Counseling Corner: Addison Trail Guidance Department offers group meetings to support students

At District 88 and Addison Trail, we focus on the whole student – including meeting each child’s social and emotional needs – to ensure he or she is successful in all aspects of life.

As part of that focus, the Addison Trail Guidance Department offers a variety of group meetings, where students can find support through meeting with their peers in a supervised setting with a counselor. During first semester, the department ran a grief group, a self-esteem group and a boys group and anger management, and the department is getting ready to start groups for second semester.

This year’s theme has been based on the popular movie “The Greatest Showman.” Students have identified with one of the songs in the movie, and the focus has been “This Is Me.” Group sessions encourage students to find out who they are, to not be afraid and to be proud of themselves. One of the goals is to recognize things happen to each and every one of us, and it’s important to understand we all have challenges we are working through.

Group is important because it promotes a place where students can feel safe to be who they really are and express their feelings openly – whether it’s dealing with a loss, a divorce, low self-esteem or just trying to figure out who they are. Group helps students realize they are not alone. We work on skills for better communication with others and even within ourselves. The groups run for eight weeks and rotate periods.

Parents/guardians, if you feel your son or daughter could benefit from joining a group, contact Addison Trail Guidance Counselor Tina Gatses at 630-628-3320 or tgatses@dupage88.net. Gatses will meet with your child and determine the best fit to help him or her.