What is an advisory council?

Creating an advisory council for your counseling program is an asset that will keep giving over time. An advisory council is a group of people that meet periodically to help guide your counseling program.

An advisory council is a group that will help hold you accountable, but it is also a group that will work for you! Having an advisory council gives you backing when you are selecting a curriculum or advocating for your counseling program. An advisory council also gives your program credibility and increases community buy-in.

Your council will give you many opinions when looking over your data and selecting goals for the future. They are a wealth of wisdom to guide and support your counseling program. Remember, no man is an island. Use the connections and wisdom of your council to help guide your counseling program.

Types of Advisory Councils

There are several types of advisory councils to explore when creating an advisory council. Each one plays a different role in building your data-driven school counseling program. We recommend using each group to build a solid council.

Focus Group

Start with a focus group when beginning a data-driven school counseling program. A focus group is your boots on the ground. Your focus group is a small group of people that believe in having a data-driven school counseling program. They are willing to put in the time and effort to help you build one.

As you are considering people for your focus group, you will want to include your school’s counseling team. A building-level administrator is extremely helpful. They can help guide you, encourage buy-in, and know the ins and outs of your school. Last, consider adding a few teachers that understand the importance of a data-driven school counseling program.

You will work with your focus group to develop a mission and vision statement. They will help you gather student data and sort through your data. Your focus group will also help you prepare for your Advisory Council meetings.

Student Advisory Council

My favorite group to work with is my student advisory council. They are a wealth of knowledge! Your student advisory council will give you the opinion of your students. After all, your program is FOR students.

When selecting students for your student advisory council, I would encourage you to keep the number around 6-12. You want a variety of students, but you want the number small enough that everyone has a chance to talk.

Look to select students from every grade. Strive to get a good representation of our school. I want students that receive special education services, students that are in our high-ability classes, students that play sports, students that are involved in clubs, and students that represent multiple socio-economic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. I even like students that might end up in the office on occasion. They have excellent insight into what is going on in the school. I also know that if they have buy-in to something I am thinking about that the rest of the school will likely buy-in.

I do have hard and fast rules when selecting students. They must have the ability to be respectful to those in the group and others’ opinions, even if they disagree. Students must also be able to share their thoughts and opinions.

Meeting with Students

I meet with my Student Advisory Council during school. You might meet with them more frequently at the beginning and less frequently as things progress. Meeting once a month is a general guideline.

I always come prepared with questions when I meet with my students. You can try these questions:

“What are the biggest concerns of students?”

“Do students feel safe at school?”

“What can we do to improve the experience at school?”

Students LOVE to share their opinions. They might illuminate problems that you did not realize you had.

Adult Advisory Council

It is important to add an adult advisory council when creating an advisory council. An adult advisory council is the culmination of the two councils above. They will meet and go over your data. Having an adult advisory council gives you backing and support.

I like a large advisory council. We recommend inviting your counseling department, building-level administrator, and teachers that represent a variety of grades and departments at your school. You will want district-level administrators as well. Consider inviting the administrator over student services, special education, public relations, and curriculum. Next, you will want to look at community members. Look for people that are already in your school. We have school-based mental health therapists and resource officers in our buildings every day. You can also invite members of your education foundation, local chamber of commerce, and library. Lastly don’t forget your parents. You can reach out to your PTO and other parents that like to be involved.

I challenge myself by inviting some of my most challenging parents. The parents want all of the information and look at things with a very critical eye. While this can be stressful, I want a council to hold our counseling department accountable. If we develop a plan they agree with, I know it will be easier to gain community buy-in.

Advisory Council Meetings

When starting a data-driven school counseling program, your advisory council must meet monthly for several months. There will be a lot of decisions to make. Once your program is up and running, your council may only need to meet once or twice a year.

Schedule your meetings with plenty of notice. Remember, not everyone on your council works in your school. In the beginning, you will want to schedule your meetings for 1.5-2 hours. Be respectful of your council members’ time. If you say that your meeting will end at 5, then ensure you are finished at 5 even if you are not finished.

Before the meeting, send a meeting reminder with the meeting agenda. Share any data you would like your members to review before coming to the meeting.

The beginning of your meetings will include educating your audience on terminology and what you are currently doing. Remember that many of your members do not work in education and don’t know how your school operates.

You are the content expert and the guide for your meeting. Your team will need direction. Once you have your objectives for each meeting, you will need to brainstorm a way to gather your council’s input.

Tools to Gain Input

Mentimeter is a great way to do polls, quizzes, and word clouds that everyone can visualize.

Google Forms is a free way to gather data from your audience.

Post-it notes can be an excellent visual. Give each member some post-it notes to place up in the front with their ideas. You can easily move them around to group them into themes and common ideas.

Poster-size bar graph. Print out a large bar graph. I like to use Google sheets when I am having my group tell me what their most important goals are. The list is printed on poster-size paper. Then my group can come up to the chart and color in a square next to the goals that are most important to them. This is a great visual for the entire committee to see what we collectively view as most important.

Utilize small groups. Give each group guided questions to answer. Give time for each group to discuss the topics, then allow each group to share.

SEL Unfiltered

Do you want to hear more? Check out the rest of our series on Creating and Implementing an SEL Program on our SEL Unfiltered podcast, wherever you stream your podcasts.

Check out other episodes in our Implementing an SEL Program, including The Benefits of SEL, Creating an Advisory Period, Developing Your SEL Framework, Choosing an SEL Program, and Initial Implementation of an SEL Program.

Game of the Week

Every week on SEL Unfiltered, we like to bring you a game or activity. You can use the game with your students, in the classroom, or in a small group. This week Kaitlin and I played a game of Thankful Thursday.

Thankful Thursday is an activity you can use at the beginning of class. You can also use Thankful Thursday as a brain break or a check-in with your small groups.

There are many variations for Thankful Thursday. Find one that works for your class or group. The simplest version is for everyone to go around the room and share one thing they are thankful for. You can create more specific directions. For example, students can share one thing they are thankful for that happened today or this week. Another example would be sharing an item they are thankful for or someone they are thankful for.

Ask students to elaborate and explain why they are thankful for the person or item they chose. You can also ask students to list more than one thing they are thankful for.

This is a great exercise for students to focus on gratitude. They begin practicing looking at the positives in life instead of getting stuck in negative thought patterns.