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Counselors

Welcome Councelors.

The builders of this site are themselves career counselors, and teachers, and parents. So we feel a certain comradery with you. This document is to assist you in navigating your portion of the website, though you are certainly welcome to visit the Student, Teacher, and Parent resources as well.

First you will find 3 buttons which reflect the level of students/clients you may be working with: Middle School, High School, or College. Our general approach is the same regardless of level. We want each student to know themselves (as students and potential professionals) before they explore the world of work (STEM occupational information) and actually commit to a program of study or profession. So, when you click on the level that works for you, you will find three buttons and we strongly recommend that these be sequenced from left to right:

Career exploration begins with self assessment of the student's "work self" including

Interests - what a person likes to do
Values - what is important to a person
Abilities - what a person is good at

Under each button you"ll find a variety of tools that will help your students/clients with their career development journey. Each tool has been screened for quality appropriateness to the level of education chosen. Generally speaking, interests first, values next, abilities after that (it's a narrowing process).

Now students enrolled in the MIND Alliance Project are being encouraged to complete as many of these assessments as possible (we understand you may want to add your own) and print out their findings and bring them to you for discussion. We defer to your professional experience and expertise to guide them from there, but your guidance is considered indispensable to the success of the MIND Alliance Project.

Career planning is followed by STEM Exploration, a variety of high quality online information resources specific to careers Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (again each is customized to level of education). Students should enter into a healthy state of confusion and dialogue to help them first broaden the range of opportunities considered, and then narrow the range of opportunities based upon their assessment findings and your excellent guidance. Keep in mind they will also be consulting teachers, parents, other counselors, mentors and key worker contacts along the way. It's a team effort. STEM occupational information can be overwhelming in the absence of a professional counselor, so your role in their planning is absolutely critical.

Naturally, middle schoolers are preparing to be high schoolers who are preparing for 2 or 4 year colleges and so there is additional information about this depending upon their level.

All students in the MIND Alliance Project have disabilities, and so we have provided you with a button (far right) regarding Disability Resources that provide you with lots of backup in this respect: institutional, state, and national resources for your edification.