March 23-24, 2025
Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay
Cambridge, MD
We hope to see you next year!
An Innovative School Counseling Approach to Storytelling
Lead Presenter: Davesus Omosun
Grounded in the philosophy of phenomenology, this approach invites participants to explore storytelling, lived experiences, and diverse perspectives as tools for addressing sensitive and emotional topics. By embracing vulnerability and sharing stories, school counselors can effectively bridge generational gaps. This connection not only fosters stronger relationships with students but also enhances counselors’ ability to support students in navigating difficult challenges. Through deeper connections, counselors are equipped to provide innovative strategies that enable students to move beyond overcoming adversity and engage in true healing. This transformative process empowers students to become better versions of themselves, leading to greater academic success and social/emotional maturity.
Fun With Tier 1: Engagement Strategies for Whole Group Instruction
Lead Presenter: Danette Jewell
Looking for fresh activity ideas to incorporate into your Tier 1 lessons? New to whole-group instruction? Join us as we discuss and model a variety of ways to make your Tier 1 content engaging and memorable for elementary students. This session will be interactive and full of movement, music, and fun. You will leave with ideas and resources to take back to your school and use immediately!
Solution-Focused Brief Counseling and Teacher/Parent Consultation
Lead Presenter: Russ Sabella
Solution-focused brief counseling (SFBC) is an approach to helping students and adults find solutions to problems rather than dwelling on the problems themselves. It is a short-term, goal-oriented strategy that focuses on both past exceptions to problems and future progress. In SFBC, the counselor works with the student/adult to identify and build on their strengths and resources, and to develop a plan for making positive changes in their lives.
The Audacity of Hope: How to Build Students’ Hope
Lead Presenter: Colin Byrd
In 2006, then Senator Barack Obama published “The Audacity of Hope,” advancing his argument that hope is key to reclaiming the American dream. Additionally, hope transcends the confines of politics. In the book, “Perspective,” Tommie Mabry writes, “The best two things you can give kids are hope and vision.” But what exactly is hope, and what separates the hopeful from the hopeless? Additionally, how can school counselors help solve the problem of hopelessness in schools? In this workshop, I will share evidence-based strategies that school counselors can use to grow hope for themselves and their students, and I will share my own perspective on hope and its implications for schools in Maryland.
The Unvarnished Truth about College Costs: Empowering Families with Transparency and Tools
Lead Presenter: Drew Thorsten
Families often assume they’re well-prepared to tackle college costs, but the reality can be far more complex and daunting. In The Unvarnished Truth about College Costs, we’ll uncover the often-hidden challenges families face in financing higher education and provide you, as trusted counselors, with actionable insights to support them effectively.
Under Threat: Black High Schoolers’ Future Decision-Making
Lead Presenter: Marja Humphrey
This session is designed for school counselors working with Black and African descent high school students as they prepare to make decisions for their future. Stereotype threat, coined by researchers Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, is the idea that when one’s identity is cued before a performance-based assessment, the capable individual’s performance is negatively affected. Over time, stereotype threat may halt students’ growth and development of their career-focused self-efficacy. Based on best practices for career and college readiness and an understanding of stereotype threat, attendees will explore how these concepts interact for students and impact their identities and futures.
Whole Child, Whole Community: Implementing a Stress-Reducing Blueprint for K-8 SEL Success
Lead Presenter: Gail Martinez-Waters
As our students work on developing essential life skills and character values, it’s our responsibility to create a school counseling program that fosters success in Social Emotional Learning (SEL). However, many of us face challenges in designing and executing a comprehensive plan. Join us to discover how an annual, schoolwide strategy can effectively address the social-emotional knowledge, attitudes, and skills of both our students and the entire school community.
Advocating to Support Students in a Busy Elementary School
Lead Presenter: Karen Cunningham
In this session, participants will gain ideas of how to advocate for change in a busy elementary school. School counselors are often tasked with non-school counseling activities in their schedule. This can be changed by advocating for the school counseling program through a strong advisory council and valuable school-wide initiatives.
Participants will be given practical suggestions for advisory council creation, collecting data, and connecting school goals to school-wide initiatives and programs.
Building Strength Amidst Bias
Lead Presenter: Iesha Caisey
This session explores the application of strengths-based therapy (SBT) to support Black adolescent girls who face systemic biases in educational settings. It highlights the need for culturally responsive counseling that leverages Black girls’ inherent strengths and fosters resilience, self-efficacy, and positive identity development. Through a detailed case example, this session demonstrates how SBT shifts the focus from student deficits to empowerment, validating cultural experiences and promoting academic and personal success for Black girls. School counselors will learn a practical application of SBT in the school setting to engage Black girls facing educational pushout.
Come Together: Uniting Behavioral and Emotional Supports in Special Ed
Lead Presenter: Olivia Hird
This session explores the integration of behavioral and social/emotional supports in special education, emphasizing collaboration among BCBAs, educators, and counselors. Participants will learn how to combine Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) with social/emotional learning (SEL) strategies to address both behavioral challenges and emotional needs. Practical tools, including visual supports, goal-setting methods, and progress monitoring strategies, will be shared for immediate application. Real-world case studies will highlight how integrated approaches reduce disruptive behaviors, build emotional resilience, and improve outcomes.
Labyrinths: Navigating a Path to Wellness
Lead Presenter: Holly Kleiderlein
Visit this session to learn about using labyrinths to support the wellness of students and adults alike. Attendees will learn the use of labyrinths to practice mindfulness, will create their own small version, and will learn ways to incorporate labyrinths into learning spaces inside and outside of the school building. Learn how a School Counselor partnered with the Green School Team and PTO to install walking labyrinths in outdoor learning spaces.
Launching Elementary Career Programs: Strengthening CCR Foundations with the Maryland Blueprint
Lead Presenter: Shauna Mann
Anne Arundel County Schools has had tremendous success introducing and successfully leading career development programs in their Elementary schools. Join us to learn first-hand from Anne Arundel about what it takes to both introduce CCR to your elementary schools and how to ensure that your staff, students and families are fully engaged in helping students build a strong foundation for future success.
Solution-Focused Brief Counseling and Teacher/Parent Consultation
Lead Presenter: Russ Sabella
Solution-focused brief counseling (SFBC) is an approach to helping students and adults find solutions to problems rather than dwelling on the problems themselves. It is a short-term, goal-oriented strategy that focuses on both past exceptions to problems and future progress. In SFBC, the counselor works with the student/adult to identify and build on their strengths and resources, and to develop a plan for making positive changes in their lives.
The SMART – SEL Model: Enhancing School Counseling with SEL Technology
Lead Presenter: Nikki Ham
This session presents an innovative approach to integrating mental health technology into school counseling using the Prosper App. Aligned with the ASCA National Model and grounded in the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors, this presentation explores how strategic, research-based technology can enhance school counseling practices, improve student social-emotional learning (SEL), and support mental health initiatives. Participants will learn how to apply digital tools to streamline counseling services, increase student engagement, and develop data-driven interventions that align with SEL best practices.
A District Leadership Panel: Navigating College & Career Readiness in Maryland
Lead Presenter: Amy Rhodes
Join Wicomico County Public Schools and Somerset County Public Schools counseling leadership for a panel discussion around challenges and initiatives around college and career readiness (CCR) for K-12 districts in Maryland. Topics discussed will include: Blueprint for Maryland’s future, college application management, school counselor workload management, and postsecondary preparation. Discussion will be facilitated by SchooLinks, a modern CCR platform customized for Maryland school districts. Audience participation and a dedicated Q&A time will be encouraged.
Beyond Business as Usual: Counseling Advocacy and Leadership
Lead Presenter: Keisha Branch
School counselors are vital change agents, but systemic barriers, perceptions, and misuse of their roles often limit their impact. This session equips participants with strategies to redefine their roles, advocate for systemic change, and implement innovative, data-driven practices that align programs with school-wide goals. Attendees will also explore ways to communicate their impact and expand their professional influence through collaboration and advocacy. By the end of the session, participants will be equipped with tools to drive meaningful, school-wide impact and elevate the role of the school counselor.
Building Healthy Relationships to Support Trauma Sensitive Students
Lead Presenter: Larryelle Greenhow
This interactive session explores the impact of trauma on school-age children and offers practical strategies for trauma-sensitive classrooms. Learn how Harmony Academy’s focus on healthy relationships supports trauma-informed teaching. Practice everyday strategies, like Meet Up and Buddy Up, to create supportive, inclusive environments. Explore Harmony’s free online learning portal for lasting impact. Perfect for educators and counselors aiming to build safe, nurturing spaces for all students.
Data-Driven Onboarding: Multilingual Mentor Success
Lead Presenter: Jessica Jackson
Learn about the Multilingual Mentors at AHS, where 50-90 newcomer immigrants are welcomed yearly. We were overwhelmed trying to onboard new students. We needed help! Our program was designed using academic and behavior data. In its 3rd year, we can share benefits for both Mentores y Aprendices. We hope that sharing our story, data, and methodology with education professionals will help them welcome new students and provide leadership opportunities for them as well.
Middle School Matters: A Fireside Chat on Supporting Student Success
Lead Presenter: Desiree Moore
Join us for an engaging and collaborative fireside chat designed exclusively for middle school counselors. This interactive session will provide a supportive space to discuss the unique challenges of working with middle school students while sharing best practices to foster academic achievement, social-emotional well-being, and early college and career readiness. Gain valuable insights from your peers and leave with practical strategies to enhance student support and success.
Plan Your Future! Who Will You Be?
Lead Presenter: Ashlee Davis
Nationally, students are expected to gain career awareness, career preparedness, and transition skills as early as kindergarten. Early access to career planning has the potential to introduce students to spark their interests and curiosities for the future. Those experiences can lead to a more motivated and engaging learning environment for students whose education is connected to their future. In this session, we will explore barriers to providing early access and how to increase student participation in career exploration and planning for their future. Attendees will leave with tangible ways to implement students’ early access to career development and build on their career portfolios.
The Gratitude Museum: Improving School Climate with Warmth
Lead Presenter: Joel Gunzburg
This session will have other counselors thinking about the ways gratitude inspires more feelings of joy and how it improves relationships when gratitude is expressed. The Gratitude Museum is an experiential event that is the exit point of a PreK-5th Grade learning unit exploring gratitude. Students go through a wide range of learning to see how others show gratitude and how it is personally experienced. Students then take a deep dive of learning into feeling and expressing gratitude within the classroom and then take their learning home. From there, students design and build a museum that is shared with the wider community. This session will cover the gratitude unit and will demonstrate the power that authentic expressions of gratitude have on improving the whole school climate.
Am I Seen and Included? Developing Competent Counselors
Lead Presenter: PhiXavieer Holmes
This dynamic session will explore innovative approaches for school counselors to enhance cultural competence and ensure equity in their program delivery. Participants will learn strategies to build a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, acknowledging how race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, language, and identity shape student experiences. The workshop will focus on creating inclusive counseling practices that recognize and respect these differences while promoting an environment of belonging for all students.
Data to Action: Elevating School Counseling Program Plans
Lead Presenter: Nicola Fagan
As we build our comprehensive school counseling program, we would be remiss to leave out ASCA’s Annual Student Outcome Goal. This session will offer participants an opportunity to briefly discuss comprehensive school counseling programming and then shift to the Annual Student Outcome Goal. We will review the Annual Student Outcome Goal’s purpose and how it complements a school counseling program. In addition, the session will provide a thorough examination of the Annual Student Outcome Goal document, provide guidance on completion, and considerations from our own trial and errors.
From Insight to Impact: Using Data to Drive Meaningful Change
Lead Presenter: AJ Hartley
Designed to be both informative and engaging, this session will bridge the gap between theory and practice, bringing the action research process from higher education into practitioner-focused applications that drive real change. In this session, participants will take the journey though the five key steps of the action research process, including identifying a community of practice, defining the problem, digging into the data, making informed decisions, and taking next steps. Empowering students to have a voice in the mental health and school safety arena is essential for driving meaningful and lasting change. Attendees will gain practical insights into fostering student engagement and implementing solutions that create safer, more supportive learning environments.
SCUTA: The School Counselor Advocate
Lead Presenter: Steven Zaharakis
Develop a deeper understanding of SCUTA which is a data-driven tool designed by and for school counselors. This session will highlight how SCUTA helps counselors document their time usage, advocate for their programs, and improve counseling interventions.
Self-Care for Parents: Empowering Families to Thrive
Lead Presenter: Brittany Cephas
In today’s fast-paced world, parents often struggle to prioritize self-care, affecting their well-being and, in turn, their children’s success. This session equips school counselors with practical, evidence-based self-care strategies designed for parents, aiming to build family resilience and foster emotional health. Attendees will gain actionable tools to help parents manage stress, create balance, and strengthen family bonds. By sharing these strategies, school counselors can support family engagement, encourage positive coping skills, and promote resilience, ultimately enhancing student success in both school and home environments.
Student Mental Health: An Open Dialogue
Lead Presenter: Jennice Mauras
It is estimated that 49.5% of today’s adolescents have some form of mental disorder. As our nation’s youth mental health crisis continues, psychologists have deemed schools as a prime environment for intervention. However, many U.S. school counselors, especially those in rural and low-income areas, are struggling to meet the increased need for student mental health support due to lack of funding and/or staff. Our session will provide insights on the prevalence of mental health issues among our youth and strategies schools can take to help.
National Center for Youth Issues
ATTN: MSCA
P.O. Box 22185
Chattanooga, TN 37422-2185
