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CTC Institutes
and Registration information |
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Required Preparation for
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ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL COUNSELORS
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26-30 June 2008
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London
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- My
name is Mary Russman and I will have the honor of piloting,
with you, the CTC Course “Essential Skills for the
International School Counselor.” I have been a College
Counselor, a K-12 Counselor, a University Counselor, and a
Middle and High School Counselor in Greece, Italy,
Bangladesh, Nepal and Argentina. For the past nine years I
have been a Principal in Argentina, Zimbabwe and The
Netherlands. Joining me this year for our section on
transitions programs will be Doug Ota, a child and
adolescent Psychologist working as a High School Counselor
at The American School of The Hague.
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the short time we will be together we will be focusing on
the personal competencies and skills necessary to address
the three major facets of counseling: affective (including
transitions), academic and communication. For those of you
with counseling experience, you have just been given the
title In-house Experts. We will draw on your area of
expertise and may count on you to run some break out
sessions. For those of you new to Counseling, you will serve
as In-house Reality Checkers. When folks with
experience jump ahead and more information is needed, you
will be counted on to bring us all back to reality.
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1.
In advance of your arrival, please read:
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· Third
Culture Kids (Chapter 13-Dealing with Transition),
by David C. Pollock & Ruth E. Van Reken, Nicholas Brealey North
America, 2001. This chapter is provided for you in this
document.
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A copy of this
book will be given to you during the course for you to take
home. If you already have access to it, Chapters 3, 13
(provided below), 15 and 16 will serve as the basis for part of
the work on Transitions. If you can, read the entire book; it’s
a gem!
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2.
Please make certain to bring these materials with you:
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One copy
each of:
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Job description
for your school’s Counseling (or pastoral) position
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Samples of
articles, announcements, notices/handouts generated by the
Counseling Office
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Referral process -
any forms or guidelines you have for this process
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Booklets, parents
letters, handouts, etc. generated by the Counseling Office
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Transition
materials from your school - for parents, students and teachers
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Any
information/format for meetings you have about students. (We
call them Student Study Team ‘SST’ Meetings)
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Intake materials
used for new students and their parents
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these materials will be used during different parts of the
course and are essential learning tools for us so leave home the
dressy clothes and pack the materials!
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3. In
an effort to ‘cash in’ on the experience of the people enrolled
in the course, participants will also be asked to contribute the
following:
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(If you are not a
practicing counselor, ask a counselor in your school for the
first two items listed below)
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A warm up
activity you have run with teachers, students or parents
that worked well. Should take minimum props/materials and take
no more than five minutes to run. Why? Warm up activities can
set the tone and get people focused/interested. Between the ones
you run in the afternoons and the ones I run in the mornings you
should go home with a large coterie of warm-up activities.
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A brief
presentation or talk you have given in the counseling
context. This can be a power point, a walk through of a hand
out, or a prepared talk about a counseling related topic. Why?
Sharing ideas with the class and establishing yourself as a
resource person for the class and schools world- wide are
desired outcomes for the course.
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A willingness
to acknowledge we have limited time. As Counselors, we
process everything, take some time away from what we are dealing
with, and then process some more. When Bambi Betts and I were
working on the course, she would say “that will take you 10
minutes” and I would snort and say “I know Counselors, make that
20!” Why? I will use a timer and we will have to embrace this
concept or we will never get through the material
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Confidentiality/level of disclosure
- Why? We will all
need to feel comfortable talking with each other, talking about
our experience and will need to trust each other for “what is
said during the course stays in the course.”
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4.
Vignettes
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In
preparation for the small group sessions in the afternoon,
please bring at least one written (no more than one page) case
study or vignette dealing with a problem or situation related to
counseling you have confronted during your career.
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5.
Respond
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- Last and
definitely not least, I need to know more about you before the
class starts. When you receive this letter, email me back at
mrussman@ash.nl and answer the following points. The
information you provide will help me plan some things and tweak
others and should make the settling in process much easier.
- Your work
experience
- Your
counseling experience (or reasons why you want to become a
counselor)
- An area(s)
of counseling or pastoral work that you have enough knowledge
about that you would consider running a job-alike lunch or
sharing your materials or giving a presentation
- 3 things you hope to gain from
attending this course
- Questions you have now
- I can’t wait to get started on
this with you!
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- All the best,
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Mary Russman
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Preparation Assignment:
CTC London Information & extra
night booking for:
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