Steph Johnson
Your counselors deserve more than another pep talk.
IS THE ONE THEY'VE BEEN WAITING FOR.
You want a speaker your counselors will actually remember.
Not someone who flies in, delivers a polished motivation download, and disappears before the Q&A.
Not another "fill your cup" hour that your team will quietly roll their eyes at on the drive home.
You want someone who understands what your counselors are actually dealing with- and can not only hold the attention of skeptical, burned-out professionals, but have them leaning forward by the second slide.
That's the session Steph delivers.
The speakers your counselors are tired of haven't worked in a school in decades, if ever.
Steph was in her counseling office yesterday.
She's a licensed therapist.
Full-time school counselor.
Nearly 30 years in public education- and still in the building.
Host of the School for School Counselors Podcast with a quarter-million downloads and counting.
She knows your counselors' reality because she's living it in the same building, under the same constraints, with the same impossible expectations.
So when she speaks, something shifts in the room.
Counselors exhale.
They laugh because some of what they're asked to do is genuinely absurd, and it helps to hear someone say it.
They scribble notes they'll actually look at again.
And somewhere in the middle, the conversation moves from "I thought it was just me," to-
"Okay. So what do we do about it?"
That's the session your attendees deserve.
Not a keynote they'll forget by lunch.
A conversation they'll reference for years.
She's not speaking from memory. She's speaking from this morning.
-reaction to steph's keynote,
lone star state school counseling assoc- rural route
" Holy cow, Steph, that's not me crying over here... Oh my gosh!
We needed this."
-february 2025
" One of my counselors attended every single one of your sessions yesterday and raved about you all the way home..."
Burnout in school counseling isn't caused by having too much to do.
It's caused by knowing exactly how to help a student- and being systematically prevented from doing it, day after day.
That distinction matters, because it means typical burnout interventions (self-care plans, boundary-setting workshops, gratitude journals) are treating the wrong problem.
This talk goes after the right one.
Attendees leave with a research-backed understanding of what's actually depleting them and concrete strategies for practicing in a way that's sustainable: inside real schools, not educational fairtyales.
what no one tells you about avoiding burnout
Comprehensive school counseling programs are the goal. But in most schools, the gap between that ideal and Monday morning reality is significant- and disheartening.
What actually moves the needle?
School counselors who know precisely what they're exceptional at, and who build their program around it.
This talk shows attendees how to identify their unique clinical strengths, structure their work to leverage those strengths, and create a program that's sustainable, impactful, and genuinely them.
Your counselors will leave with more clarity about who they are professionally than most get in an entire career.
building a superpower-driven program
Most school counselors were trained for a job that doesn't exist the way they imagined it. The gap between graduate school and Monday morning is real, and pretending otherwise is forcing people leave the profession.
This talk names what's actually happening. It looks honestly at what the research says about the school counselor role, why the structural constraints your counselors face aren't personal failures, and what it looks like to build a sustainable practice grounded in evidence instead of optimism.
Your counselors will leave this session with language for things they've felt but couldn't articulate- and a framework they can actually use.
the Truth About School Counseling
Signature Talks
Steph Johnson is a licensed therapist, full-time school counselor, and founder of School for School Counselors. With nearly 30 years in public education and over a quarter million podcast downloads, she's become the most trusted independent voice in the K-12 counseling profession.
She's still in the building- and that's the whole point. Steph speaks from inside the same structural realities her audiences are navigating, delivering sessions that are research-backed, clinically grounded, and built to give counselors something they can actually use.
No burnout dressed up as inspiration. Just straight talk from someone who's still doing the work.
the official bio
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Steph is nationally available for keynotes, half-day trainings, and full-day professional development.
Minimum engagement is a 60-minute keynote.
Each session is customized for your audience and built around the same research-backed, no-nonsense approach that's earned over a quarter-million podcast downloads.
To discuss fit and fees, reach out here:
Ready to give your counselors something they'll actually use?
inquire now
Steph is currently booking keynotes and training sessions into 2028.
Availability is limited. If you have a date in mind- the sooner we connect, the better.
