School-wide Advisory Programs need careful organizing, planning, implementation, monitoring, and stakeholder buy-in to be successful.
This page provides resources and tools for school leadership teams to plan and implement their Advisory Programs.
Planning Tool
Power of Advisories is an excellent, free guidebook to help schools set up a school-wide Advisory Program. There are several critical checklists, exercises, protocols and graphic organizers to carefully think through important aspects and plan for structures to implement with fidelity. We suggest that you use this tool throughout the whole process.
Professional Development resources for your school staff are also available in this guidebook.
Advisory Program Design Checklist
Use this checklist adopted from The Advisory Guide to ensure that your planning team covers all the essential building blocks.
Standards
The American School Counselor Association's (ASCA) National Counseling Standards can be used to align goals to measurable student outcomes in the areas of Academic Development, Career Development, and Personal/Social Development.
The 40 Developmental Assets, a research-based framework for positive youth development, can also be added as metrics for vision and goals. Schools should focus specifically on those Developmental Assets pertaining to students' school life.
Additional Resources
The Advisory Guide, Educators for Social Responsibility, Rachel A. Poliner and Carol Miller Lieber, 2004
The Advisory Guide, Educators for Social Responsibility, Rachel A. Poliner and Carol Miller Lieber, 2004