“Students need to know there is someone there for them,” school counselor Gail Martinez said, “and we’re the first person they come to.”

Martinez was one of 18 school counselors honored at the first UFT School Counselors Recognition Ceremony for playing that critical role in the lives of many of the city’s more than one million students.

Before presenting awards to the honorees, who represented every borough and grade level, at the June 12 event at the union’s Brooklyn borough office, School Counselors Chapter Leader Rosemarie Thompson thanked them all for giving so “tirelessly” and for “being there whenever there’s a problem.”

In his tribute to the counselors, UFT President Michael Mulgrew stressed their importance in the education process. “We can’t educate students if they are not ready,” he said, “and you are the ones who get them ready to be educated.”

In light of how crucial a student’s social and emotional well-being is to learning, Mulgrew called for requiring a school counselor in every school. All of the honorees, who were celebrating their accomplishments with family, friends and colleagues, burst into applause.

Like other counselors, Nora McCarthy of PS 236 and PS 207, both in Brooklyn, expressed concern about the effect of social media distractions on students. “All that screen time is affecting their social skills,” said McCarthy, who has been a school counselor for 24 years. “They don’t make friends and don’t make eye contact.”

Martinez has been part of PS 861 — the Staten Island School of Civic Leadership — since it opened nine years ago so she knows the students well. She, too, lamented the lack of social interaction among students in the classroom and, she suspects, a lack of connections at home as well.

In her work with middle schoolers, Martinez said she has been focusing this year on group work with girls about friendship — what it means to be a friend and the value of a true friend. “It’s back to basics and things you would think they already know,” she said.

Stevie Burrell was a middle school teacher for 10 years before he switched to counseling in 2003 to be more effective.

“We can all name that one special person who opened the door to the future for us, and our kids will find that person, too,” he said. For many of the graduates of Bedford Academy HS in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, an academically demanding school where more than 90 percent of graduates go on to college, Burrell is that person and the reason he was nominated for the award.

Before starting his college seminar for juniors, Burrell “got on the bus and did the tour” to check out state colleges so he could better advise his students, especially those unprepared for the cost of college.

In welcoming everyone to the gathering, UFT Brooklyn Borough Representative Elizabeth Perez told the honorees, “No teacher could have survived without you.”

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