Counseling II: Problem Solving and Support (NE)

Description: Every day, educational counselors in ABE programs help students negotiate issues that affect their abilities to pursue their goals. These significant issues provide logistical, motivational, interpersonal, social, financial, and psychological barriers to student success. Counselors build relationships with students, boost morale, provide support and guidance around educational barriers, and help them to cope with crises, often utilizing strong referral networks that they have established. The skills, strategies, and techniques involved in these problem-solving situations are often taken for granted. Counselors are often naturally resourceful, but they can benefit greatly, as can their students, from gaining specific training in recognizing and expanding their problem-solving methods.

Learning Objectives:

After completing this workshop, participants will be able to:

· approach problems and problem-solving from a variety of perspectives

· understand how attitudes and emotions may have positive or negative effects on the problem solving process

· develop a deeper awareness of their strengths and skills as problem-solvers while identifying areas for further development

· apply and model problem-solving techniques with students so that students can apply them on their own

· identify the most effective problem-solving approaches and techniques for the most common problems faced by the students in our programs (including, for example, preventive problem-solving; prioritizing and sequencing; perspectives and assumptions; and entry points