A radical change in counselor education and certification

The new Washington state certification plan for school counselors includes promising innovations. The plan calls for behaviorally stated performance standards related to client outcomes. Resulting programs for in-service as well as pre-service counselors are developed in a partnership among professional associations, school districts, and university counselor education personnel. Professional identity and involvement are encouraged through counselor self-assessment against specific performance criteria, individualized training and self-renewal programs, and lifelong professional development plans. A new role is developed of a counselor staff development specialist who functions as a school training consultant and counselor educator.     

Influence of Familial Spirituality: Implications for School Counseling Professionals

This article (a) addresses the importance of familial spirituality on students' holistic development; (b) explores professional ethical codes, standards, and counseling competencies relating to students' familial spirituality; (c) introduces educational activities to assist school counselors in increasing their understanding and appreciation of the influence of familial spirituality on students' behavior; (d) reviews a case study of a counselor integrating the suggested strategies in support of students and families; and (e) provides implications for professional school counseling.     

The Relationship of School Climate Factors to Counselor Self-Efficacy

A survey of school counselors was conducted to measure the relationship of Bandura's (1977b) concept of self-efficacy with school climate, counselor roles, and a variety of demographic variables. Results indicated that supportive staff and administrators were the strongest predictors of high counselor efficacy expectancy. In addition, outcome expectancy for school counselor behavior was predicted by both a similarly high degree of support from staff and administrators and fewer nonrelated counseling activities performed by school counselors. Discussion of results and implications for research and practice are presented.     

Manifest needs of prospective counselors: a comparative study

Mean performances of 81 prospective counselors on each of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS; Edwards, 1959) needs were analyzed and statistically compared with performances of elementary school counselors, other school counselors, urban college students, professional women, Roman Catholic sisters, and the 1959 EPPS norm samples. Performances of the men and women in the prospective counselor group were similar. Men had a significantly higher need for achievement and dominance, but the significance did not reach .01. Two EPPS needs, intraception and nurturance, consistently differentiated the prospective counselor group. Comparisons across samples indicated that prospective counselors were most similar to the two counseling samples and, for the female subgroup of prospective counselors, to the sample of professional women. Largest across-sample differences were found between the female prospective counselors and the Roman Catholic sisters, between the female prospective counselors and norm samples of female college students and female adults, and between the male prospective counselors and the male adult norm sample.     

Counselor Bias and Women

Counselors are biased against girls and women. Several recent studies examining counselor's sex biases are reviewed. Research indicates that attitudes of counselor trainees, school counselors at all levels, counselor educators and supervisors, and clinicians are sexist. The Attitude Toward Women Scale was administered to 80 employment counselors. Male counselor attitudes were more sexist than female counselor attitudes. Suggestions for dealing with counselor bias are reviewed. Counselors must first battle their own biases. They should also be sensitive to the developmental stages of a person's life, as well as to job requirements and employer attitudes. Occupational literature should be nonsexist and nontraditional.     

The politics of counseling

The career of the counselor is influenced by the bureaucratic structure of his institution, whether secondary school, university, or public agency. Important elements in the client-counselor interaction are found in the limitations imposed upon the counselor by the values and modus operandi of the institution and its preconceptions of the client's problem. To cope effectively with such matters, counselors should be trained as social critics and develop a greater awareness of how their professional roles are shaped by institutional power structures.     

New Professional Roles and Advocacy Strategies for School Counselors: A Multicultural/Social Justice Perspective to Move Beyond the Nice Counselor Syndrome

The transformed role of school counselors as advocates is key in reducing the academic achievement gap. Redefining the school counselors' role requires culturally competent practitioners, social justice advocates, and organizational/social change agents. A major obstacle to implementing culturally responsive social justice advocacy and change in schools is referred to as the nice counselor syndrome (NCS). This article discusses the insidious effects of NCS and outlines a set of recommendations designed to assist school counselors in moving beyond this syndrome.     

Lived Stories: Participatory Leadership in School Counseling

The article is a personal and professional account by 2 counselor educators who worked together as professional school counselors in the same high school setting. Both reflect on the “storied” nature of their professional development and define participatory leadership in school counseling as emerging from engagement and participation in collaborative efforts to bring about systemic change in schools by advocating for all students, especially those who have been traditionally marginalized.     

The School Counselor as Perceived by School Counselors and Their Principals

This study was designed to ascertain the perceptions of school counselors and school administrators of the school counselor's activities and the attributes necessary for him to be effective in his role. The findings were interpreted to suggest that differences that exist between the perceptions of counselors and administrators tend to be in the degree to which they view certain activities or attributes as important. Ranking of activities and the attributes by both groups tended to be similar but differences were found to exist between the mean scores of counselors and administrators in various areas. Sources of discrepancy were discussed as possibly relating to the need for counselors to establish clearer priorities for their activities and the administrators' perception of the counselor as fundamentally a quasi-administrator of guidance services.     

School Counselors as Social Capital: The Effects of High School College Counseling on College Application Rates

Using social capital theory as a framework, the authors examined data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (Ingels, Pratt, Rogers, Siegel, & Stutts, 2004) to investigate how student contact with high school counselors about college information and other college‐related variables influence students' college application rates. In addition to some college‐related variables, the number of school counselors and student contacts were significant predictors of college application rates. Implications for school counselors and counselor training are included.     

Specialized Counseling—A New Trend?

The study, apparently the first of its kind, investigates the activities of the specialized school counselor in the elementary and secondary schools of Ohio. The specialized counselor was defined as a certified counselor who spent at least one-half of his professional time performing the activities related to a single area of guidance, such as educational or college guidance. Questionnaires were sent to three groups of educators—guidance directors, specialized school counselors, and counselor educators. Participants in the study were asked to provide information relative to the nature and needs of specialized counseling. The data seem to show indications of an increase of specialization in counseling. The functions of such specialists are reported.     

The School Counselor's Role in School Dropout Prevention

The role of the school counselor has undergone numerous revisions over the past few decades. The current emphasis on accountability and academic performance of students has forced counselors to scrutinize their role in promoting students' academic success and school completion. In this article, the authors review the problem of school dropout from the school counselor's perspective and offer guidelines for how school counselors can deliver empirically supported strategies to address this problem as part of their comprehensive guidance programs.     

Impact of Two Clinical Peer Supervision Models on Practicing School Counselors

Two forms of clinical peer supervision were provided for a sample of 29 practicing school counselors. Pre- and posttest measures were used to assess the counselors' level of job satisfaction, counseling self-efficacy, and counseling effectiveness (including empathic responding, adaptability and flexibility in counselor response, and client behavior change). The sample was divided into 3 groups (2 treatment and 1 control). Each supervision treatment lasted 9 weeks. None of the analyses of covariance examining treatment effects were significant. However, these individually nonsignificant results showed movement in the hypothesized direction in each instance, indicating small but pervasive effects of treatment. Participants' qualitative session evaluations also supported the helpfulness of clinical peer supervision for school counselors. Implications for future research and the practice of school counselor supervision are discussed.     

The Counselor Is a Psychologist

School counselors are anxious about their status and identity as professional workers. They are criticized by other helping professions for their superficiality, and they are being dispossessed of their basic helping functions by school psychologists and social workers. Solutions proposed are abandonment of the guidance model for counselors, and adoption of the counseling psychologist model geared to a two-year master's degree level. Counselors are being called upon increasingly to function as psychological specialists in behavior change and their training has become firmly based in the psychological aspects of behavioral science. Statements by the American School Counselors Association and a growing number of counselor educators emphasize the psychological base of counseling practice.     

心理咨询师在危机干预中的作用

危机干预工作中需要专业人员的参与,而心理咨询师就是这样的专业队伍。他们不仅应具备该职业的基本素质,如道德素质、反省能力和诚实品质,而且还应具备特殊的专业素质,如生活经验、镇静心态、灵活性、充沛精力、快速反应能力和换位思考能力等。当然,除去日常专业训练所养成的各种素质以外,心理咨询师也要掌握有关心理危机干预技术,如关注、倾听、评估以及某些具体的危机干预措施。最后介绍了国内外危机干预中心理咨询师的主要工作领域和服务形式,并探讨了我国心理咨询师参与危机干预工作的一些设想。     

Counselor,Social Worker,Psychologist: Let's “Ecumenicalize”

This paper examines the possibility of a closer relationship between the school counselor, the school psychologist, and the school social worker. It describes the background of each of the trio, then describes the various functions and the professional education of counselors, psychologists, and social workers. The various steps that might be taken to inaugurate an “ecumenical movement” between the three professional groups are then discussed. School counselors are described as being the logical individuals to take the initial steps in such a proposed movement, and the new functional title suggested for each of the three is “school counseling psychologist.”     

Faces of the Future: School Counselors as Cultural Mediators

Twenty years ago, futurists examined the changing role of the school counselor and forecasted what the 21st‐century school counselor would need to know. This article forecasts the future of school counseling in the next 20 years by focusing on expected diversity of K‐12 students. Speculation on student enrollment based on projected trends and extrapolated data is used to describe the professional knowledge, awareness, and skills school counselors will need to touch the lives of the students of the future.     

BEYOND SCHOOL COUNSELING

An appeal is made for less emphasis upon separate programs and certification in counselor education. The employment service counselor and the rehabilitation counselor are discussed. Preparation of a generic counselor should receive priority over programs which contribute to attitudinal and operational isolation. A request is made for the development of mutual respect for the competencies and professional contributions of counselors employed outside the school setting.     

Counselor Competence: Some Proposals in Search of Advocacy

The competence of school counselors is traditionally assessed by administrators, who also determine which qualified and unqualified applicants will be admitted to practice and which practitioners will be retained, and pass various other judgments about guidance services and the persons who perform them. It is postulated that the public and professional interests would be better served were these judgments made by skilled counselors. Several methods are proposed by which school guidance workers might monitor their own services in order thus to sustain and improve quality according to appropriate professional criteria. To these ends, it is recommended that practitioners be involved directly in counselor education; that counselors-in-practice evaluate and judge each other through employment of several suggested approaches; and that committees of counselors be formed locally to select and supervise new guidance personnel, determine fitness of counselors for continued practice, and perform a complaint investigation function.     

Effects of Role Expectations on Clients' Perceptions of Disclosing and Nondisclosing Counselors

The authors tested the hypothesis that regardless of whether a counselor self-discloses, a client's perceptions will be more favorable when the counselor's behavior is congruent with the client's precounseling expectations than when the client's expectations and the counselor's behavior are incongruent. Before listening to an excerpted interview, participants (a) were led to expect that counselors self-disclose, (b) were led to expect that counselors do not self-disclose, or (c) were given no expectation regarding counselor self-disclosure. Participants then listened to stimulus audiotapes in which the counselor did or did not reveal personal information. Dependent variables were participants' perceptions of the counselor on three social influence dimensions and two therapeutic relationship dimensions. Results indicated that the disclosing counselor was viewed more favorably than was the nondisclosing counselor, participants' expectations notwithstanding.