Setting Goals for Your School Counseling Program

Setting program goals can seem like a time sucker, but really it’s not too bad if you use them to drive what you do. What I mean by that is sometimes we can look at setting goals as a waist of time because no one else looks at them and why does it even matter. But, overall it DOES MATTER.

It matters to you, your program and your students! Look at it as an opportunity for growth and once you start nailing your goals each year, people are going to see the difference and the piece of paper won’t matter any more!

1: Look at Trends & Data

Take time to gather all your counseling data from the year before. Look for areas where you could improve.

This data may come from your IIR (Internal Improvement Review), Needs Assessments, Time Task Analysis or various Survey’s you may conduct throughout the year. Use those results to compare it to the year before or the percentages you’re aiming to hit.

If you have trouble collecting data, visit these links below! They can help you find a great starting point!

Beginners Guide to School Counseling Data

Quick Guide to the School Counseling Program

2: Decide Areas of Strength & Weakness

Use those numbers to decide areas of strength and weakness for your program. I like to use the IIR to look closely at my program and see where I need to adjust my efforts the following year. This helps me create a solid plan that is backed by data. I can use this to advocate for what I do and why it is best for my students. Click here to see my planner and how it can help you advocate for your time… Simply Perfect Planner for School Counselors.

Another way to figure out your programs strength and weaknesses is through a staff survey. It doesn’t have to be difficult… just ask them what worked, what didn’t and what they might like to see done differently. Just take these comments with a grain of salt because you never know what you’re gonna get. However, look at them with an open mind because even the negative comments may help you tweak things to be even better.

I like to create a quick Google Form and send them out to my staff. This way it collects the data for me and allows me to see their answers quickly.

3: Be Realistic

After taking your data and  looking at what areas of strengths and weaknesses you have, now is the time you can realistically try to create a goal. We all know how SMART goals work and we teach our students how to break them down into meaningful and realistic short-term goals. So… let’s do that for ourselves! They would even love it if we shared our own goals outside of our offices!

Decide when you will accomplish each smaller goal and have them all leading up to the end of the year larger goal.

To get you started, I’ve created this FREE Goal Planning Sheet for you to start right away!

Click below to get your FREE copy!

School Counseling Goal Tracker Planner (1)

4: Post, Share and Do

Once you have decided on your short-term and long-term goals, share them! Put them outside your office, include them in your newsletters, share a printed copy with your principal. This will be your accountability piece. Once it’s shared out there, people are going to expect you to be following through. That’s another reason why you want your goals to be realistic and attainable.

At the end of the year, if there is some reason you didn’t get one of them completed. That’s okay… it just becomes a piece to advocate on. Why did you not get to it? Does your Time on Task show that you were too busy with non-counseling tasks? Does your Responsive Services show you spend a lot of your time taking care of crisis this year? These are pieces to the puzzle that normally non-counselors don’t realize. So, putting it all together for them will allow them to see the bigger picture.

Comment below and let me know your #1 Goal for this year… Happy Program Goal Setting!