Social Media Campaign – #WeNeedCounselors
Goal: To spread awareness to legislators and decision makers that counselors are integral to the success of students at high schools. We want to make sure legislators in California know that budget cuts to education hurt our students by removing or limiting access to counseling in their schools.
Message: Counselors are the connecting force for students in high school and post-secondary programs and colleges. Counselors are keeping kids in school, supporting the students’ families, supporting the staff at the high school, among other things.
Some key topics to use as stories and examples:
- Financial aid
- Learning loss
- Distance learning
- Lost students
- Loss of funding impact on families and how counselors mitigate that
- Personal stories of counseling students
Action: Tweet your legislators and you can include these things:
- The fact that you are a constituent (but please don’t share any personal information which makes you uncomfortable – like an address or a zip code). You can simply state you are in their district.
- The name of your school (if allowed).
- A story of what you do (and have been doing) every day. How are you supporting students right now? What are you seeing as far as learning loss, distance learning issues, budget cuts, lost students, loss of funding impact on families. How do counselors help with these things? What are you seeing daily? If there were budget cuts at your schools and loss of counseling staff, what would be neglected as far as services?
- The hashtag #WeNeedCounselors
- Retweet others who are doing this so they get more traction! Check out WACAC’s Twitter feed here.
Things to know:
- You can find your legislators (both State Senator and State Assemblyperson) here.
- You can create a thread if your story is longer than one tweet and those who follow or read the first tweet will see the entire thread. How to do that here.
- If you don’t want to include your location or school, simply state your story, tag the legislator, and add the hashtag.
- You can find your legislator’s Twitter handle by googling their name and “Twitter.” Most of them have one!
Example Tweets:
@SenatorPatBates #WeNeedCounselors because we do everything. Our district focused on food distribution these past few months, but not all of our students have computers or internet. Some students don’t have a working phone number or email address attached to our information system. It was very difficult to get a hold of some students throughout this time. But we are the ones on the front lines doing this work.
@SenatorPatBates Due to COVID-19, many students can no longer afford to meet their basic needs, let alone manage high school online or afford to go to college. We are helping y0ung people navigate an entirely new reality. This already difficult work is complicated by the need to conduct almost all of it virtually. Right now, students need more support, not less, as they reassess and plan their futures. #WeNeedCounselors