MIDDLE SCHOOL COUNSELOR

JOB DESCRIPTION

Title: School Counselor - Middle School

FLSA Status: _X__ Exempt ___ Non-Exempt ___Part-time

Job Summary:

Counselors at De Smet Jesuit are tasked with ensuring that the wide range of students’ academic, social,

emotional, personal, and spiritual needs are met in a professional, compassionate manner with an

emphasis on cura personalis. Counselors invoke all of their training and skill to ensure that personal

distractions for students are minimized so that they can enjoy the full benefit of the academic, social, and

spiritual life of the school. Collaborating with administrators, parents, teachers, and students, Counselors

bridge the many relationships that enrich the middle school experience for young men at De Smet Jesuit.

Due to the potentially sensitive and challenging nature of working with adolescents during times of stress

or crisis, this position must maintain the highest professional standards of confidentiality, discretion, and

compassion.

Specific Responsibilities:

Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Advising and supporting students and parents during times of personal or academic struggles or crises

• Counseling students through social conflicts

• Working closely with parents to ensure that students are receiving necessary parental and family

support

• Guiding students to proper resources for questions regarding spirituality

• Recognizing discipline issues and working with administration to handle them appropriately

• Discerning bullying or discrimination issues and collaborating with administration or outside

resources to ensure their prompt resolution

• Utilizing intervention skills and established intervention techniques when a student's mental state

indicates that the student is contemplating harm to himself or others

• Serving as a point person for identifying mental health concerns. Managing and facilitating

communication with outside resources for mental health, personal or family support, and life

coaching, as necessary.

• Coordinating, administering, and helping in the interpretation of academic and interest assessments.

• Collaborating with other faculty and administration to develop and administer awareness programs

for parents on a range of adolescent and teen life issues.

• Developing and delivering social-emotional learning lessons to middle school students

Supervision Exercised

• None

Supervision Received

• Dean of Middle School

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in school guidance and counseling, psychology, social work, or related field.

• Superior skills in interpersonal relationships, organization, and conflict resolution.

Additional Preferred Qualifications

• Minimum of two years of relevant professional counseling or teaching experience in an educational

setting.

• Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) or Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Missouri

• Ability to take on coaching or co-curricular duties

• Practicing Catholic, committed to Catholic orthodoxy and Ignatian philosophy