Counseling Department

The Pierce Middle School Guidance and Counseling Program is a comprehensive curriculum designed to meet the developmental needs of all students. Its purpose is to support, enhance, and enrich the process of student learning.

Our program adheres to both the National Standards for School Counseling Programs and the Michigan Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program. These standards are based on providing success through activities designed to ensure students' academic, career, and personal/social development. The program is delivered through individual counseling, small group counseling, large group guidance, consultation, and coordination.

The Guidance and Counseling Program is composed of four programmatic components. First, counselors teach, team teach, or assist with learning activities on a large group basis. These activities are for all students and include such topics as study skills, career awareness, character building skills, personal responsibility, bully-proofing, communication skills and personal safety.

The second component is known as individual planning, consisting of activities that assist students to plan, monitor, and manager their academic, personal, and career development. The counselor plans and directs activities relevant to student appraisal, advisement, and placement. Topics include interest surveys, course selection, individual problem solving, and career exploration.

Third, responsive services consist of activities to meet immediate student needs. This includes personal or crisis counseling, consultation, information, referral, peer mediation and conflict resolution services. This component is often initiated by students. The counselors strive to create a safe, trusting, comfortable counseling environment in which students feel comfortable to share their thoughts, ideas and feelings.

The fourth component is known as systems support. This includes activities counselors use to manage activities that enhance the total guidance and counseling program. It includes counselors' participation in professional development activities, serving on school/community advisory committees, communicating with staff and community, coordinating community resources for student access, and gathering information to enhance each student's success.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Confidentiality refers to the privacy of information that students share with their counselor. Students may share information with others as they wish, but counselors are legally and ethically obligated to keep information students share with them as confidential as possible. We will guard that privacy as much as is permitted by the law, ethics, and school rules. We recognize the legal rights and responsibilities of parents in doing what is in the best interest of their children. With student permission, we may discuss issues with parents when ethically warranted and/or requested.

Students and parents should be aware that there exist exceptions where school counselors are obligated to break student/counselor confidentiality.

These circumstances include potential harm to students themselves or someone else, state laws that mandate reporting of child abuse, or a court of law that requires testimony and/or student records. As professional counselors, Mrs. Noble, Mrs. Taplin and Mr. Tunnicliff will occasionally consult with other school and mental health professionals, but in such cases only information necessary to achieving the goals of the counseling relationship will be shared.

Counselors recognize and abide by the ethical standards and guidelines of the American School Counselor Association, the American Counseling Association, the Michigan School Counseling Association, and the Michigan Education Association.