Workshop tackles self-injury, suicide, abuse

Of the many issues facing schoolchildren in the CNMI, the three that worry Public School System counselors the most are self-inflicted injury, suicide and eating disorders.

These concerns were raised again and again during the two-day school counselors’ workshop entitled “School Counselors and Accountability: A Measure of Student Success.” The workshop was held at the Aqua Resort Club.

Dr. Carolyn Stone, Counselor Educator at the University of North Florida and the president-elect of the American School Counselors Association, conducted the training.

Stone said another issue raised by the counselors was child abuse. She said that counselors wanted to know how to address this problem in schools, considering that this usually occurs in homes.

Stone said all these problems have no clear-cut solutions. “There’s no black and white answer for the suicide, except for the child abuse,” she said.

During the first day of the training, school counselor Becky Flores said participants were introduced to Data Driven School Counseling and its role in accountability. She said they were exposed to actual data from school counseling programs that use an accountability system to impact grades, test scores, higher education going rates, course enrollment patterns, and other measurable indicators of student success.

On the second day, Flores said, the “Legal and Ethical Complications of Working with Minors in Schools” was the focus of the discussion, where participants were introduced to the competing interests that exist in the school environment and the interests between a student’s need for confidentiality and the legal rights of parents as established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The participants later broke into groups for discussions on how to increase the participants’ understanding of the complexities of respecting a minor’s right to confidentiality; to develop a sensitivity to the need to consider their actions in the context of each situation for each individual student; and, to understand the rights of parents.

Stone has had over eight years experience, conducting at least 400 workshops around the world.

She praised the CNMI group for exhibiting an interest level that was higher than usual. “I think this is a group that is very advanced and professional,” she said.