Like many professionals, school counselors benefit from an environment in which they can communicate and collaborate regularly with their peers. But if you work in a small school or a sparsely populated school district, you may find yourself on your own, lacking the kind of robust community that can offer much-needed mutual support.
Luckily, like many facets of the world today, the school counseling profession benefits from the increased connectivity offered by the internet. School counselor websites, blogs and other resources abound online, offering counselors across the country and around the world the opportunity to share ideas, commiserate about professional challenges and work to continuously improve their counseling practice together with their peers.
Below, we’ve singled out five standout school counselor blogs that can help you stay informed about developments within this dynamic field and provide novel ideas to keep your skills sharp and your students engaged.
Savvy School Counselor
Savvy School Counselor is an incredible resource for counselors seeking advice, assistance or ideas for any facet of their counseling practice. It contains lesson ideas, literature recommendations, anti-bullying tips, reviews of iPad apps, and much more. Vanessa Green Allen, a published author in the field of childhood counseling literature and the owner and operator of this immensely useful school counseling blog, has updated it regularly since it launched in 2012, and she infuses each of her posts with insightful kernels of experience she has gleaned over a career spanning 28 years.
Vanessa stands out among school counseling bloggers for the way she actively solicits and welcomes feedback regarding new and helpful directions her content can take. In particular, she is certified in school counseling by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and she invites all readers of her blog to contact her regarding any aspects of the certification process they would like to see covered in a future blog post. A visit to the Savvy School Counselor blog can thus help you refine your current school counseling techniques and guide you through the processes and protocols that shape a counseling career journey.
Confident Counselors
For a more collaborative approach to school counselor blogging, check out Confident Counselors, which is run by a collective of school counselors, psychologists and social workers from across the country. Confident Counselors is a robust resource offering incisive advice on counseling topics ranging from fun and playful to truly challenging. If you are an elementary school counselor seeking novel ideas for classroom crafts; a high school counselor looking for new college preparation strategies; or a counselor at any level in search of assistance handling serious issues like bullying, suicide and sexual abuse, Confident Counselors is a must-visit.
In addition to the core set of counseling professionals who maintain the blog, they also welcome contributions from guest bloggers through an easy-to-access interface. If you have unique insights into counseling practice, you could see them amplified across this school counselor blog’s social channels and find yourself engaged in provocative dialogue with a broad network of your peers.
Social Emotional Workshop
If you are seeking a school counseling resource specifically focused on social-emotional learning, look no further than the Social Emotional Workshop. The work of Laura, a New York-based school psychologist, Social Emotional Workshop offers advice on the development of social-emotional skills, cognitive behavioral therapy, individual and group counseling, and more. Like her more helpful peers in the school counselor blogosphere, Laura is very easy to contact directly via private message with questions about her posts, resources or other topics relevant to her area of expertise. Social Emotional Workshop also offers a paid membership tier in addition to its free blog content. Called “The Toolbox,” this premium library offers tangible resources that can make an immediate, positive impact in your counseling practice.
Books That Heal Kids
A targeted resource for school counselors seeking literature recommendations that can make a positive impact on their students, Books That Heal Kids provides extremely thoughtful and comprehensive reviews of dozens of such books. The blog’s author and book collection curator Roxanne helpfully categorizes books by topics covering a broad spectrum of issues that may come up during a child’s developmental years. These include adoption, anxiety, bullying, death and grief, disability, divorce, gender expression, manners, race and racism, and many, many more.
Roxanne is a truly hands-on advocate for the transformational power of children’s literature. She personally hand-selects all of the books she covers in her blog, and she only writes and promotes books that she has actually used to positive effect in her own life and work. She is a powerful resource for any elementary school counselor hoping to add meaningful and focused new books to their library.
ASCA On Air
While not a school counselor blog in the conventional sense, the ASCA On Air page is a feed of recorded webinars and podcasts from the American School Counselor Association. While it does require an active ASCA membership to access video materials, it features a host of helpful content for school counselors working at any level. Webinar topics include academic development, legal and ethical issues in counseling, college and career readiness, social-emotional learning, and more.
The podcasts available through the site are perhaps even more engaging, as they range from discussions of parent involvement in school counseling practice to an interview with the creator of controversial Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.” Visitors can subscribe to their podcast feed through all major mobile OS podcast apps.
Let an M.Ed. in Counseling From William & Mary Be Your Greatest Counseling Resource
The William & Mary School of Education is committed to developing competent, effective, social-justice minded school counselors, both by connecting them to resources like the ones offered in this blog post and through our Online Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Counseling program.
Explore our concentration in School Counseling, including its curriculum and practicum and internship requirements, and see how you can build the skills you need to be an effective licensed counselor through this flexible online program.