Diana Fuller, a guidance counselor at MS 313 in Brooklyn, said the workshop on healthy coping skills she attended at the UFT’s annual Guidance Counselors Conference was so useful she put it to work immediately. Upon returning to school on Monday, she used the meditation and breathing exercises she had learned with three students from a self-contained special education class.

“At first, they thought it was silly, but then they participated and afterward told me that it really helped,” she said.

Ariana Carthan, a guidance counselor at PS 63 in Queens, said the yoga and mindfulness workshop introduced her to new modalities to supplement the “talk, talk, talk” that is so much of what counselors do. “When students are really upset and can’t function, this will help them to focus without ignoring their feelings,” she said.

Such were the professional learning opportunities at the conference for the more than 250 counselors who attended the daylong event on March 12 at union headquarters.

In her welcoming remarks, UFT Guidance Counselors Chapter Leader Rosemarie Thompson told the counselors that, like them, she is a practicing counselor who knows “what it’s like to be that guiding light for students — sometimes the single light that lets them know there’s a way out of the tunnel as they face often staggering choices.”

Thompson thanked the counselors for their “fierce advocacy” on behalf of their students.

In his lunchtime address, UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the counselors that under the Bloomberg administration, the number of counselors shrank and when Mayor Bill de Blasio came in, “I told him, ‘The first thing we have to do is build up the capacity for social-emotional growth in our students, because they can’t learn until they are settled down, calm and engaged in the process.’”

Under de Blasio, the Department of Education has increased the number of guidance counselors citywide by 250. Noting that New York City students are now outperforming the rest of the state, Mulgrew said, “The growth of this chapter directly correlates to the academic improvements of our school system.”

He said that a guidance counselor recently told him: “This is the first time in my career I don’t feel like I’m doing triage every day. I feel like I’m actually counseling and not just dealing with crises.”

“I hope you feel appreciated because what you do is amazing,” he told the counselors.

Keynote speaker Carolyn Stone, a professor and counselor educator, gave a talk on legal and ethical issues that counselors face.

The day’s workshops covered a wide range of topics, including the developing adolescent brain, planning for college, teaching emotional resilience to younger students and creating transgender-affirming schools. At the exhibit hall, there were vendors, resources and literature to help counselors in their work.

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Jonathan Fickies

Self-confessed “PD geek” Jennifer Colon, a second-year guidance counselor at PS 16 and PS 10 on Staten Island, said she picked up new skills she will use to teach her students how to control their impulses and manage their anger.

As the only counselor in the two schools, she said, “I’m always looking for different strategies and ways to help my students.”

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