Welcome to the Rhode Island School Counselor Association! RISCA is the professional organization representing Rhode Island's elementary, middle, secondary school counselors and counselor educators at the post secondary school level. The mission of RISCA is to promote excellence in the profession of school counseling and support and promote the academic, career and the personal and social development of all students.

RISCA plans to continue this year in our strong tradition of professional development and support for school counselors, collaborations with local and national professional organizations, and opportunities available for school counselors to improve or complete their school or district framework. RISCA’s plans include:

• Continuing our partnerships with the RI Department of Education, Providence College and the School-to-Career Network. We also hope to strengthen our collaborations with Rhode Island College, as the Counseling, Educational Leadership and School Psychology Department seeks to offer diverse courses in post-graduate studies for school counselors;
• Collaborating with the Southern RI Collaborative and the New England Institute of Technology to offer school counselors opportunities to explore and discover new careers for our students;
• Attending Board of Regents meetings and to ensure the role school counselors have in assisting all students, is recognized in state legislation and in the Board of Regents regulations to restructure and personalize schools;
• Producing a “Status of School Counseling in Rhode Island” report to get an accurate picture of where schools are in terms of implementing comprehensive school counseling programs so that a baseline is established against which we can assess future progress.
• Improving our data collection and management methods so that we can consistently and accurately assess our progress over time and demonstrate it to others.

I hope to see you at the many professional development opportunities RISCA provides to assist you in improving your counseling program, and at the Fall Workshop, Spring Conference, or Summer Institute. I also wish you all the best in your daily work in supporting all of the students of RI.

Yours through Comprehensive School Counseling,

William J. Izzi
RISCA President