Look Who's Been "Spotted!": Scrapbook of a School Counselor

I’m excited to add another blog to My Favorites today! Scrapbook of a School Counselor is a wonderful school counseling blog authored by Tabitha Panariso. Tabitha shares a fresh perspective of school counseling with unique ideas for new and veteran counselors alike. I’d like to take this time to share why her blog is one of my favorites.

Tabitha shares her use of surveys and data to help drive her school counseling program. I was impressed last year by her post Needs Assessments and Thick Skin. In this post Tabitha fully disclosed her feelings of discouragement and sadness after surveying the staff at her school and receiving commentary on one of the anonymous surveys which “crushed” her. I admired her first for sharing this with her readers, but mostly for picking herself up, dusting herself off and recognizing her first year was a success and one point of view could not define her entire school year. The last section of her post is very encouraging. Check it out!

This year she surveyed grades 3-5 and acquired feedback from her students to assist her with program planning for the coming school year. She created the survey using Google Drive. You can read more by viewing her post Surveying Your Student Population.

Tabitha has great small group ideas. One very popular post tells how to make a Worry Box. She uses this with small groups and individual students. This activity allows students to share their worries anonymously and helps the school counselor facilitate a discussion with the group regarding how they can relate to those worries. I like that it can be used to facilitate discussion about any topic of concern for students. More recently, she shared a great girl’s group post. Her group is called S.A.S.S. which stands for “Stong And Smart Sisterhood.” In her post, she gives the pros and cons about her experience with the group this year. She lists several resources school counselors can use when planning a girl’s group. She also shares a photo of a felt quilt the students made at the conclusion of the group. Love it!!

Tabitha shares a variety of activities to use with your students. Be sure to check out this cute kindergarten lesson using the book How to Be a Friend. There’s also Kindness Boomerang where she shares a great kindness lesson that was used with her fourth graders. Additionally, there’s this individual counseling technique which uses fun glasses to change how students look at different situations.

If you have not had the opportunity to check out this great blog, you can visit by clicking the button below. It’s great to have bloggers like Tabitha who continue to verify why school counseling is such an awesome profession. Thanks, Tabitha!

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