Upper School Counseling Program

Upper School Counseling Program

Definition of the Upper School Counseling Program:

The program offers various educational services that focus on students’ academic, psychological, social and career oriented aspects aimed at assisting students in realizing their abilities and utilizing those abilities in achieving their goals.

Program Goals:

To assist in creating positive changes in student behavior.
To work on creating an appropriate atmosphere for learning and teaching.
Development and focus on the individual student’s personality physically, mentally and socially.
Development and focus on student abilities and achievement on all levels.
Caring for well being of all students.
Development and improvement of the proceeding of the educational process through strengthening the relationship with parents, teaching staff and the school community.
To identify the psychological, social and educational conditions that students face by administering tests and examinations within the school.

Counseling Approaches:

** Developmental Approach:

Assisting students in understanding their individuality.
Supporting student abilities and capabilities.
Assisting students in reaching a higher level of maturity and psychological well being.
Assisting students in setting their goals in life.
Developing abilities and talents.
Career guidance.
Academic guidance.

** Preventive Approach:

Attempts to prevent social and educational conflicts.
Raising awareness and inhibition of social, psychological and behavioral problems.
Early detection of cases.
Trying to reduce stress.

** Therapeutic Approach:

To deal with social and psychological difficulties on the low and medium levels.
Disorders are not dealt with in school, but are referred to specialized institutions.

General Counseling Services:

Advise students on the best ways to deal with problems, and find solutions to them.
Conduct research that helps identify students’ needs with regards to the level of their academic development, their psychological, social, as well as behavioral needs.
Help students achieve the best academic results.
Strengthen students’ personalities.
Develop students’ abilities and capacity to be prepared for the workplace.
Help students identify their future goals and how they can set plans to achieve those goals.
Guide students to assist in developing their abilities and skills.
Develop social and personal skills and abilities of each student.
Work closely with parents, and provide advice on how to deal with their children (develop a joint plan of cooperation).
Cooperate with teachers and the school administration in order to better understand students.
Cooperate with teachers and school administration to develop ideal mechanisms that guide on how to deal with students.
Coordinating with the civil society to provide counseling services to the school.

Specific Counseling Services:

Individual Counseling
All RFS students are offered individual counseling when needed usually based on the counselor's observation of the child, his/her teachers and parents, as well as the school's administration, or by the student's own request for help.

Group Counseling

Students are offered group counseling when they are facing similar problems that each of them expresses according to their point of view and the way they think based on how each of them sees the problem and attempts to solve it.

Specialist Referral
In some cases students are referred to specialized family or individual counseling centers so they can receive extra assistance. RFS communicates directly with these centers to ensure students are receiving the necessary support.

Family Consultation
School plays a vital part in the life of both students and parents. Family consultation sessions allow parents to discuss challenges they face in raising their children. Parent workshops serve as a guide and provide a forum for parents to connect and share experiences. In the past, parent workshop discussions have included sibling issues, responsibility, respect, peer pressure, studying methods and distraction, rights and protection.

** Counselors’ special roles:

* Counselor as a specialist: this implies working with students through individual or group counseling sessions, collective (group) guidance, for the purpose of developing their abilities, help them overcome their psychological distress, as well as their social, academic or educational difficulties, and provide professional advice.

* Counselor as an advisor: providing advice to parents so that they can better understand their children, and also provide advice to teachers and the school administration on how to treat students and understand them from a different perspective.

* Counselor as coordinator: in terms of coordinating educational activities that take place on campus.

* Counselor(s) and the disciplinary council: the counselor works on guiding the student in all aspects of school life. However, if the student is referred to a disciplinary council, the role of the counselor ends.