School for School Counselors Podcast

At some point, someone has probably told you to “find your why.”
I gave that advice last week.
I wish I hadn't.

In this episode, I’m getting more personal than I ever have on this podcast.
I’m sharing what one of the hardest years of my career has done to me physically…
what happened when I defaulted to the weakest advice I could have given…
and what the research actually says school counselors should be doing when purpose isn’t enough to keep you going.

If you’ve been trying to survive this year on nothing but passion and willpower- and it’s not working- 
This one’s for you.

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Join our new Skool for School Counselors community 
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Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! 
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All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.
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Ready to spend a few days this summer with me, geeking out over school counseling and preparing for your best year ever? Grab your ticket here before this limited-seat event sells out!

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This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.

You said yes… then suddenly it was your job.
At some point in your career, something changed.
You stopped being the person students came to see and started being the person students got sent to.
Behavior referrals. Classroom removals. Crisis containment. The emotional labor nobody else knew how to handle.
And it happened one "yes" at a time.
In this episode, I'm taking a hard look at how school counselors slowly became the system's pressure valve- justified by "trauma-informed care"- and why that shift has fundamentally changed what we're asked to do in school counseling.
We'll talk about:
Where role creep actually starts
Why behavior intervention, trauma treatment, and school counseling are three different professional functions
How "helping" can accidentally turn you into the building's behavior containment system
The ethical trap of trying to bridge gaps that the system refuses to fill
The one question that can stop role creep before it becomes your permanent job
Because the thing is:
A pressure valve exists so the system doesn't have to change.
And the moment you stop being one…
the system is forced to find a different solution.
If you've ever felt like your job morphed beyond the role you trained for, this episode will give you the words for what's been happening, and how to get back to doing the work you truly love.
********
Join our new Skool for School Counselors community 
********
Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! 
********
All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.
********
Ready to spend a few days this summer with me, geeking out over school counseling and preparing for your best year ever? Grab your ticket here before this limited-seat event sells out!

********
This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.

"The research supports trauma-informed schools..." 
You've probably heard it in a staff meeting, read it in a district memo, or repeated it yourself. But when you go looking for the studies, something becomes clear: most people are citing a sentence, not a source.
This episode is for the school counselor who's been asked to implement trauma-informed practices without anyone handing you the actual research-  and who wants to know what it actually says.
What we cover:
What "trauma-informed schools" actually means in the evidence base (and what it doesn't)
The difference between trauma-informed principles and whole-school implementation
Why rigorous studies are harder to find than most people realize
This isn't an episode about rejecting trauma-informed practice. It's about being the person in the room who actually checked.
********
Join our new Skool for School Counselors community 
********
Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! 
********
All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.
********
Ready to spend a few days this summer with me, geeking out over school counseling and preparing for your best year ever? Grab your ticket here before this limited-seat event sells out!

********
This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.

Is managing student behavior actually school counseling?
If you’re spending most of your week handling behavior referrals, putting out fires, and decoding defiance before you’ve even opened your calendar… this episode draws a line most schools never clearly defined.
Because somewhere along the way, behavior didn’t just increase.
It migrated.
And it landed in the school counselor’s office.
In this episode, we unpack how school counselors quietly became the default behavior managers in many buildings when discipline structures softened without being clearly replaced.
You’ll hear:
How PBIS and trauma-informed shifts reshaped discipline systems- and what that meant for school counseling roles
Why behavior intervention and school counseling are different specialties
What burnout research actually says about non-counseling duties
The simple line that helps you sort capacity from compliance in real time
If behavior has been swallowing your week, this conversation will help you see what belongs to you... and what doesn’t.

********
Join our new Skool for School Counselors community 
********
Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! 
********
All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.
********

Ready to spend a few days this summer with me, geeking out over school counseling and preparing for your best year ever? Grab your ticket here before this limited-seat event sells out!

********
This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.

In this episode, I’m challenging a common habit in school counseling: labeling student distress as “anxiety” before it actually meets clinical criteria.
You’ll hear the research behind "prevalence inflation," how DSM standards separate normal worry from clinical anxiety, and the four-question test that will change how you approach 504 plans, school refusal, and all your anxiety-related counseling referrals.
Because when we mislabel discomfort, exclusion, or instability as anxiety, we don’t just miss the root issue. We build an entire intervention around the wrong problem.
Run the four-question test before you write the accommodation.
********
Join our new Skool for School Counselors community 
********
Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! 
********
All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.
Ready to spend a few days this summer with me, geeking out over school counseling and preparing for your best year ever? Grab your ticket here before this limited-seat event sells out!

********
This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.