Guidance
Good Shepherd Catholic School Guidance and School Counseling
Mission: The mission of the GSCS School Counseling program is to provide resources, personal/social competencies as well as interventions and strategies for each student. Students are provided support to achieve their highest potential through academic success, social, emotional and spiritual growth.
Vision: The GSCS School Counseling program uses research-based curricula that include a guidance curriculum, individual planning and responsive services to promote student success in a faith-based setting.
COUNSELING PROGRAM COMPONENTS
The comprehensive developmental guidance and school counseling program organizes the work of the counselor into three major components: a guidance curriculum which includes classroom and small group lessons, individual planning which includes academic and social concerns and responsive services which address the immediate day to day needs of both students and their families.
GUIDANCE CURRICULUM
The Guidance Curriculum provides guidance content in a systematic way to all students through classroom and/or group activities. Purpose: Awareness, skill development, and application needed for the following three student development areas; personal and social development, and academic development. The guidance curriculum is delivered through both classroom activities and group activities. Topics include, but are not limited to: friendship skills, family dynamics, grief and loss, bullying, social justice, and conflict resolution. The School Counselor’s role includes consultation, program implementation and facilitation.
INDIVIDUAL PLANNING
The individual planning component includes counseling activities to assist all students in planning, monitoring, and managing their own academic achievement, as well as their personal and social development. Individual planning emphasizes educational counseling including academic concerns, social interactions, and study skills. The counselor’s role includes guidance and consultation. The School Counselor is also responsible for case management with various outside agencies that are servicing student’s mental, social and behavioral issues.
Purpose: Student planning, goal setting, emotional and behavioral management are the purpose of individual planning for students.
Issues Addressed: Personal/Social, development of healthy self-concept, development of both short and long-term goals including implementation of strategies into the classroom
RESPONSIVE SERVICES
Responsive services address immediate concerns of students and families that interfere with daily functioning in the classroom and social settings.
Purpose: Prevention and intervention are the tools used to respond to emergency situations and ensure that regular functioning resumes as soon as possible.
Issues Addressed: Personal/Social Relationships • Grief, loss, death • Substance abuse • Family problems/concerns
Hygiene Issues • Coping skills Academic • Tardiness, absences and truancy • Conduct and behavior
Bullying Prevention and Intervention
At Good Shepherd Catholic School we credit our low occurrence of bullying to zero tolerance combined with an educational program that teaches students how to identify bullying along with prevention and intervention tactics. The program is designed to improve peer relations and make our students feel safe.
Goals of the program include: Understanding the definition of bullying, identifying bullying behaviors, reducing existing bullying problems among students, Preventing the development of new bullying problems, achieving better peer relations at school.
At Good Shepherd Catholic School the program is taught by the Guidance Counselor in a classroom setting as requested by teachers and administrators.
Health and Safety Good Touch Bad Touch
The Good-Touch/Bad-Touch® program is designed to empower students, teachers, parents and other caring adults to connect in positive, supportive ways with each other to prevent, address and solve problems of abuse, sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Using varied teaching techniques that involve children in the classroom lessons, GoodTouch/Bad-Touch® helps schools meet curriculum standards for Health, Safety and Social Education. The program is presented in a culturally sensitive manner to students in Kindergarten through third grade.
Topics include: Empowering children about their right to be safe from all types of violence , giving students ownership of their body, using appropriate language to describe their body, explain what safe touch is, help students trust their feelings.
Good Shepherd Catholic School also uses the RCL Benzinger Family Life curriculum, as dictated by the Diocese of Orlando. This curriculum provides age-appropriate instruction and moral catechesis utilizing a virtues-based pedagogy with an emphasis on Christian living.