President’s Letter: We Can Address Anxiety

Happy New Year, everyone!

This month’s edition of the newsletter is all around student anxiety. Looking over our feedback from the ISCA Conference in November, this seems to be a topic on a lot of people’s minds. I want to answer a lot of questions about anxiety, but I find that the answers aren’t always so easy to find. Can any of you relate to these?

• How do I help the student if they aren’t in attendance at school?
• What supports can I provide to a student who may be unwilling to seek out/ask for help?
• When is the best time to refer this student to outside resources, especially when I know how difficult it is to find an outside mental health provider?
• How can we prevent this from happening in the first place?
• What boundaries are okay to cross and when should I hold back in pushing this student?
• Am I going to harm this child by pushing them outside of their comfort zone?
• Is online school or homeschool really the best option for this student?

I don’t have all of the answers, but I think we can fall back on the practices we all know can put the student first and attempt to prevent any harm to the student. These can include encouraging parent involvement by including them in any team meetings as early as possible.

Or, you can rely on your basic solution-focused counseling skills of scaling to figure out how big the problem is; help the student stay in the here and now; empower them to find ways to control the situation; offer authentic, empathic support; and teach the student coping skills. If your intentions are to help and support your student, I believe you can do just that.

Remember, if you are spending the majority of your time with only a few of your students, it is probably time to refer a couple of them to other supports so that you are still able to support ALL students.

I hope everyone had a wonderful winter break!

Contact Sheryl Cline, Iowa School Counselor Association president, at sherylacline@gmail.com.