Florida Counseling Association

A branch of the American Counseling Association

Using Zoom with FCA

FCA uses Zoom to host virtual trainings, webinars, panels, events, etc. To ensure a successful event, we have put together some resources to help you as a host or a participant prepare for and manage your zoom settings with greater ease. For general help with Zoom, you can visit their Help Center or YouTube Channel.

You can also contact the FCA Office anytime at fcaoffice@flacounseling.org.

Depending on your use of Zoom, please choose one of the following sections:

Host a Virtual Training | Attending a Virtual Training | View Upcoming Events | Virtual Backgrounds

Persons with Disabilities:

FCA makes every effort to ensure all content is accessible to person with disabilities. If you have an American Disabilities Act (ADA) need — audio or visual — FCA will try to address it in the virtual environment. Please contact the FCA Office if you request a virtual accommodation at an upcoming event or training.

Zoom Playlists: Hosts | Participants

Hosting a Training

If you are planning on hosting an FCA or Division virtual training or event, please review the following information prior to submitting your Event Request Form.

FCA's How To Zoom - Facilitator Guide

Review these comprehensive guidelines with step-by-step instructions on how to use the different features in Zoom to ensure a successful virtual event!

Things to know in advance:

To request a Zoom Meeting for your webinar using the FCA account, your division president should log into the account with FCA login ID and Password to schedule the meeting. (When submitting your event request form, you may instead opt to have the FCA Office create the Zoom meeting for you).
If you create your Zoom meeting, whether through the FCA account or your own account, be sure to send to the FCA Office in advance your Zoom (or other webinar platform) meeting’s URL and any applicable instructions to be shared with registrants prior to your webinar. You may want to provide to your registrants the Zoom Etiquette information listed below.
When scheduling a Zoom meeting, ensure the box to “enable waiting room” is checked. This will allow you to log in early to set up everything while participants wait until webinar start time.
Plan to start your meeting 30 minutes early in order to set up chat, security, and participant settings and to practice screen-share.
If you are unfamiliar with Zoom, consider scheduling a meeting with the FCA Office or Technology Committee to learn about host and co-host meeting controls, expectations, and how to ensure a successful training.
It is strongly encouraged to schedule a practice-run of your training at least a week before your event so that hosts, presenters, and/or speakers can get familiar with Zoom and work out day-of logistics. You can use the same Zoom meeting information for your practice run, starting the meeting before the scheduled time does not affect the scheduled day and time of your event.
For accessibility purposes, please be encouraged to turn on live transcription during your training, or be prepared to do so should a participant request live closed captioning.
To learn more about using Zoom, visit their help center to watch their Video Tutorials.
Work out in advance who will be recording the training, whether it is to the Zoom Cloud on the FCA Account or locally to one's computer, and coordinate with the FCA Technology Committee on how to share the recording with them so as to include it in the Recording Library.
If you are using a different webinar platform besides Zoom, please review these guidelines.

FCA Zoom Playlist for Hosts

Zoom Roles:

Host: Whomever logs into the Zoom account (this should be the Division President).
Co-Host: The Host can change participants of their choosing to Co-Host, who can assist with admitting participants into the waiting room, managing the chat, controlling audio/videos of participants, screen sharing etc. Only the Host can change a Participant to Co-Host, and there is no limit to the number of co-hosts.
Participant: These are the session’s attendees. They can mute/unmute themselves (if allowed by Host), turn videos on/off, screen share (if allowed by Host), type into the chat (depending on chat settings), and can record the session locally. The Host can change a Participant to Co-Host at any time, and can revert them back to Participant at any time. (With the FCA Zoom account, the meeting can hold a maximum of 100 participants.)

Zoom Chat: If you are offering CE’s for your webinar, use this feature for participants to “sign-in” to the presentation(s).

When the webinar begins, ask participants to enter their name into the chat if they are attending for CE’s. If hosting multiple webinars back-to-back, and multiple presentations are available for CE’s, participants will need to “sign-in” at the start of each session.
At the end of the webinar, Division Host should save the Chat transcript for reference when reporting attendance to FCA Office.

Practice Run Instructions: It is highly recommended to schedule a practice run at least a week prior to your webinar so that the Presenter and Division Host(s) are familiar with the system.

Determine who will be the Division Host.
Speak with webinar Presenter ahead of time and schedule a “practice run” for the Presenter with a tutorial of the Zoom platform at least one week before the webinar.
Upon agreeing on a mutually decided upon date for the practice run, share meeting invitation details with Presenter. (you can use the same meeting details as your actual scheduled training)
Log in to the FCA Zoom account on the date of your practice run, locate your training meeting, and click Start, or open meeting and click Start Meeting.
Take time to get familiar with Host Controls during the meeting (i.e. muting participants, turning participant video off, security settings, chat settings, enabling/disabling waiting room)
When you notice your speaker or presenter join session, admit them.
Click on Participants and click on Presenter’s name.
Provide Presenter with Co-Host status. (This will allow Presenter to share screen).
Walk Presenter through Share Screen feature, and make sure Presenter is familiar with how to turn on/off video camera and switch to Share Screen feature, should Presenter want to speak to viewers directly or share PowerPoint/presentation.
Discuss chat box feature with Presenter and inquire into how they would like questions to be answered during webinar.

Note to the Presenter: this feature will be used for participants to “sign-in” to the presentation(s) for CE’s.
Would Presenter like Division Host to read questions aloud during midpoint of webinar or at the end of webinar? Or would Presenter like to read the questions aloud and answer them directly without the assistance of Division Host?

Make sure Presenter decides how they would like to proceed with this prior to webinar date.
Allow Presenter to play through a few slides, if they would like, to familiarize themselves with the platform.
Please note that since webinars are typically recorded (with Presenter’s consent), videos tend to play slower than usual on the platform. Please be sure to let Presenter know this in the event that they have a video planned.
Request that Presenter enter the webinar meeting link at least 15-20 minutes prior to webinar to get set up, receive platform’s Co-Host status, and have screen share permitted with slideshow ready to present (or video, depending on Presenter preference).

Day-Of Training Instructions

Log into the FCA Zoom account on date of webinar and begin meeting at least 30 minutes prior to webinar start time.This will give you time to check settings, add co-hosts, practice screen sharing, etc
Click on Participants and click on Presenter’s name.
Provide Presenter with Co-Host status. (This will allow Presenter to share screen).
Division Host will remain Host of webinar, unless permissions are to be given to webinar Presenter (e.g. in case that Presenter is Division Executive Board member and is also the Host of webinar).
Additional Division Members supporting the webinar can be named Co-Host if assisting with administrative functions or are co-presenting.
Division Host of webinar will record webinar (with Presenter’s consent obtained during trial run).
If utilizing the Waiting Room feature, admit all waiting participants into session at the webinar start time.
Decide whether to leave waiting room enabled (may need to continually admit new participants as they enter) or to disable it (new participants will join webinar right away).
Division Host will introduce Presenter at the beginning of the webinar (read their bio from the webinar flyer), remind participants to mute themselves and type questions into chat box during webinar (and explain how questions will be answered, as agreed upon by Presenter).
Division Host will ask all participants to write their names in the chat box, as FCA requires an attendance list for each webinar in order to provide CEs.
Remind attendees to complete the webinar evaluation form that will be emailed to them after the webinar by FCA office, if they signed up to receive CEs.
Division Host will mute any participants during webinar who are accidentally unmuted and making sounds.
At the end of webinar, Division Host will thank Presenter on behalf of division, FCA, and any other groups sponsoring the event. Announce upcoming webinar dates/division events, and remind attendees to review registration links for such webinars/events on the FCA website.
Once webinar concludes, Division Host will click End Meeting to end the webinar and download attendee list from Zoom’s Usage Report tool:
From the Zoom home page when logged into the FCA account, select “Account Management” from the left vertical menu, then select “Reports”. Click “Active Hosts”, adjust the date range if needed and click “Search”. Find your meeting, use the scroll at the bottom of the list to scroll RIGHT, and click on the number of participants for your webinar. A pop-up will appear that will allow you to download your Usage Report. For easier viewing, check off “show unique users” to remove duplicate listings of the same participant.
Compare this to your chat transcript notes for those who “checked-in” and indicate on the Usage Report who these participants are.
Send these to the FCA Office Manager (fcaoffice@flacounseling.org) to post recording onto FCA webpage and to verify and award CE’s if applicable

If your division is using a platform other than FCA’s, the above steps can still be followed as general guidelines, though the specific terms and tools within your chosen platform may differ.

Determine who will be your webinar’s Division Host (if speaker is an outside Presenter)
Send to the FCA Office your webinar’s log-in URL and applicable instructions to be shared with registrants.
Still plan to schedule a trial run practice session with your presenter at least a week beforehand to gain familiarity and decide final logistics.
If awarding CE’s, verify attendance somehow with system’s chat tool or something similar.
Record session and coordinate with the FCA Technology Committee at fcatechnologychair@gmail.com to upload to the website.
If system allows, download attendee or usage report to show participants list and their length of attendance to assist in awarding CE’s properly. Send this attendee list to fcaoffice@flacounseling.org.

Participating in a Training

FCA Zoom Etiquette

While participating in a virtual FCA or Division training, webinar, or event, it is important to be mindful of your surroundings and be respectful of your colleagues and speakers. Please review and adhere to the following professional etiquette tips on how to use Zoom tools and features to maintain professional etiquette.

FCA is a division of ACA and therefore adheres to ACA's Conference Etiquette statement. FCA also applies this etiquette to organization and divisional trainings throughout the year. By registering for an FCA virtual event, you therefore agree to:

Conduct yourself with integrity, courtesy and respect for others
Support a harassment-free event experience for everyone by maintaining the highest level of professionalism at all programs and events
Support and will foster a welcoming, safe experience for all attendees and staff

Participants violating these expectations or conduct themselves unprofessionally may be asked to leave the event at the sole discretion of FCA and/or Division Hosts.

Check out our FCA Virtual Backgrounds! Feel free to use these at your next training or while attending Convention!

Mute your microphone (make sure you know how to do this!).

To help keep background noise to a minimum, make sure you mute your microphone when you are not speaking.

Enable Live Transcription:

If you require live subtitles/transcript during an FCA training, please let your presenter or training host know to enable this setting. If you have questions, you can contact fcaoffice@flacounseling.org.
While in a training that has Live Transcription enabled, find the "Closed Captioning" button in the bottom Zoom menu. Click on this "CC" button and a submenu appears. You can choose to "Show Subtitles" or "View Full Transcript".
For more information about this feature, visit Zoom's Help Center.

Be mindful of background noise:

When your microphone is not muted, avoid activities that could create additional noise, such as shuffling papers, shifting in a squeaky chair, or tapping pen/pencil.
Turn off or mute TV's, computer notifications, and consider putting phone on silent.
Remember to mute yourself when taking a phone call.

Position your camera properly:

If you choose to use a web camera, be sure it is in a stable position and focused at eye level, if possible. Doing so helps create a more direct sense of engagement with other participants.
Business professional or business casual attire is strongly recommended. (sessions will be recorded)

Limit distractions:

You can make it easier to focus on the meeting by turning off notifications, closing or minimizing running apps, and muting your smartphone.

Avoid multi-tasking:

You'll retain the discussion better if you refrain from replying to emails or text messages during the meeting and wait to work on that PowerPoint presentation until after the meeting ends.

Prepare materials in advance:

If you will be sharing content during the meeting, make sure you have the files and/or links ready to go before the meeting begins.
Have pen, notebook ready for notetaking, or enter notes digitally via your preferred program.

FCA Zoom Playlist for Participants

Contact fcaoffice@flacounseling.org with any questions, problems or suggestions for this website.

Mailing Address:

Florida Counseling Association

2750 Taylor Avenue

Suite A-36

Orlando, Florida 32806

Florida Counseling Association is a non-profit organization, branch of the American Counseling Association.

FLORIDA COUNSELING ASSOCIATION