School Counselors - Planning for 2023-2024

Alison Sumski, CEI Research Assistant, and Christine Mason, CEI Executive Director

How are school counselors supporting children’s mental health and well-being in your school? Are they also a resource for staff who are also experiencing trauma? As you look toward the Fall of 2023, are you anticipating any differences in how they are deployed?  

In planning for how to work with school counselors in 2023-2024, here are a few things to consider:

• What worked well last year?
• Did children who needed the most support get adequate services?
• How did your school counselor support teachers and other staff last year?
• Did you conduct any feedback sessions to get input from staff about their most serious needs?
• If you could make one change to better support students’ mental health, what would it be?
• Is your counselor adequately prepared?

The demands for mental health supports in this post-COVID era are huge. When you examine the above list, think of results in terms of continuous improvement – what can be done to better deliver mental health services? All the needed improvement will not happen at once. It will likely take a dedicated effort over many months to make a significant change...

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Mindfulness in Classrooms: A Window to Well-Being

Alexis Richmond, CEI Research Assistant, and Christine Mason, CEI Executive Director

It is no secret that teachers and students alike bring trauma, stress, anxiety, and more into the classroom with them each and every day. While we can’t prevent this from happening, we can work to put solutions in place that help reduce the likelihood of a negative impact on the classroom.

To combat trauma and anxiety, mindfulness has gained traction in the educational world. As Katherine Weare, a professor at the University of South Hampton, reports in her review of 30 significant research studies on mindfulness based interventions (MBIs), the overall well-being of students can be positively influenced by practicing mindfulness in the classroom. In her review, Weare found positive impacts from MBIs on academic performance, executive functioning, and self-regulation, even as she recommends additional randomized controlled studies of MBIs (Weare, 2019)...

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A Long Day at Work: Training Your Mind for Focus and Fulfillment

Chandni Lal, CEI Research Assistant

Your manager calls your name and asks about your opinions on a project. You abruptly snap out of your mental distraction and realize that you've been oblivious to your surroundings, unable to answer the question. This common occurrence can happen up to 90% of the time in a day (Kane et al, 2017). Daydreaming can sometimes be a resource (e.g. during traffic or a boring event), however, it can also lead to negative consequences when we struggle to sustain focus during crucial tasks and events. 

The good news is that attention isn't simply an inherent ability, but rather a skill that can be developed and refined. When we realize the power of attention, we can better control the direction of our attention, leading us to create a more fulfilled life. As educators, mindfulness can help us improve our attention, awareness, and patience while helping to reduce stress.

Benefits of Mindfulness

We often work on auto-pilot, doing things out of habit and without much thought. When we engage in tasks that require minimal effort or become automatic, the demands on our cognitive abilities decrease. This lowered work demand provides the brain with an opportunity to wander and shift its focus elsewhere. 

Mindfulness is a practice that focuses on directing attention to the present moment, without judgment. It allows us to perform with more focus and efficiency...

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