating ethical pitfalls and maintaining  professionalism isn't just a part of our job - it's at the heart of our mission as school counselors.

This episode takes a hard look at the delicate dance between best, ethical practices and the pressures that tempt us to bend or overstep our boundaries.

This is the stuff few people talk about: the emotional complexities that come with truly investing in our students' lives. You'll hear firsthand how to balance empathy with professionalism, personal connection with necessary distance, productivity versus rigidity, and why it's crucial to know when to reach out for additional resources and support when things start to feel dicey.

All school counselors need to join this down-to-earth conversation about the stuff we don't always talk about but face every day.

It's a reminder that in our journeys as school counselors, knowing when to ask for support is a strength, not a weakness.

Together, we can navigate the complexities and keep our focus on being there for our students in the absolute best way possible.

Mentioned in this episode:
School for School Counselors Mastermind

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Our goal at School for School Counselors is to help school counselors stay on fire, make huge impacts for students, and catalyze change for our roles through grassroots advocacy and collaboration. Listen to get to know more about us and our mission, feel empowered and inspired, and set yourself up for success in the wonderful world of school counseling.

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Transcript

Steph Johnson: 0:06

Hello school counselor friend, welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast. I'm so glad that you're back here with me for another week. I'm Steph Johnson, your host, full-time school counselor. Just like you, back in the saddle for another week of the podcast. I'm so humbled and grateful that you choose to spend some of your time with me each week.

Steph Johnson: 0:30

When I was a kid, back in the Atari days even the pre Atari days, if you can believe that I'm dating myself a little bit we had a system called an Intellivision. Anybody out there remember those? It was an old, old school gaming console. It was new at the time and instead of having a joystick or something like that, it had this little handheld cartridge with a bunch of number buttons and a little dial kind of thing on it and you use that to play games. Mostly they were card games, solitaire things like that. But eventually my family upgraded and we got a game called Pitfall. I don't know if any of you have played Pitfall Again, I'm showing my age here but in Pitfall it was this little guy who was running this trail in the jungle trying to collect coins and treasure, and every so often he had to swing on a vine over some roaring rapids, or he had to avoid getting chomped by an alligator or something like that, there were always these pitfalls that were jumping up to deflect him from his mission.

Steph Johnson: 1:43

Sometimes I feel like it's that way in school counseling. You know, we're rolling along just fine, we're running to a destination, we're trying to make things happen along the way, but inevitably something jumps up and tries to bite us, and often there are things that are jumping up that we weren't really aware of and that perhaps we brought on ourselves. Ouch, oh, that's a hard conversation to have, but you know and I know that these things happen. So this week we're going to have a gut check. We are going to check in on our professionalism pitfalls and make sure that we're not getting deterred from our mission.

Steph Johnson: 2:26

Before I jump into that, there are some wonderful reviews that I would love to read for the podcast, and I'm going to reach you to this time because I'm not sure if I've read this first one before. I feel like I have, but I couldn't find it in my archives and I want to give it its due attention. So I'm going to give you two this week. The first one comes from a reviewer called Local Customer Family, and they submitted this back in November. So sorry, it's taken me a while to get to it. They entitled their review Old Dogs, new Tricks. They went on to say as a school counselor of 17 years in Texas, go you. I continue to learn, grow and feel supported by your podcast. We are an island, sometimes on our campuses, and it's nice to fill that connection with others. It's great encouragement at a time when our jobs are so needed yet at times doubted and under supported. Please keep up the great work. Thank you, local Customer Family. I appreciate that.

Steph Johnson: 3:32

Our other review comes from CJBO83184. Oh, say that three times fast. Their review was titled Support for a New Counselor. They said always look forward to listening each week, usually while I'm at home doing the dishes. Same girl, same. I get it.

Steph Johnson: 3:54

As a new school counselor, I have found the podcast to be a good balance of bringing to light our day-to-day hurdles while still reassuring us as listeners of our professional skills and best intentions we have for our students. Often listening to the podcast is the only time I hear praise or confirmation for the work and devoted time I put into my counseling program. Thank you, steph. Thank you so much for that wonderful review. I tell y'all these are worth more than gold, not only in helping getting the word out about the podcast for people who need to hear about it, but also just knowing that there are people out there listening and appreciating what my team and I are putting out each and every week. So thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart, all right. Well, let's jump back into this gut check. Let's make sure that we're doing what we need to be doing and that we haven't fallen into any of these pitfalls of things that felt like they were a good idea at the time, maybe some situations that we've slid into and didn't really realize it. We wanna make sure that we're on top of all of the right ways of doing things, all of the ethical ways of doing things, all of the best practice ways of doing things. We just wanna make sure we're giving it our 1,000% so we demonstrate professionalism daily.

Steph Johnson: 5:21

On our campuses, we do a lot of things in order to demonstrate that we are emphasizing inclusivity and treating everyone with respect and kindness, being mindful of diversity. We're also showing effective communication skills. Hopefully. We're striving to be clear and effective when we communicate. We're demonstrating active listening on a daily basis so that folks can experience that as well as see what it is and how they might try to replicate that in their own conversations. We are advocates for student wellbeing. We advocate for their mental health as well as their overall wellbeing. We collaborate with teachers and administrators and outside programs to implement interventions for students to support their wellness.

Steph Johnson: 6:15

We model conflict resolution skills. We model tolerance and respect. We help students learn to navigate conflicts in a constructive and respectful manner. We model empathy and compassion when students are facing challenges. Sometimes I think when we model these kinds of empathy and compassion, it really kind of forces our teachers' hands. If they're not intrinsically wired that way, they notice it, they start to really internalize that and change the way they're communicating with their students. We strive to be timely and responsive when we're responding to emails, phone calls, requests for meetings, showing up, being on time, maintaining accurate documents and documentation, being collaborative with everyone on our campus to enhance overall educational experiences. We're doing all those things every day. That makes me tired just listing all of that out, and that's not even everything we do. There's so much more to our role on campus each and every day. But just to give you a taste of the things I'm thinking about, as I'm talking about the things that people are noticing about us, perhaps the things they seek to emulate about us, and really, at the end of the day, we want to inspire those kinds of positive change.

Steph Johnson: 7:44

However, with all of this professional behavior, all of these professional responsibilities and demeanor, we also encounter some pitfalls. They are very, very tempting, and nothing for nothing. We do work within some microsystems that have a lot of pressure and sometimes a lot of undue influence. Right, some of our campuses for lack of a better way of explaining it kind of operate like dysfunctional families in a way. You ever been on one of those. You know what I'm talking about. Those usually have poor communication. You have power dynamics at play where you don't really know who you can trust or who you can talk to or what's going to happen next, sometimes in negative school culture or maybe inconsistency in the way things are happening. You don't often find all of those all on one campus. Thankfully, sometimes a campus can be great and still have a few of those less than ideal elements in play. But you do get into these environments where you just feel so much pressure, so much expectation to do things in a different way than perhaps the way you would have originally chosen, and so I want to talk through some of the things you may be presented with and perhaps how we can handle those situations.

Steph Johnson: 9:17

First, potential pitfall is breaching confidentiality, sharing sensitive student information without the proper authorization. Sometimes we just feel super pressured to disclose confidential information that might be disclosures to parents, to colleagues or even sometimes to other students. I had a situation on my campus one time. I had a student walk into my office and tell me, hands down, one of the worst stories I'd ever heard in my life. It was painful to listen to, it was difficult to attend to, and after it was over, we had authorities involved. So the next day, when school time rolled around, they weren't at school and the teacher came out of the classroom asking about the student and where they had gone. It was a situation that I was not at liberty to talk about. It was still an ongoing situation, I couldn't provide any details, and so I tried to be very tactful and matter of fact with the teacher and just letting them know. You know there might be some things I can share later on down the road, but right now there's not a lot I can tell you, and this teacher was sweet and precious and loved her students so much. And she followed me out into the hallway and, in a very loud voice some people might have called it shouting she said you need to tell me what's going on. Right now I have an educational right to know Y'all. That was intimidating Right, not only because she was loud and being assertive about wanting to know, with all the best intentions, but because of the nature of the disclosure. Almost felt like if I relayed a little bit of that information it would take a little bit of the hurt out of my heart, it would let me unload a little bit. But I knew that wasn't the right answer. Gosh, I was tempted, though. I still remember that day so vividly and clearly and I see 1000%, see where that teacher was coming from.

Steph Johnson: 11:37

Sometimes we get that same kind of pressure from parents and we walk a tightrope of confidentiality versus parent rights, don't we? That's a constant dance that we have to perform. It's important for you to know your state guidelines. It's important for you to understand ethical guidelines in school counseling, but it's also important to remember this is not a black or white situation. Most of the time it's a very gray area. That's where consultation comes in. That's where discussing ethics with someone to get a different point of view hopefully someone who's well versed in it is going to serve you well.

Steph Johnson: 12:20

Sometimes we get colleague and teacher pressure, as I described earlier. They will have a very valid reason for wanting to know. Or sometimes we're tempted to share more than the bare minimum, more than what's absolutely necessary, especially if we know the teacher well or the other party well. We want to get in good with them, right? We want to be seen as a person on campus that others want to talk to. It can be tempting. I know lots of you are probably sitting and listening and thinking, oh my gosh, I would never do that. Give it time. Give it time because I 1000% guarantee that you will be tempted with this at least once in your career. Because, again, we're human beings. We're not perfect. All the time we are tempted to do things that sometimes we know are not best practice and we're tempted for lots of different reasons. The important thing is that we're aware of this and we're being mindful of it in the moment as much as we possibly can be.

Steph Johnson: 13:28

Sometimes two confidentiality breaches are encouraged by our administrative demands. Your admin may want logs or summaries of student visits. It can be tempting to want to turn those over, just so you don't get hassled about it. I've talked with probably hundreds of school counselors in that situation over the years. That's scary. Sometimes districts want to house student counseling information in computerized hubs and databases somewhere. That can be a real ethical check. You need to really be mindful of that if you're in that process. Keep good consultation in that. And sometimes it's considered administrative reciprocity where you are expected to disclose information to be a real part of the team.

Steph Johnson: 14:20

You ever been there Back to that dysfunctional family idea, right, gotta be careful with that. But you know, really we want to be accepted, we want to be loved, we want to be respected for the work that we do. And sometimes we come across situations or individuals that know how to manipulate those situations to get us to disclose information. And again, sometimes they're doing it with the best of intentions. But we gotta be careful that we don't fall into the pitfall of over disclosing or violating confidentiality. All right. Pitfall number two compromising our boundaries.

Steph Johnson: 15:07

Sometimes we can really develop overly personal relationships with students. And I'm not talking about inappropriate relationships as far as friendships or romantic relationships or anything like that. I'm talking about becoming really emotionally invested in a student or perhaps crossing some professional boundaries in an attempt to be overly supportive. I see this happen a lot. When counselors have their heavy hitters, the ones that keep coming back time and time again, where they've been able to develop quite a bit of rapport, particularly if we know those students are not likely to receive services elsewhere, it starts to kind of blur the lines of our work. Some folks will say I'm going to get them what they need, no matter what it takes, and so if that means I provide some longer term counseling, I guess that's what it means. But then in that longer term relationship we kind of start to default to the overly supportive role. It's a delicate balance, guys. It's a delicate balance. It can lead to favoritism as well, even if it's unintentional. You might catch yourself thinking I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but man, that one's one of them.

Steph Johnson: 16:29

If you find yourself in that situation, just assess yourself. It doesn't necessarily mean you're doing anything wrong, but it means it's time to get mindful about the situation. This could also be acting as a confidant, not only for students, but sometimes coworkers or even parents. It can create an awkward dynamic later on where someone's come to confide in you and maybe kind of blurs your boundaries a little bit. And then, after they're over that upset in the moment, they kind of get embarrassed by the disclosure. Maybe they start to distance a little bit. That can really damage some relationships. So it's important to be mindful of the disclosures that you're receiving.

Steph Johnson: 17:15

Sometimes becoming a confidant can supersede the student-parent relationship, which is a place that we definitely do not want to be. We can encourage students to communicate with their parents. We can really encourage them to have hard conversations. We can model, we can role play, we can do all kinds of things in those situations. But we got to be really careful that we don't start to supersede that parent-student relationship. And you'll come across some folks in the school counseling world that are adamant that it is our job to be the confidant. But I don't think it is Parents or parents. They're guardians, regardless of our opinions. Again, you need to be aware of your state guidelines and your ethical mandates, but you need to really give this some serious consideration if you find yourself in a situation like this.

Steph Johnson: 18:16

This crossing of boundaries can also translate into a failure to refer, where we become hyper-invested in a student and don't want to refer them out or we don't recognize the need. We're in so deep we can't see the forest for the trees. We've got to remember that we don't have to be the savior of students' situations. Our role you've heard me say this many times is to be the helper, not the fixer. So we have to be discerning enough to determine when the situation is in need of additional expertise, if it needs additional time, additional resources or supports that we cannot provide in the school setting, so that we can refer out. This is a heavy conversation this week, right as we're talking about these professional pitfalls, but they're so important to examine and really turn a critical eye to. So first was breaching confidentiality. Second, compromising boundaries. Third, over-commitment and inflexibility.

Steph Johnson: 19:29

Over-commitment can happen when you take on too many responsibilities. We often see this in folks that really seek to be a changemaker. It is just really in their heart to change systems or circumstances for students. Sometimes this is when they're very new school counselors and they haven't yet learned their campus well or found a balance on their campus. Sometimes it's with folks who seem to have a little bit of a lone savior complex, meaning they see themselves as the ultimate solution to a student's problem, and so they feel like they have to be this hero, and that can get pretty dicey. We start to over-commit and that kind of plays into overstepping our boundaries as well. Sometimes you get too many responsibilities because they've been assigned to you. You have an administrator who doesn't understand your role, maybe who doesn't value it, and so you end up struggling to fulfill all these professional duties and it leads to a decrease in the quality of your counseling services. That's over-commitment. The sister to that is inflexibility, where we resist change or we're inflexible in our approaches.

Steph Johnson: 20:52

I think this is a consideration when we're trying to balance ASCA expectations with real-world intervention possibilities, especially if you've just emerged from ASCA land, otherwise known as grad school. You feel like you have all these expectations and the right answers for how your counseling program is supposed to work, and you do become a little inflexible in your initial approaches. You feel like you're doing the right thing by, you know, planning that flag in the ground saying I will do this, I won't do that, I have to do it this way. But really what you end up doing is forcing yourself to work with one hand tied behind your back. You might develop a reputation for difficulty, you might set the stage for some hard relationships, and so sometimes we have to work toward compromises instead of just stating all of our demands upfront. It's a lot like building a new relationship or being in a new marriage.

Steph Johnson: 21:53

We talk about it a lot around here as advocating from the inside out. So we've got to develop a good perspective, learn where and when to lean into flexibility on our campus, and that takes time. We have to be careful of not being too rigid in the process. This could look like failing to adapt to new counseling methods or strategies that we know could benefit students. We know sometimes we have to get creative To benefit students. Well, on our campus Sometimes we have these weird situations or circumstances. We know we need to serve students within, but we just don't know how. So sometimes we got to get a little creative and think outside the box. Sometimes our settings dictate less than ideal approaches. That could be due to lack of resources or time, lack of parent buying in, lack of parent availability. Sometimes we have to meet them where they are. Sometimes we have to really engage in some good consultation to broaden our perspectives, to provide us some different vantage points and give us some different sources of feedback so that we can make sure that we're not over committing or becoming too inflexible.

Steph Johnson: 23:10

And then last, one of the professional pitfalls that's very easy to fall into is inadequate professional development, and we're not staying updated on the latest counseling techniques or best practices. And you're probably thinking, ah no, that'll never be me. I mean, they're slamming professional development down my throat like no buddies business Ain't no way I'm getting behind in professional development. But I want you to take a minute and think Is the professional development that you're being provided or engaging in truly helpful in your unique circumstance? If it's not, you may be victim of inadequate professional development. So, whether it's due to time, whether it's due to overwhelm and not being able to seek those experiences, whether it's due to trying to get your professional development through the scroll, which is super dangerous, please don't do that in these mega school counseling groups, where people are all asking for insight and advice and you start seeing threads of comments that contradict each other. It's a dangerous place to be.

Steph Johnson: 24:22

You've got to make sure you're seeking professional, ongoing development. So look into options in your local area. Here in Texas we have what are called education service centers that provide training for different school districts within a region. There may be foundations, there may be nonprofits that provide this professional development. Sometimes it's pay to play professional development, where you seek a certain workshop and pay for the experience, and that's okay. Make sure you vet those people, but that's a good way to get some experience and some information. Your state or national organizations are going to be a great resource for professional development, as well as consultation groups, like our school for school counselors, mastermind.

Steph Johnson: 25:09

Now, if you seek consultation groups, be discerning. Most groups do not seek to be evidence based consultation groups. They are set up to perpetuate the view of the leader as the expert and that is the end of the story. So be careful with those. We've heard a lot of folks that have come into our mastermind from other groups say that they enjoy the mastermind because they feel like they're being talked with versus being talked at. So be discerning in those relationships and situations. But, no matter where you choose to grow, be intentional about your implementation and your follow through, because once you leave a really great training and you re-enter the real world of your school campus, it's easy to forget what you were so excited about or you neglect the time that it takes to implement the new strategies that you really wanted to try and felt would be beneficial to your students. So just be mindful of that.

Steph Johnson: 26:07

All right, so four big professional pitfalls that we want to be careful that we don't fall victim to. Number one breaches of confidentiality, sharing information through colleague or teacher pressure, administrative demand or parent pressure. Being very, very aware of that and compromising boundaries. Making sure we don't become overly invested in our heavy hitters. Making sure we don't become the confidant of those that are not interested to our care in that way or failing to refer because we're just so hyper-invested or we want to be the lone savior.

Steph Johnson: 26:53

Three the pair of over-commitments and inflexibility. Having too many responsibilities, sometimes self-initiated and struggling to fulfill those, so you're compromising the quality of counseling or resisting change, being inflexible, being militant about your approaches. Or four inadequate professional development, not seeking enough or not seeking the right types. Make sure you find the professional development that's really going to serve your unique circumstances and is going to introduce you to a consultative circle that you can rely on and lean on. If you need a circle like that you've heard me say many times, jump into our School for School Counselors Mastermind.

Steph Johnson: 27:41

It's amazing. You can find out more on our brand new website, schoolforschoolcounselorscom slash mastermind. All the information will be right there for you. I hope this was helpful and was great food for thought, if nothing else, just to cause you to reflect on the way you're doing business on your campus, and if it's healthy and sustainable, not only for those in your care and those around you, but for you as an important, dynamic, innovative human being and school counselor. All right, take this to task, think about it over the next week. I hope you have the best week coming up and, until we talk again, take care.