A Couple Counselors

I decided to start a teacher newsletter after recovering from burnout, among other issues. My team wasn’t really with it, except for one of them. I value teamwork, and this was a great opportunity for it. I wouldn’t have created the newsletter by myself. So if that teammate hadn’t been on board, it probably wouldn’t have happened. It really made me happy to have something collaborative to do. I was a football player, and teamwork really matters to me.

The year before doing this, I had to focus more on paperwork. I got to apply some things in the classroom, but I needed this year to grow more. I hated feeling like I went to counseling school just to develop 504 plans and document parent phone calls. I knew I needed to improve in that part of my role, but paperwork drains the joy out of counseling for me. The newsletter gave me a way to focus on paperwork without losing the counseling side of myself that gave me joy in the job. By helping teachers at a Tier 1 level, I could reach the teachers in my building, and that support could trickle down to students. Something for teachers is still Tier 1—because when teachers thrive, students do too.

What ProQOL Helped Me Understand

The Professional Quality of Life framework helped me understand what I was aiming for that year. ProQOL looks at compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. Burnout is connected to feeling worn down by the work. Secondary traumatic stress can come from repeated exposure to other people’s trauma. Compassion satisfaction is the fulfillment of helping people and believing your work matters. I needed more compassion satisfaction. I needed something that reminded me why I became a counselor.

Counselors take on a lot from others. Teachers and students bring us stress, frustration, and trauma. Sometimes it feels like people are stress-dumping or trauma-dumping on you all day. You listen, but the emotional residue does not disappear when the conversation ends.

The newsletter moved me from passive empathy to active problem-solving. I took what I heard, learned new evidence-based frameworks, and turned that information into something teachers could use. That replaced some helplessness I felt with agency and creativity. I could stay connected without carrying everyone’s individual emotions by myself.

As great as this was, I still knew the newsletter could not prevent every form of secondary traumatic stress, but it became one part of protecting my professional quality of life. It gave me meaningful work that returned something instead of only consuming something in me.

Returning Resources the Job Had Taken

The Job Demands–Resources model gave me another way to understand it. Job demands require physical, mental, or emotional effort. Mine included 504s, paperwork, crises, interruptions, large caseloads, and carrying other people’s stress.

Job resources help us meet those demands. They include support, teamwork, autonomy, feedback, useful systems, and opportunities to grow. The newsletter gave me collaboration, control over something I was creating, and a reason to keep developing as a counselor even though it didn’t cancel out the demands. One enjoyable passion project can’t fix a difficult work environment. But adding the right resources can make demands feel more manageable and help rebuild engagement. The newsletter sparked my creative juices after a time when I felt paperwork was taking them away.

Build It Around Teachers, Not Counselors

Do not use the newsletter to tell teachers everything counselors do. Think about their pain points that may make their days a little easier. If your support helps, your work speaks for itself. That shows—not tells—how counseling supports the building.

This was a passion project for me, so I didn’t want too much influence outside my team while we were creating it. Other counselors may want more teacher input from the beginning. You can send a Google Form asking what teachers are struggling with, which student situations are wearing them down, and what would actually interest them to read.

If someone on your counseling team used to teach, include them. My teammate was a former English teacher, and she became a bridge between counseling frameworks and what matters to teachers in an actual classroom.

Keep the content practical. We included burnout prevention, emotional-regulation techniques, and Job Demands–Resources to help teachers recognize problems that had possible solutions. We also used WOOP because it offered an evidence-based way to identify a wish, outcome, obstacle, and plan. Goal setting and growth can help spark hope and happiness again.

Have Realistic Expectations

Try to get administrative approval before sending the newsletter. I used to believe it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. These days, it is better to C.Y.A. You do not want an issue falling entirely on you because someone disagrees with something you included, even when it reflects best practice.

Many people may not read it. Some may talk badly about it or say it is stupid. That is their prerogative. Evidence-based frameworks matter because the information is more than our personal opinions. Not everyone will appreciate it, but someone may. Don’t measure success only by how many people open it. Measure it by the teacher who says, “I tried that tip—it helped.” That is who you are creating it for.

At the end of the year, send a feedback survey. Ask who read it, what helped, why others did not read it, and what might interest them next year. That can become a data point for your admin. Or it can become something that helps justify your time and gives you ideas to improve the newsletter or to try something new the next year. 

Creating it was extra work. I know adding work after burnout sounds backward. But this was collaborative, creative work that helped teachers while giving me back a part of the job I could recognize myself in. The newsletter did not make the demands disappear. It helped return some of the resources those demands had taken from me, and it allowed me to get to know my teammate in a different light.

Call To Action

Looking for a tool to help manage the job demands of 504 plans while giving you data you can present to your administration when advocating for change? We created a 504 management tool to help you organize the work and make more room for the parts of school counseling that align with why you entered the profession.

504 Coordinator Management System

-Charles