How to cope in a school with high turnover of counselling staff

One of the biggest challenges I have faced as a school counsellor was working in a high-transition school. At four years, I was the longest-serving counsellor at the school, and in those four years, I worked with 11 different counselling colleagues. 

Every year we worked towards vertical alignment, a standardised vocabulary, working together on themes common to each of our divisions, collaborating on school-wide issues and not staying in our divisional silos. Some of this work was facilitated by an outside consultant, supported by ongoing clinical supervision through an external group, guided by our supervisor – and constantly disrupted by the exits and arrivals of counselling colleagues. 

At the beginning of year four, I expressed my frustration at having to start the work all over again. I was told, “It’s not new work, Chelsea. You’ve been working on this the whole time.” 

To me, it felt like new work each time we started again. To start again with a new colleague, there needs to be onboarding, explanations and creating and providing treasure maps to guide the colleague through the various school databases and systems to help them find information on a student. There is recalling of why decisions were made, who was in the room, who was the notetaker and where the meeting notes were kept. You must continue your work while also allowing a new colleague the opportunity to contribute their ideas and insights. 

High staff transition rates

Ours was an international school with high staff and student transition rates for various reasons, some of which were ordinary: retirements, families getting new postings, staff deciding it was time to move on. And then there were the out-of-the-ordinary reasons for leaving: Covid, war, major health crises and mandatory administrative leave. 

My counselling colleagues and I supported students, teachers and our colleagues through their transitions. I could have benefited from an institutional understanding of how the change in personnel impacted my work and, most importantly, the work we all did to support our students and families. 

I have been away from working in that school for a year and have had time to reflect on how I could have managed working within a high-turnover model more effectively and with more care/forgiveness/understanding/compassion for the work I was doing. 

If I’m in the same situation again, here are some things I would do.

How to cope in a high-turnover school

Identify an ally in the admin team

Having a member of the admin team with whom you can openly discuss the challenges of always starting over can help you feel like your frustrations have somewhere to go. This same person could also provide some light on the bigger picture, including how the school sees your work and any steps it is taking to minimise the fallout or damage caused by high turnover. 

Create and maintain your own systems

Working within the systems of the school, try to keep records that make sense to you and could be maintained if and when the school decides to change the software its is using. 

Over the four years at the school mentioned above, we used Seesaw, Toddle, ManageBac, Google Classroom, PowerSchool, MaiaLearning, UniFrog and Google Docs. As part of your system, create a map to use to find different information about students. This map can be shared with your admin colleagues and any new colleagues. Identify on the map which software is being used and where. 

Sample map: new student A 

New student A applies to the school and their report cards, transcripts, exam results, edpsych assessment, MAP scores, safeguarding concerns etc are all uploaded to OpenApply or put in an admissions file. 

Admitted: new student A is admitted. At enrolment, all the information from OpenApply or the admissions file goes to PowerSchool or other SIS or in the hard-file folder in the counselling office. 

Enrolled: new student A is enrolled. Their schedule and future grades and report cards will be in Toddle or another LMS software. Now that they are a student at your school, where do you keep your counsellor notes: SCUTA or MaiaLearning or PowerSchool or a secure Google Doc or Excel sheet? Where do you (or the school) keep any behavioural notes, a record of all of the sports, activities, and service the student is involved in while they are a student at your school?

Transfer out or graduation: new student A is transferring or graduating. How do you collate all the above info to send to another school or to a university? Do you use MaiaLearning, Unifrog or BridgeU for universities; CPoms for child protection and safeguarding; a GoogleDrive folder for sharing all school reports with an exiting family or sending to a new school?

As counsellors, we use these systems in different ways and more holistically than our admin or teaching colleagues. They might not know how the change in one type of software will impact the maintenance of student information as a whole. Keeping a similar type of map or chart will help you advocate for students if you see the map being changed along the way

Implement self-care

When everything is changing around you, remember to take care of yourself with fidelity. Take a walk around the school after a challenging meeting or a tough session with a student. Schedule a daily appointment for your break and lunchtime in your calendar. Practise the mindfulness techniques you teach the students. Care for yourself by advocating for yourself, always. 

By aligning your practice as a school counsellor with what works for you within the boundaries of professional associations such as ASCA and ISCA, you will be more equipped to weather colleague turnover and systemic transitions. Cultivating resilience will conserve energy and focus your work so that you can effectively support your students.