Revised Small Group Results Report Narrative
One of the interventions for almost all of our program goals is running small group. Individual student meetings happen often through the day, therefore we seek opportunities to address the needs of many students through small group interventions. Our Director of Student Services (DSS) provides the counseling staff with autonomy in choosing our interventions and which counselors will lead specific interventions. To protect instructional time we try to use our Advisory period (non academic time) to complete our group sessions.
English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Group-This group was facilitated by Olivia McKinney and Catrina Clarke. When looking at the Virginia Department of Education report card for Edison High School, we noticed that ESOL students had an English Reading pass rate of 70% and an English Writing pass rate of 72%, whereas the general education students had a pass rate of 92% and 91% respectively. All ESOL students sitting in 11th or 12th grade that had not yet passed their English Reading and Writing SOL were invited to participate in a small group through personal invitation by the counselors. There were a total of eight students who ultimately ended up participating in the group. The results of the group indicate that the intervention was partially successful as the English Reading pass rate was increased by 11% for all LEP students whereas the English Writing pass rate was increased by 9% for all LEP students. Our overall goal was to increase by 10% in both areas.
Self-Esteem, Self-Advocacy, & Personal Empowerment (S-S-P) Group-Over 40% of responders on the student and parent annual needs assessment requested that counselors assist students with self-esteem, self-advocacy, and personal empowerment. Counselors Betty Dely and Stacey Wolfe facilitated a group that could serve this need. We will continue to use the needs assessment to identify the greatest needs of the students and plan interventions to address them. We plan to run this group again as the feedback from students and parents was positive.
Girls Group-The girls group was facilitated by Eugena Smith (School Counselor) and Scot Edmonds (Systems of Support Advisor, SOSA) at the request of our school principal. Our SOSA was chosen to help facilitate this group because he provides interventions for students who have behavior infractions. The group was formed for girls who had been identified as having anger management problems and poor conflict resolution skills. The positive outcome data for these girls in terms of number of discipline infractions warrants us running this group again next year. We would like to see the new group members being mentored by the previous group members.
Lunch Bunch Social group-It was not anticipated that we would hold this group at the beginning of the school year. However, David Schlemmer (School Counselor) decided to form this group because he observed several students who were having difficulty in communicating with their peers and understanding social cues. Although we typically decide on what group topics we will be covering for the year at the start of the year, we do not hesitate to create groups as the need arises.
Senior Group-This group was facilitated by Eugena Smith, David Schlemmer, and Elizabeth Szentkiralyi. All seniors that had failing grades in classes needed for graduation at the semester mark were invited to attend. Of the individuals invited, 10 decided to take part in the group. In the 2015-2016 school year, 88.53% of Edison students graduated on time. Our department goal was to increase this to 90%. Our senior group was successful in reaching this goal as 100% of group participants graduated by August 2017. Conducting this group after the first semester allowed us to have a better indication of who was truly at risk of not graduating on time. The lesson topics covered were relevant and well received. The icebreakers allowed group participants to build rapport. However, through observation of student's body language and lack of willingness to participate fully in icebreakers, in the future, we will spend more time with group discussions and lessons and decrease amount of time spent on icebreakers. We plan to continue to support our seniors by providing a small group at the conclusion of the first semester.
As a comprehensive school counseling program, we ensure that we create programs that address our department goals. Through the development of our lessons, we make sure that our lesson objectives reflect the Mindsets and Behaviors that we believe are important to cover.