[Kate*]

Since my dismissal was particularly agonizing for you, please learn something from my case:

1. Take care of the gatekeeping responsibility earlier to avoid both bonding and wasted investment by the student. The longer you wait, the harder it is on both sides and the more the student loses when it ends. Although there are reasons to wait, once it's obviously not working anymore, it's time to let go. If dismissal happens, make sure the student has a clear understanding of why. Don't try to avoid explaining yourselves, it will make them question your actions and whether you really have a good reason.

2. Take an honest look at the type of feedback the student is being asked to accept, as well as the tone and spirit in which it is given before calling the student disrespectful and unprofessional for being resistant to it. If a student complains about a faculty member or instructor, don't immediately blame the student or assume they're overreacting. Faculty aren't always right and students deserve to be heard. Remember, you are role models for the future of your profession. Treat students with respect, and they will learn how counselors are supposed to act, disrespect them and they'll start to question how you made it into the profession, while learning what not to do, assuming you don't force them out of it. Make sure that the student knows how they are being perceived; I got nothing but negative feedback to my face, leading me to believe that my reputation was destroyed. Turns out the opposite was true, but none of the good things ever made their way back to me.

3. I know negative feedback is hard to give and dismissal discussions are hard to have, but that isn't an excuse to lack professionalism or avoid them completely, especially given that you are trained to have difficult conversations tactfully.

4. A faculty member discussed bringing up program-wide changes after completing my remediation plan. Consider them before disregarding them. Most of the students have the same complaints and the faculty do not seem to understand the importance or necessity of change.

5. For God's sake COMMUNICATE I understand that there are probably ethical and/or legal or at least common sense guidelines for communication with dismissed students, but I spent 4 months in dismissal limbo with complete radio silence and my dismissal discussion was never had. Not to mention my written notice was delayed so I was "notified" by finding my registration dropped and student status changed behind my back! This had me convinced of things that were absolutely untrue. Most students don't appeal dismissal; if I hadn't, I would've gone on for the rest of my life believing that I had done harm to a client, violated the ethics code, and the faculty were ignoring me on purpose because my reputation was trashed and they hated me or had stopped caring. Therefore recommendations from them for other things would be out of the question. In reality, the opposite was true. Respect the student enough to have the dismissal discussion to their face. If you avoid it or leave it to the appeals committee, most students will never have one and given the amount of all kinds of investment on their end that ended up being for nothing, they deserve that much. Also, it should not take multiple weeks to reply to emails and if someone sends you one asking for help with something, at least let them know you got it. For all we know, if you don't respond you either haven't gotten it yet, or are ignoring an issue we need dealt with. I understand busy, but there are limits to my patience and timelines for certain things.

-- I think if my dismissal had taken place under you, I would've completely avoided the last one and maybe had an easier time with # 3, but I I can still say I told you so.

-- I told you so too. If and/or when I go back and start working with you again, I'll need you to believe this is real and not assume I'm overreacting or being paranoid about something that will never happen until it actually does.