Counseling Toward Solutions

This book provides a solution-focused approach to working alongside students, parents, and teachers that decreases misbehaviors, encourages mental health and growth mindset in students, and provides social emotional learning opportunities. Grounded in the notion that focusing on problems often leads to frustration when tried and true remedies fail, the book provides an efficient and simple three-step approach to having solution-focused conversations with students, parents, and in response to intervention (RTI) and team meetings. This systemic approach enlists the client rather than the counselor to conjure a preferred plan for success, consequently reducing future counseling visits and promoting independent success in students. Each chapter includes a specific topic that was developed from the issues and situations faced by school counselors today, including consideration for working with all students, including LGBTQ students, and those with traumatic experiences or substance abuse. Complete with specific dialogues for students of all ages, and case studies, this text provides school counselors with a road map to looking beyond problems and seeking solutions with students, creating grit and resilience.

Linda Metcalf, MEd, PhD, is the director of Graduate Counseling Programs at Texas Wesleyan University. She is the author of 11 books and an international presenter on using the solution-focused approach in schools. She is a former middle school teacher and school counselor.

Foreword by Bill O'Hanlon; Part 1: Basics Behind the Approach; Chapter 1: Learning to Think with A Solution Focus; Chapter 2: Creating Possibilities Through Language; Chapter 3: Solution Focused Conversations; Chapter 4: Reviving Piaget: Helping Teachers to Become Solution- Focused; Chapter 5: Setting the Stage for Miracles; Part 2: Applications of The Approach; Chapter 6: Supporting All Students Through Challenges; Chapter 7: Grit, Growth Mindset and College Readiness; Chapter 8: Working with Teams and Families; Chapter 9: Rethinking How We Prevent School Violence; Chapter 10: Guiding Students Through Dangerous Habits and Crises.