- Feb 2020
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curriculum.collegepossible.org curriculum.collegepossible.org
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Parents who want nothing more than to have their child earn their degree, yet are unwilling to share the tax information required for the student to do the FAFSA.
I've had multiple students experience this, and it can be frustrating, but I think it's important to address this with empathy for the parents and help the student role play the conversation. One of my students was able to get the information from their parents by remind the parents that college graduation was a shared, family goal, but they wouldn't be able to reach that goal without doing the FAFSA.
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curriculum.collegepossible.org curriculum.collegepossible.org
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Mental health crises can sometimes occur following other crisis experiences—when working with students on other crisis issues, it can be helpful to check-in about their mental health as well.
It's critical to check in on mental health for marginalized students after incidents of discrimination occur at the college they attend. Even if it doesn't happen directly to the student, knowing it happen on campus or the following discussions of it can still be traumatizing and impact their mental health.
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Many schools have ‘mandatory reporting’ policies that require faculty to notify police and/or a campus office if a member of the school community discloses an experience with domestic or sexual violence. Encourage students to look into their school policies and take them into account when deciding where to seek support and resources.
During our mandatory reporter training, they used this as a way for students to develop self advocacy skills by seeking help and support from their college.
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In some states college students are eligible to receive benefits through government assistance programs—encourage students to look into the specific qualification criteria in their location.
Some other college coaches and I recently watched a seminar on how students can apply to SNAP, so putting that information out on a social media post or in a mass text could be helpful for identifying students who might need help without signaling anyone out.
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Identify national months/weeks/days dedicated to the awareness of different concerns students might experience, and share an article or link to a resource during that time.
There's a Facebook page called "Your Freshmen is Off to College" which is technically for parents, but they make a post each month about common transitional issues students face, so I share those to start a conversation with students on Facebook about how to navigate those barriers.
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When experiencing a crisis, students’ social identities may impact how comfortable they are reaching out to, and interacting with, support services.
At the beginning of the semester, I try to make a resource sheet or email of all the resources on a campus, including any counseling services or food pantries. I send this out to all students to help normalize this information, but also so students have a head's up of where to go if they need these at another point in the semester.
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The first step in supporting a student in crisis is identifying there is a situation impacting the student to the point of significant emotional, mental, or physical distress
When having a phone conversation, the nonverbal ways to recognize a crisis is difficult because they only thing to go off of is what the student is telling you. I've also had experiences of some of my students using humor to cover up what seems to be a challenging issue or situation.
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curriculum.collegepossible.org curriculum.collegepossible.org
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Low-income students often feel isolated from their peers in the transition to college, and may not realize that their peers likely feel equally anxious and uncertain.
To some point this is true, but I've also had conversations with students who clearly understand the impact finances have on their peers experience in college, especially for the students who are the only ones that have to work out of their friend group. I make sure they know those feelings of having to do more are valid, but I think helping students understand that noticing those dynamics is a skill of it's own and they are building life skills more than their peers.
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When speaking to your older students, ask if they’d be willing to talk to your younger students about challenges they’ve faced and how they overcame those struggles. Then, connect them so younger students have a role model of someone who experienced something similar, and at the same time create a new connection that can increase their social capital moving forward.
I've found this practice helpful for students feeling isolated on campus. Sometimes, they won't even know there are other College Possible students on campus, so dropping names of other students seems to help them realize they have someone who they could go to.
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In the transition to college life, though, maintaining that focus and confidence can be a significant challenge, particularly if a student feels isolated or different from their peers.
Along with these factors, I also know students experiencing culture shock when going from a diverse high school to a primarily white institution. Culture shock is also important to talk about within the social-emotional learning topic because it can make them feel disconnected or isolated to campus. But this is also when I notice students really developing their self advocacy skills to find or start student organizations that reflect their own experiences.
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Goal-Setting: Using the goal-setting process to stay focused on college graduation, and to build action plans that are strategic and efficient. Some students will need your help to develop an action plan from scratch, while you’ll guide others through the process of referring back to existing plans, assessing progress, and making adjustments as necessary to stay on track.
Most colleges have a degree audit or career classes where they require students to plan out a timeline of college. These are great resources I ask students to take advantage of to help keep track of their goals.
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ocial-Emotional Learning can be defined as the process through which people acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions (www.casel.org/what-is-sel/).
I feel like this is a good starting point for developing questions or conversation points during a coaching session. I believe most coaches do work with students to establish goals, but I think we could also use this to stretch students to their highest potential but asking them how they make relationships on campus or how they go about making difficult decisions.
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