The School District of Palm Beach County, Florida - Other School Department Based Activities
Celebrating 10 Years Of Wellness
ESE School Counseling
Central Area Family Counselors Kim Depatie and Ana Muth began the 2015 – 16 school year by distributing school uniforms and school supplies during pre-planning. The students were ready for the first day of school with nice uniforms, shoes and backpacks filled with crayons, pencils, markers, paper, rulers, glue and notebooks.
The family counselors welcomed two new counselors this year. Jana Keene and Yanique Davis. Jana worked with students in the West Area and Yanique was assigned to the North Area.
Students at Liberty Park Elementary and Forest Hill Elementary spent six weeks focusing on anger management techniques. The group counseling series began with the reading of My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook. After reading the book, the groups interpreted the book to work on different types of explosions – interrupting and physical/verbal aggression. Each student made and decorated a paper volcano. After making their volcanoes, students discussed reasons for their own explosions. The orange paper represents interrupting explosions. One example is “I am excited because I know an answer and can’t wait to share it!” Explosions written on the red paper are examples of physical and verbal explosions. One student identified being called names as a reason for his explosions.
The students continue their work on anger management techniques by identifying their triggers and developing strategies to overcome “explosions”. The students also made their own erupting volcano. During this session, the focus was on watching how something can be upsetting and move into an explosion if it is not managed. The flowing foam from their volcano mimics how the anger and frustration may overflow.
This series was a fun way for students to look at their own anger issues and how if not managed can overtake. By offering an attention-grabbing activity with the introduction of a skill, the students are willing to engage and thus implement a new skill to gain some aspect of control of the emotion anger.
The Area 2 ESE Office was filled with holiday cheer. The holidays were made brighter for fifteen students and their families by the Area 2 Exceptional Student Education staff. Several food baskets were also delivered to families.
