Hello! It is wonderful that you found your way here to this page. I appreciate you taking your valuable time to read about the counseling program here at The Main Street Academy!
School counselors are charged with supporting the socioemotional, academic, and career development of all the students they support. While this can sound like a mountain of a task, I take great joy in having the special job of looking at the whole child and helping them on their journey to become empowered young adults.
Childhood is a critical time for learning life-long skills such as emotional awareness, emotional regulation, conflict management, and informed decision-making. These skills often determine the effectiveness of adults in the workplace and in college. While we can always learn and it is never too late to develop these skills, proactively teaching our children how to recognize and manage their feelings sets them up for success both in school and beyond.
These past several years have highlighted the importance of mental health care as we have lived through several COVID waves, vast political changes, and painful national events. When stress is high, we need to be extra mindful of ways we can take care of ourselves and our loved ones.
Here is a wonderful article about supporting mental health as we go back to school!
TMSA's school counseling program aims to be comprehensive and proactively target the most needed skills at the moment.
Throughout the year I will be delivering the following services:
- Individual counseling for any students grades K-8
- Peer mediation
- Group counseling for subgroups of students who could use support on similar topics
- Semi-monthly core curriculum lessons delivered to all grades K-8
- Semi-monthly parent workshops
- Semi-monthly staff workshops
- Schoolwide assemblies and events such as Career Day, or the NED Show assembly held this past Monday, focusing on positive attitudes towards learning
This month, our counseling lessons have focused on several different topics depending on the needs of each classroom. For many of our classes, we have focused on interpersonal relationships, as we transition back to in-person learning. For grades K-5, I used a curriculum called Kelso's Choices, which provides students with strategies to peacefully resolve conflicts, and reminds students that problems may not be solved the first time. When a child comes to you to solve their “small problem,” you may encourage them to try one to two of Kelso’s Choices first. If that doesn’t work, then an adult can intervene. Make sure your kids know to ask an adult for help in the event of a “BIG problem" or one that involves danger/safety or makes them feel very scared. Kelso's choices are depicted in the wheel below. For the other half of this month's lessons, we focused on developing empathy through understanding how emotions feel and look in our bodies, faces, and how they're related to our thoughts and the world around us.
For 8th Graders, we have several exciting events coming up in the next few months.
- At the end of October, we will host a virtual Rising 9th Grade informational night, with representatives from six high schools
- On November 13th, 8th Graders have the opportunity to take the PSAT here at TMSA and gain experience testing in a low-stakes environment.
- To register, email melissa.letzler@tmsa.org with your child's name and pay just $10 on MySchoolBucks
If you would like to refer your child for counseling or have any concerns or questions you'd like to discuss, I'd love to speak with you and am happy to help!
I can be contacted at melissa.letzler@tmsa.org or the school's main number, ext. 142
Have a wonderful day and Fall Break!