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School Counseling Services

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About Us

  • Mission Statement

    The school counseling program's primary goal is to assist all students in reaching their academic potential by removing barriers to learning and preventatively assisting students in acquiring life success skills.

    As an integral component in the education system, school counselors provide a developmental, comprehensive and continuous program of services from pre-kindergarten through high school targeting the academic, career and personal / social development of all students.  Counseling, consultation, coordination, collaboration, guidance curriculum, and program evaluation are the main delivery methods in a successful school counseling program. School counseling achieves maximum effectiveness through the support and collaboration of parents, teachers, administrators, and community members.

    The Harford County Public School Counselor Program:

    • Integrates the American School Counseling Association (ASCA) National Model for School Counseling Pre-K through 12.
    • Adheres to Ethical code developed by the American School Counseling Association (ASCA) and  American Counseling Association (ACA).
    • Uses data to drive the program to determine that critical school needs are met.
    • Incorporates the Harford County Public School Master Plan, the Annotated Code of Maryland, and the local School Improvement Plan, to develop a plan of implementation for services.

    Team Work

  • Service Model - School Counseling Service Delivery Model
    School Counselors: Deliver a prevention-focused comprehensive and developmental guidance and counseling program in grades Pre-kindergarten through Grade 12.
    Delivery Model

    Overview of the Model
    • Intervention- What multi-agency teams must be created to deliver programs and services for the highest "at-risk" student populations?
    • Early Intervention - What data is needed to identify selected populations?
    • Prevention - What prerequisite knowledge, skills, and competencies do all students need in the academic, personal-social, and career domains?

    Program Brochures
  • Contact Us

    picture of LaWanda Brown
    LaWanda Brown
    Supervisor of School Counseling
    LaWanda.Brown@hcps.org

    picture of Laura Wade
    Laura L. Wade
    Professional Support
    laura.wade@hcps.org


Academic Development



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Career Development



Personal/Social Development



Family Connection


  • Naviance Family Connection Naviance

    Your School's Family Connection URL

  • What is Family Connection?

    We are pleased to be able to offer Family Connection by Naviance, a web-based college and career research tool that allows students and parents/guardians to:

    • Research college and career options
    • Assess personality traits and compare them with potential career choice characteristics
    • Determine individual learning styles

    In addition, this innovative program offers assistance with the college application process and allows counselors and parents to securely access important student information in helping students with their long-term plans.

    Through self-discovery and collaboration with parents, teachers and school sounselors, Family Connection helps students be better prepared for attending college and planning for their future career.

    Accessing Family Connection

    Both parents and students are able to access Family Connection. Students will have a registration code given to them by their counselor. Note that you and your child will each receive different registration codes, and that each code may be used only once. Parents can obtain their registration code by contacting their school counseling office. Once you have your registration code, visit the Family Connection site, select the school your student attends and login.

  • What does Family Connection Offer?
    Naviance Offers: Research Colleges and Careers, Find Scholarships, Plan Campus Visits, Organize College Applications, and so much more!
    • College Planning:
      Based on the historical results from each student, Naviance delivers a wealth of data that allows schools and districts to determine how many of their students are applying to specific colleges and universities, where they are accepted, rejected or waitlisted, and what it took for their students to meet their goals. School counselors can then leverage that data to help guide students and families through the college planning process, and make decisions that meet their needs.

    • Naviance eDocs:
      It's never been easier for schools to track and manage electronic documents, and submit letters of recommendation and supporting college application documents such as transcripts, mid-year and final applications. Naviance eDocs is an electronic document delivery system that helps schools save time and money by eliminating manual processes and paperwork. It allows counselors to submit electronic transcripts and documents to more than 1,700 colleges and universities, including every Common Application member institution.

    • Research Colleges & SuperMatch College Search:
      Naviance makes college research easy. Whether it's matching colleges to a student's career interests, or comparing admissions rates at a student's top college choices, the college planning tools allow students and families to make informed decisions about their options by comparing colleges and universities, exploring scholarship opportunities, tracking college applications, and accessing a variety of other college research materials.

    • Organize Your College Application Process:
      Build a resume, complete on-line surveys, and manage timelines and deadlines for making decisions about colleges and careers.

    • Sign-up for College Visits:
      Find out which colleges are visiting your school and sign up to attend those sessions.

    • Scattergram:
      Students can review academic and admission data for colleges across the United States; they can gauge their chances for acceptance by comparing GPA/ACT/SAT. Since HCPS implemented Naviance in 2012, limited data is available at this time. Therefore, if a school has had very few, or zero applicants from HCPS, there will not be a Scattergram available at this time. You should use the advertised average GPA and standardized scores that the college reports as general numbers.

    • Research Careers & Career Assessments:
      The career assessments in Family Connection provide students with insight into their career interests and strengths. Explore different careers you are interested in learning more about. If you are undecided, you have the opportunity to take series of career assessments that help students discover multiple career options, and plan their career paths based on general areas of interest, and the level of education and training required to achieve their individual goals and objectives.

      • Do What You Are Naviance Personality Test:
        Students can explore career options by doing the Do What You Are personality test that matches interests with careers. The assessment uses the Myers-Briggs personality types to suggest careers and clusters that might be a good match for a student. The results of the assessment provide students with a four-part personality type. Each of the four parts represents a personality trait that contributes to the student’s overall personality type. The results page has detailed information about the student’s personality type and potential careers and majors for the student to consider.

      • Career Interest Profiler:
        The Career Interest Profiler is an online career interest assessment for students based on Holland’s interest codes. The results of the assessment include the student’s strongest interests in green with definitions of all the Holland interest codes. Students can view matching careers and career clusters organized by the amount of preparation each needs.

    • Research Scholarships:
      Get details on available scholarships, including qualifications, deadlines and application information.

  • Announcing Family Connection for Middle Schools

    Naviance for Middle Schools

    The Office of School Counseling is pleased to implement Naviance at the Middle Level. Naviance is a college and career planning resource that is available to students in Harford County Public Schools beginning in the 6th grade. This program is a great tool to help students plan their educational path. While using Naviance, students can complete inventories that will help define their strengths and interests. Within Naviance, your student will begin to participate in activities such as Goal Setting, Career Exploration, Course Planning, and High School Readiness. Each Middle School student will receive a personal access code from their School Counselor.

    As a part of Naviance, we would like to provide information on Family Connection, a service designed especially for students and families. Family Connection is a comprehensive website that you and your child can use to help make plans about courses, colleges, and careers. Family Connection is linked with Naviance Succeed™, a service that we use in our school counseling departments to track and analyze data about college and career plans, so it provides up-to-date information that’s specific to your school.

    Family Connection will allow you and your child to:

    • Get involved in the planning and advising process - Build a resume, complete online surveys, and manage timelines and deadlines for making decisions about colleges and careers
    • Research colleges - Compare GPA, standardized test scores and other statistics to actual historical data from your school for students who have applied and been admitted in the past
    • Research careers - Research hundreds of careers and career clusters and take career assessments like the Do What You Are® test.
    • Create plans for the future - Build course plans, create goals and to-do lists and complete tasks assigned to you by the school to better prepare yourself for your future college and career goals.