Shownotes
Between testing, field trips, and students bouncing off the walls, May can be chaotic. But even during the busiest weeks of the school year, you can make meaningful moves for Mental Health Awareness Month—without adding more to your calendar.
In this episode of Counselor Chat, I’m sharing quick, creative, and practical ways to promote mental wellness at school without burning yourself out.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to use morning announcements to plant positive mental health messages
- Ideas for a low-effort Mental Health Spirit Week
- Visual strategies like “Take What You Need” walls and student-made posters
- Fast and effective class check-ins and coping skill moments
- Ways to partner with teachers and engage parents
- How to model mental wellness for your school community
💡 Bonus Reminders:
- 🗓️ First round of Counselor Planners is at the printer—order now for Round 2
- ⏰ TpT Bonus Day Sale ends at MIDNIGHT—don’t miss it!
🎧 Listen now and let’s make mental health awareness doable this May.
Resources Mentioned:
Blog post: How Post-it Notes Can Change School Climate
Spring Meditation Craft and Activity
Coping Skills Meditation and A-Z Posters
Grab the Show Notes: Counselingessentials.org/podcast
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Transcripts
Carol: You're listening to the Counselor Chat Podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration and a little spark of joy. I'm Carol Miller, your host.
I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling Essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students. If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place.
Because we're better together. Ready to chat. Let's dive in.
Carol: Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat. I am so happy that you are with me here today and I want to just thank you for following me along every single week.
If you are brand new to this podcast, well I want to welcome you and thank you for joining in too.
Today, my friends, we are going to be diving into something I think near and dear to all of us. You know, it is May and with that comes Mental Health Awareness Month and today we're going to be talking all about that and how you can bring a little extra sparkle and some support to your school without needing a parade,
a marching band, or let's be honest, any more meetings on your calendar.
And listen, I get it, May. It's already a circus. There's testing, there's field trips, there's award ceremonies. There's students buzzing around with spring fever. If your school is like mine, those discipline referrals are going crazy because kids,
they can't sit still. They are ready to wrap up with school and I know you probably are too.
But even with small moves, we and you can make a big impact when it comes to mental health awareness.
So today we're going to talk about some easy, practical ways to weave mental health into our school life without losing our own.
First of all, there is a lot of power in morning announcements And a quick 30 second mental health tip or a quote each morning can start to plant the seeds without feeling like another lesson.
You could share some simple messages like it's okay to ask for help when you need it. Taking three deep breaths can actually change your brain brain chemistry for the better.
Or how about your feelings are valid, even the messy ones.
You could also ask your students to submit some positive affirmations or coping tips anonymously and you can feature them on your announcements as well. It's a great way to get kids thinking about their mental health and those positive thoughts that can really make a big difference.
The other thing that you can do is you can host a Mental health spirit week.
And you don't have to reinvent the wheel here.
You can start with maybe some small themes like mindful Monday where you practice three deep breaths together in class. Talk it out Tuesday where you encourage students to check in with the best friend Wellness Wednesday and maybe have students wear green for mental health.
Thoughtful Thursday,
we're we're writing compliments for someone else and feel good. Friday, you can have a dance party or morning music in the hallways. We have one teacher in our building, he's second grade and he does this every morning.
And it is a fun way to start the day with just a little good old dance party.
But just keep it simple friends and keep it fun because the point here after all is awareness and not perfection.
The third thing to that you can do to really promote mental health awareness are visuals. And I mean everywhere. Bulletin boards, posters, doors.
And you want to decorate your school with some mental health messages.
You can create a take what you need bulletin board with some tear off tabs words like hope and courage, patience, friendships. I actually have some of these that I wrote about on my blog and I'll drop in the show notes a link back to that blog so that you can see that.
And I also have some of those take what you need posters in my TPT store. One thing that's really great that I have done many times is I've taken a take what you need and I'll have like one of my small groups right on post it notes, just little uplifting messages and we will post them all over the mirrors in the bathroom and it's take what you need when they go in there,
they just take the post it note off and pop it in the room. If you do something like that on post it notes and you let the kids do it, that's a lot less work for you.
And trust me, they won't mind hanging them up in the bathrooms or the hallways or wherever you decide to decorate either.
Another thing that you can do for visuals is to put up posters like ones with quick coping strategies. I also have with my kids, I will go in and I have a classroom set of posters.
It's like an A through Z coping skills. And I will give every kid a letter of a coping skill and then they will color those posters and once again we hang them up and it's quick and easy and they're doing all the work.
Or another way to get those visuals everywhere is a door decorating contest. And you can theme this around, grow through what you go through and kids can Take that and put that in many different ways and you can just let your teachers know, hey, here's some ideas from Pinterest.
And like I said, all you have to do is do a quick Google search and spam it out to everybody. And that's work that you don't really have to take ownership of because you're going to be passing the buck.
But another those visuals, they're so important to get out there.
Another thing that you can do to promote mental health awareness is some quick class lessons or check ins.
If you can squeeze into classrooms this month, maybe you want to do a mental health minute lesson where you can teach grounding techniques, simple self talk strategies or do a five minute guided meditation.
That's one of the other things that I will be doing this this month. I have a spring meditation about a bunny.
And so we are going to be talking about coping skills and, and grounding and I'm going to lead them through this guided journey of a little bunny going through a garden.
And then I actually have a quick little craft for them to follow up with that they're making their own little bunny. But we can tie all of that into what is mental health because a mini discussion, my friends, it can be so powerful.
And if you can't get into full a full lesson in, you can still do a five minute check in game. And that can make a difference because let's face it, sometimes five minutes is about how long students pay attention in May anyway, right?
You could also partner up with staff because teachers, they're overwhelmed this time of year too, but trust me, they really want, they want to help. So you could give staff some mental health conversation starters that they can weave into lessons or their homeroom or their morning meetings.
And these can be easy. It's just something like what's something you can do to calm down when you're feeling stressed or when was the time you were proud of yourself for handling a tough situation?
I would give teachers maybe five or six of these starters and just send them in an email. Something that they could do for a week in the morning or maybe they do it just on Fridays.
But when we let teachers have these really easy entry points, it still keeps the focus school wide without making anyone feel burdened.
And don't forget parent outreach. That matters too. So don't forget the grownups at home. A simple email or newsletter with three tips on supporting kids mental health at home can go a long way.
And some ideas for you can include normalize talking about feelings or help kids create a calming space at home.
And another is model asking for help when needed.
You could even link a few resources or your favorite mental health apps like I like the Calm app or There's a couple YouTube videos with some calming music. I usually have it up in my room all the time, but a couple links to things like that can be great.
And if you don't have your own newsletter, these can be things that maybe you give to your principal to send in their newsletters home.
And the other thing, my friend, is to remind yourself that you're part of this awesomeness too.
You. You are a walking billboard for mental health awareness. And when you model setting boundaries, taking deep breaths and normalizing tough conversations,
students and staffs, they notice.
So yes, do the bulletin boards, do the lessons, do the announcements.
But also take your own lunch break. Hydrate. Say no to one extra task this month. Protect your own peace.
Because that is mental health awareness too.
All right, my friends, this was a really short episode today and that's really all I have for you. For this episode of Counselor Chat, I'm going to be dropping some links to some lessons and some ideas to really help with mental health awareness.
And just remember, you don't have to do all the things to make a difference. This May, a few small moves made with heart can change the way a student still sees mental health and themselves forever.
You, my friends, you're already making an impact just by showing up. Keep doing it. Be there each day. And until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I hope you have a great week.
Bye for now.
Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and at counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at @counselingessentials. Until next time.
Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.
