EC/ES Family & Child Counselor

January 25, 2025

Job Description

Position Title:                EC/ES Family & Child Counselor
Division:                        Teaching and Learning/Early Childhood/Elementary School
Supervisor:                    EC/ES Principals
 
Position Summary: 
The EC/ES Family and Child Counselor at Concordia International School Shanghai will work collaboratively with students, parents, and faculty/staff to promote student success by leveraging leadership, advocacy, and collaboration. The Counselor will implement a comprehensive school counseling program that addresses the social and emotional development of students and their families from Preschool to Grade 5. This includes providing preventive services, responding to specific student needs, and consulting with school personnel and parents to plan, implement, and evaluate individual and group interventions. This role serves as an integral member of the building-based Student Support Team, offering essential services to students.
 
Additionally, the counselor offers bilingual (Mandarin/Korean/English) services to enhance the social and psychological well-being of children and their families, aiming to maximize family wellness and improve children’s overall functioning. The counselor supports teachers by advising them on ways to emotionally support students in the classroom. This role collaborates with families and provides a variety of parenting education opportunities to serve a diverse population.
 
Requirements:
Education
  • Master’s degree in Counseling.
  • A certification in education.         
  • Doctoral degree in Counseling or Social Work, preferred.
Experience
  • Must have experience in supporting teachers by providing individualized instruction, interventions, and progress monitoring.
  • Experienced in assessing students’ emotional and behavioral needs, providing both individual and group counseling.
  • Experienced in coordinating services with community-based providers and offering culturally responsive support to diverse students and families.
  • Experienced in implementing schoolwide positive behavioral supports, positive discipline, conscious discipline, and/or restorative justice practices.
  • Experienced in assessing school climate, improving connectedness, and identifying at-risk students to prevent bullying and violence.
  • Familiar with providing crisis prevention and intervention services and assisting families in understanding children’s learning and emotional needs.
  • Must have experience in connecting families with community service providers as needed and enhancing staff understanding of diverse cultures.
  • Experienced in assisting with navigating special education processes and generating useful student and school outcomes data.
Skills
  • Comprehensive knowledge of the developmental needs of children from the ages of 3 to 11 years old.
  • Knowledge of and experience in using a variety of assessments and differentiated counseling techniques.
  • Knowledge of best practices in trauma-informed care within educational settings.
  • Skilled in facilitating groups of students, parents, and staff.
  • Ability to develop initiatives responsive to student needs.
  • Skillful at using technology particularly as it interfaces with student needs for accommodations and modifications.
  • Excellent interpersonal skills to collaborate with staff, parents, students and administrators.
  • Effective communicator – communicates well with a diverse community of parents, staff, and leaders; proficient writing skills.
  • Highly skilled at using and integrating technology.
  • Strong organizational and time management skills.
  • Ability to lead in a crisis; knowledge of crisis interventions. 
  • Effective communicator and problem solver. 
  • Familiarity in working with student support services teams to develop individual educational plans, especially in the area of social-emotional skills. 
Key Areas of Responsibility
  • Development and management of a comprehensive school counseling program in partnership with EC and ES teachers and principals, including the implementation of adopted program(s) in classrooms. 
  • Ensure that the comprehensive school counseling program and its goals are made available to all stakeholders via the school website.
  • Development and maintenance of a written plan for effective delivery of the school counseling program based on the International School Counselor Association model (ISCA) and current individual school data.
  • Provision and maintenance of parent/guardian resources, teacher resources and community resources.
  • Lead, co-lead, and/or assist with Parent Connect events.
Guidance Curriculum
Purpose: To provide guidance and instruction in, and support for the growth and social-emotional development and the acquisition of pro-social skills that enable each child to be successful in the educational setting.
  • Provides leadership and collaborates with other international counselors and educators in the school-wide integration of the ISCA Guidance Curriculum Standards.
  • Provides applicable materials and resources to teachers for following up on guidance activities in their classrooms.
  • Assists teachers with incorporating the ISCA standards and benchmarks into their classrooms.
  • Implements developmentally appropriate and prevention-oriented group activities to meet student needs and school goals.
    • Conducts classroom guidance lessons such as character education.
    • Conducts small and large group activities based on the guidance curriculum.
Individual Student Planning
Purpose: Counselor provides on going planning sessions with faculty, administrators, outsource personnel and parents (when needed) to ensure that students in need have the benefit of collaborative educational planning.
  • Assists all students, individually or in groups, with developing academic, personal/social skills, goals and plans.
    • Conducts counseling sessions with students.
  • Accurately and appropriately interprets, maintains and utilizes student data.
  • Collaborates with parents/guardians and educators to assist students with educational planning.
    • Sends written communications to parents/guardians and teachers
    • Apprises teachers of adaptive materials and services that exist and are available to students.
 
Preventative and Responsive Services
Purpose: To enhance the child’s experiences of success at school by supporting child and child’s family’s ability to adjust to new situations, cope with life’s difficulties or handle developmental challenges.
  • Provides individual and group counseling to students with identified concerns and needs.
  • Consults and collaborates effectively with parents/guardians, teachers, administrators and other educational/community resources regarding students with identified concerns and needs.
    • Advocates for equity and access for all students.
    • Provides staff with resources to accommodate individual differences and needs of students.
  • Implements and maintains an effective referral and follow-up process.
  • Accurately and appropriately uses assessment procedures for determining and structuring individual and group counseling services.
System Support
Purpose: To be an active participant of the collaborative team and to establish, maintain and enhance the total counseling program.
  • Accountability
    • Conducts a yearly program survey to review extent of program effectiveness.
    • Collects and analyzes data to guide program direction and emphasis.
    • Measures results of the school counseling program activities and shares results as appropriate or as requested.
    • Monitors student academic performance, behavior, attendance and assists with appropriate interventions.
Teacher Expectations
  • As a school grounded in the Christian faith, we hire Christian teachers and administrators. Concordia seeks to hire candidates who are able to model Christ’s teachings through interpersonal skills, respectful relationships and problem solving, are interested in the complex questions of faith, spirituality and are keen to learn and interact with others of different faith traditions.
  • Establish collaborative relationships with all staff, students, and parents.
  • Addressing the needs of the whole child is an important part of Concordia’s ethos and as a member of Concordia’s faculty, embraces opportunities to work with families of our students.
  • Seeks out the opportunities to work with and learn from their colleagues.
  • Facilitates Care and Concern meetings with teachers and Learning Support Specialists, as well as meetings with teachers, the principal, and parents.  
  • In critical counseling cases across the school, can provide translation assistance (approx. 6 hrs. a month)
  • Maintains accurate records.
  • Meets with individual students, parents and teachers, as needed.
  • Leads, co-leads, and/or assists with EC/ES Parent Connect events and conducts Parent Education sessions
  • Interfaces with outsourced (external community) specialists, i.e. hearing, OT, speech, other evaluators or medical personnel.
  • Assists Principals with student classroom placement.
  • On regular school days, is on duty between 7:30AM and 3:45PM, not inclusive of activities and meetings.
  • Commit and contribute to the school community—play an active, positive, and supportive role in addressing the needs of the whole child and the ethos of Concordia beyond the classroom. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Leading extra-curricular activities (ECAs) during the school year
  • Leading a student club
  • Additional employment expectations: 
  • Collaborate with Teaching Assistants/Support Staff in working with or monitoring children and managing clerical tasks. Establish expectations and guidelines for these adults in the learning environment and help them understand their roles/responsibilities. 
  • Undertake additional duties that may reasonably be assigned or requested by the Supervisor such as leading student trips, serving as chaperon roles as needed.
  • Other duties as assigned

Video