Crisis Intervention, Fights with Friends, and "My Teacher Sent Me:" Data Collection on Unscheduled Sessions

Because my district is REALLY struggling financially and I'm the newest of only four school counselors, I figured it would be wise for me to have information on hand to show how much of my job involves crisis intervention or dealing with the unscheduled and unexpected.  

Before the start of the school year I made a Google Doc form for that purpose.  I've been spending maybe 5-10 minutes after school entering the name and general presenting issue of whoever has shown up at my door that day.  That version has been okay, but it doesn't quite capture everything I want to track.  

So I created a new form to collect data on the number of unscheduled kids I see, how those kids get to me, how much time I'm spending with them, and (super important from a CYA standpoint) whether these sessions with kids in crisis are forcing to miss any of my kids on IEPs or 504s.

Much of the information will go on my end-of-year report next year. Some is just to satisfy my own curiosity.  Some is to have on hand in case anyone (besides one 4th grade wiseguy) believes that I choose to avoid them by sitting in my office with the door shut "reading romance novels."  As if!

I prefer thrillers or historical fiction.

Anyway, I liked what I came up with, especially since entering data on "drop-ins" is already part of my daily routine.  I imagined plenty of other people might like to collect similar data.  The problem was that I could not for the life of me figure out how to share a GDoc form so that all of you could have it and change it to suit your needs without messing up my original.

Enter my new hero, Jeff Ream from The Counseling Geek.  I watched a couple of his Google Docs tutorials and decided to e-mail him and ask for help.  He not only figured out a clever way to share forms, he even made another video tutorial about it!

If you'd like to check out my data-collection form and use it as a basis for your own, give it a try.  The crucial thing to remember is that you have to make a copy of mine (rename it so you don't get confused), then make any changes you'd like on the copy.  That way you'll have yours and I'll have mine.  To set up the spreadsheet for your responses, open your copy, click on "Choose Response Destination" in the top bar, then "New Spreadsheet." Done!

If Google Docs is an enigma to you, check out Jeff's tutorials.  Let me know how you fare.  Good luck!