Blog
Are You Ready to Become a Solution Focused Counseling & Climate Specialist (SFCCS)?
- By: CASC
- On: 12/04/2019 12:58:09
- In: CASC Blogs
Would becoming a Solution Focused Counseling Specialist be a beneficial investment in your career and the services you provide to your students? We think so!
CAC has opened registration and are looking for a small group of individuals to become certified in SFCCS. We are hosting the second cohort of SFCCS trainer-of-trainers first session next month. The training will be held on Jan. 10-11 in Ontario, California.Besides improving individual counseling strategies with students, Certified Solution Focused Specialist are prepared to use solution focused strategies to improve school climate, add solution focused strategies into schoolwide social emotional learning programs, and train teachers and other school staff in solution focused techniques. We believe that embedding solution focused practices within the school culture is an effective strategy that administrators would want their school-based mental health staff to acquire as a strategic investment in meeting their LCAP goals.
The instructor, Dr. Linda Metcalf is a world-renowned trainer and author of eleven books in Solution Focused Counseling. The course offers knowledge-based and experiential learning opportunities through a combination of two in-person and two web-based training sessions. The in-person training provides attendees with content and hands-on experiential learning opportunities. The eLearning sessions reinforces content knowledge, include individual sharing their experiences in implementing SFCC. Please keep in mind this course has assignment requirements.Learning Objectives
Attendees will learn:
- Essential solution focused skills and apply such skills to academic and behavioral concerns when working with students, teachers and parents.
- Develop comprehensive school counseling plans that include solution focused components that can be systemically applied by the students and supported by the teacher in an effort to fulfill social emotional learning initiatives.
- Design solution focused interventions and applications for team meetings, RTI meetings and other tasks that are expected of a school counselor to create a climate that is engaging and relational.
- Apply solution focused approaches in the training of administrators, teachers and other faculty members to increase student engagement and school success.
STEP 1 – 2-Day Workshops (Ontario, CA)
Day 1 January 10, 2020: Essential Solution Focused Training (6-hours). This session provides attendees with foundational knowledge and in-depth skills-building in Solution Focused Counseling strategies.
Day 2 (January 11, 2020): Implementation Strategies Training (6-hours). This session focuses on specific planning, instructions and activities for implementing solution focused climate strategies in schools. Attendees will gain knowledge of how to tailor the solution focused approach to their unique school campus, how to present the school climate ideas to administration and how to consistently maintain the program in their school.
Step 2 – (February 13, 2020) Online Classroom Meeting (2-hours). Online webinar.
Step 3 – (March 2, 2020) Complete first 8 hours of field study and video. Upload completed assignment to instructor.
Step 4 - (April 2, 2020) Online Classroom Meeting (2-hours). Online webinar.
Step 5 – (April 20, 2020) Complete second 8 hours of field study. Complete video and upload completed assignment to instructor.
FINAL - (May 11, 2020) Solution Focused Counseling and Climate Specialist Certificate awarded upon completion of all requirements.
Click here to register.
| David Kopperud, Education Programs Consultant, California Depa |     |
One of the many roles of a school counselor may include participation in a Student Attendance Review Board (SARB); as such, you may agree that the SARB process has evolved in a manner similar to that of the juvenile justice system in California.
Model SARBs and the Best Approach to Helping Older Habitual Truants
SARBs are doing a much better job of responding to the mental health needs of our young people by linking them to all appropriate school and community services. Model SARBs know that for interventions to succeed, students and families must view them as supportive, not punitive, or judgmental.
While we must ensure school attendance, we have moved away from an overly punitive system to one that relies on the SARB members who have expertise in mental health, as well as school guidance personnel and community-based youth service centers. Older habitual truants often act out of their exposure to trauma and emotional wounds that they are not able to understand.
Our goal is to ensure educational opportunities for all students by listening to them and by involving them and their families in selecting services and resources. They must know that we take their education very seriously and that our desire is to help them succeed.
The SARB diverts pupils with serious attendance and behavior problems from the juvenile justice system to the education system and works with the juvenile justice system to provide support when the normal avenues of school-related intervention have failed.
Click here to read an article titled California can lead the nation in science-based juvenile justice solutions written by the President of the Chief Probation Officers of California.