{"id":217,"date":"2019-12-10T20:15:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T20:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/?p=217"},"modified":"2019-12-19T13:16:57","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T19:16:57","slug":"letters-to-ms-williams-a-counselor-helps-students-share-their-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/2019\/12\/10\/letters-to-ms-williams-a-counselor-helps-students-share-their-feelings\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters To Ms. Williams: A Counselor Helps Students Share Their Feelings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teachers and school counselors are often the first to notice when a student is struggling. Again and again, educators find themselves going beyond their assigned duties to care for children’s mental and emotional needs.<\/em><\/p>\n

As part of our series, On Our Minds: The Caregivers, counselor Ashley Williams from Central Elementary School in Seagoville\u00a0shares in her own words how she set up a unique way for students to share their feelings.<\/p>\n

\"Central<\/p>\n

Central Elementary School counselor Ashley Williams set up a special locker where students can send her notes about things they’re experiencing. \/ Photo: Allison V. Smith<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019ve been a teacher for 13 years, and this is my first year as a counselor and my first year here at Central Elementary School.<\/p>\n

I was in Hobby Lobby one day \u2014 my favorite place \u2014 and I saw this mailbox and I thought, oh that\u2019s really cool. I want to stick that outside my door so students can drop off notes. Then I started looking at it and I was like, well it doesn\u2019t have a lock on it, so anybody could just get in and read that \u2014 and I don\u2019t want anybody to do that.<\/p>\n

Me and my principal got together. We started thinking about things, and we said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we use a locker instead, and we\u2019ll put a lock on it, and the kids can slide their notes in the little slits?\u201d That way, even as they\u2019re passing by, nobody even has to know that they\u2019ve just slid that note right in.<\/p>\n

Being a brand new counselor and being brand new here, the kids don’t know me, so I know that they\u2019re not going to feel comfortable just walking up to me saying, \u201cMs. Williams, can I talk to you?\u201d So I wanted to come up with something that they would be able to either ask their teacher or they can even grab a note \u2026 the teachers have notes that are located by the doors. So the kids know that they can just go get one, write down their information and then drop it off, so they don\u2019t even have to ask a teacher for it.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

Williams created cards for the locker that ask students for their grade, name, teacher and if their issue is a big or small problem. \/ Photo: Allison V. Smith<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019ve had about 20 letters dropped off so far. I\u2019ve had students that have talked about their home life and how it\u2019s been very difficult for them, and I\u2019ve had students that just want to tell me how their day\u2019s been and that some good news has happened.<\/p>\n

This really has meant a lot to me. Coming into this brand new, I\u2019m thinking, these kids don\u2019t know who I am. They\u2019re going to be very timid. I\u2019m not going to get the response I wanted. But I knew that it\u2019s all about building relationships with your students. When I see them every morning and I\u2019m hugging them, and they know that I care about them, that\u2019s when I\u2019m getting that response and that\u2019s when they\u2019re coming to me saying, \u201cHey, I need to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

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NEXT>>\u00a0<\/strong>When a child is diagnosed with a mental illness, parents can play a crucial role in their treatment, but what happens when those children become adults? Debbie Spruell is caring for her adult son with schizophrenia \u2014 and the legal hurdles are tripping her up.\u00a0<\/b>Read and listen to Debbie’s story<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teachers and school counselors are often the first to notice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-our-minds-the-caregivers","post_format-post-format-audio","byline-syeda-hasan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/caregivers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}