Finding Counseling Ideas on Social Media 

Over the past couple years, I've managed to shift my social media feeds from people I don't remember from high school to incredible ideas for counseling and the classroom. Counseling ideas on social media are everywhere if you know where to look, and how to remember them after you scroll by. 

Some people treat their Pinterest accounts like a well-curated gallery. I follow these stellar pinners and let them do the leg work for me. When you follow these people, the gems they find make their way into your Pinterest feed. 

Pinterest is a search engine. Say what?? I know it's social media platform, but it's really more like Google than Facebook. You can search and Pinterest is pretty good at finding what you need. 

Also when you search, this helps fill your feed with things you like. Pinterest is a idea-finding workhorse. 

Save Pictures

On Instagram, you can save pictures you love. I use this to store ideas so I can come back to them later. You can go a step further and create collections or albums of the pictures you have saved.

My Favorite Instagram Accounts

• Me! Social Emotional Workshop - I regularly post resources, quotes, and bits of life in NYC.
• Confident Counselors - Use #aconfidentcounselor on your own pictures to have us repost your counseling ideas.
• The Sarcastic School Psychologist - Need a laugh? Dr. J's instagram account is snarky. She definitely gets the crazy of our jobs and adds much needed humor.
• The Responsive Counselor - Sara does great book walk throughs and always has engaging lesson ideas.

Follow Facebook Pages

There are a lot facebook pages focused on school mental health. They all share great articles, new resources, funny memes, blog posts, and current school events. Plus they fill my feed with things more useful than my uncle's rants or pictures of my second cousin's baby.

• School Psyched, Your School Psychologist - Not just for school psychologists. Posts with the latest research, apps, resources, and news for school mental health staff. 
• Child Mind Institute - I love this NYC based organization. Their website is filled with practical advice for practitioners and parents who have children struggling with learning and mental health issues. I am in awe of how they boil challenging topics down to essential information.
• Don't forget about me! 🙂 I share new blog posts, resources, and helpful links. Social Emotional Workshop on FB.

Facebook Groups

We often don't have many (or any) colleagues with similar job responsibilities in our schools. I have found that some Facebook groups can be a necessary substitute when we don't have our in real life professional learning communities.

• Elementary School Counselor Exchange - Carol Miller runs a number of school counselor Facebook groups that are incredibly active. Find the one that fits your level. Any time you have a question, need a suggestion, or want to share a school counseling win, someone is there. Click on over to join. 
• Individual Counseling Toolbox - This group is the place to swap ideas and ask questions specific to individual counseling. I started this group after lots of feedback about counselors and psychologists feeling like they needed more support to improve this part of our programs.

In my browser, I have a list of blogs and websites bookmarked. These are my go to because of the wealth of information and easy to use ideas.

• Confident Counselors - I am biased here. I started Confident Counselors three years ago with a group of school counselors, psychologists, and social workers. We were tired of being left alone to find professional development, design our programs, and create engaging counseling lessons. We publish 10-15 posts a month on all things school counseling.
• Counselor Keri - Keri is my go to resources for all things school counseling. Her blog is generously full of ideas and resources. She has a real knack for making lessons engaging and straight forward.
• Intervention Central- This site made my first few years as a school psychologist bearable. Jim Wright has put together a collection of (free) resources to support educators with behavior and academic interventions. The ideas are direct and ready to implement.
• And of course this blog, Social Emotional Workshop. Go ahead and bookmark it. 

Lots of blogs and websites have email lists you can join. They typically send a regular email full of ideas. I subscribe to a couple of these and find them invaluable.

I'm going to be honest, I have no idea how to use twitter for counseling ideas. But I do know that there are twitter chats where school counselors participate and share ideas. Check out #scchat and Counselor Up for more info.

Who do you follow? Leave your favorite accounts in the comments.

Do you use social media as a source for counseling ideas? 

Follow me below and teach Facebook that you'd rather get valuable counseling information than your second cousin's baby pictures. 🙂