Avoid these 5 School Counseling Christmas Assistance Mistakes

We all make mistakes, right? Especially when we see ourselves as helping… but, I am guilty of doing these 5 things when it comes to school counseling Christmas Assistance. I want to share what I’ve done and how to improve it, so you don’t have to live through it. When you are setting up your program, try to avoid these 5 things.

1: Don’t Be the Main Point of Contact 

School counselors are busy people! If you set the program up to where you are the main point of contact, expect to receive multiple calls a day. I found myself doing this because I can easily explain how we’re helping and where to go. But, I found that I was returning calls all day long. As school counselors, we do not sit in our office all day. We are out and about, working with kids, teaching classroom lessons. So, often when someone would call me about this, I wouldn’t be in my office.

That’s okay… there’s an easy fix. You don’t have to be the explainer of all things!

Delegate some of those duties to the first contact. We have amazing office staff who help direct our calls. I met with them to discuss our Christmas plans and gave them a cheat sheet explaining the website with all the detailed information. Now, when someone calls about our counseling Christmas Assistance program. They can quickly direct them to the information they need. No returning phone calls and playing phone tag. Also, it’s not a lot of responsibility put on them because they answer the phone anyway, now they just have the answers.

2: Don’t Run it all by Yourself

This is a big NO, NO! Do not take this program on all by yourself! It might sound easy at first, but there are so many pieces to the puzzle that it’s not worth stressing over by yourself.

Take time to build a team. It doesn’t have to be a huge team, just a couple of people who will split tasks with you and help manage the program. Depending on what you want to do with your Christmas Assistance program the team can just be there for extra support. If you’re only providing community resources and places of contact, this job may not be that hard. If you are building the program to receive donations, contact families and deliver gifts… you’re gonna need a team!

No matter what, do not take time away from your kids! You’re first and most important job is your students. Make sure you’re time is not sucked away. Get into those classrooms and teach your lessons. Your team can help you with what else needs to be done.

3: Don’t Offer to Shop and Wrap 

One year, my co-counselors and I found ourselves at Walmart shopping and coming back to school to wrap gifts. If you can help it, don’t do this to yourself! For one, it takes so much time away from your school counseling program. I know it fits in there and sometimes is a part of what we do, but limit the amount of time you are away from your building. Make sure when you are away, those minutes count and make a difference for ALL students. 

4: Don’t Organize, Call & Distribute Gifts 

In the past, we have built a program where the school is the main resource that everyone in the community funnels through. This is great in terms of community networking and reaching those who need help. However, when we broke it down and started looking at the manpower behind our program. It was just us! If we were to do it all over again, we would be going back to tip #1 and creating a team! Organizing the whole counseling Christmas Assistance program seems easy, but there are so many extra steps to everything. For example, somehow, you’ll need to gather all the information when people call. This could be as simple as writing it all down. However, the trick is we are not always in our office to collect this information.

We created a simple weebly.com site that leads people to fill out one of two Google forms. One is a form for families who are requesting assistance and it takes them through various questions about the kids’ needs/wants. The other form is for sponsors who would like to help families in need. Once people start filling out the Google forms, we get notified and can start matching families up. This was a great system until TONS of people started filling out the forms! Then it was extremely time-consuming!

So… again if it’s going to be just you and your co-counselors. Set up a Christmas Assistance program that does not have you doing everything. There just isn’t enough time in the day.

That’s why we are moving on to the next step…

5: Do… Let Others be a Resource

Let others in the community who want to help be a resource and a point of contact. For example, if you have community outreach programs and churches that are willing to sponsor families, let them handle the calling, connecting, and distributing. After all, that’s what they are trying to do too, build connections with people they are supporting… so, let them! If the school is the only point of contact and the families pick things up at the school, it makes it harder for community outreach programs to show families how they can help and support. 

Start referring your families to those programs and connecting them with sponsors within the community who can help. It takes a village and sometimes that means we branch out and let others do what they do best! This gives school counselors time to focus on seeing students.

6: Extra

School counselors are helpers by nature… right? The things in this article are tips to help you run your school counseling program better. That way, you don’t get wrapped up in things that are outside of your school counseling role and responsibilities. If you are a part of a community to support and love one another, you may want to contribute outside of your school counseling time to do some of these things. I know I do! But, my number one job while I’m at school needs to be on my students… not running to Walmart and wrapping gifts. 

I hope this article has helped organize some of your thoughts around school counseling Christmas Assistance programs at school. I also hope that it helps you realize you are not alone!

If you haven’t set up a program just yet… you can find more info in this article How to Make a Strong Christmas Assistance Program in Schools.