SAGE Journal Articles
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Article 1:
School administrators are not always as familiar as they might be with the education and training of school counselors. As a result, school counselors may be assigned non-counseling activities such as supervision or paperwork tasks that would be more closely suited to the duties of an assistant principal or member of the clerical staff. These non-counseling duties are time consuming and allow school counselors less time to spend with the students assigned to them. Resources and creative thinking are needed to reduce or eliminate many of the non-counseling functions that school counselors are required to assimilate into their workday, so that they can spend their time helping students. This case study examines the dilemma faced by the principal of a large high school as she confronts an unhappy counseling staff and the culminating desire of one school counselor to leave the profession and return to the classroom. She realizes the difficulties have been growing for some time and she has not adequately addressed the counselor’s concerns. Upon overhearing a hallway discussion about one of her counselors, she decides it is time to find out what is going on in the counselor’s office.
Questions to Consider:
- Do you think that Frank, the counselor in this case study, expected to be fulfilling all the roles and functions described, based upon his understanding of ASCA’s list of School Counselor Activities? Would you accept a position similar the one described here? Why or why not?
- How might a counselor in a similar situation use a mission statement to support a request for modification of roles and functions? Would you accept a position in a school or agency that did not have a formal mission statement for your division?
- Based on your knowledge of the ASCA guidelines presented in this chapter, what are some of the functions presented here that seem unrelated to the education and training received by counselors?
- What are the school culture and climate issues in this case? How might this scenario be viewed differently if Frank were not a well-liked and respected counselor?
Article 2:
Various professional organizations have called for a standardized, developmental approach to the assessment of the internship experience (e.g., American Counseling Association’s call for multicultural competent assessment) and the need for a standardized assessment of internship skill acquisition. In response to these calls and the data collected in this participatory action research study, the authors developed an assessment system to monitor the school counseling trainee’s skill development throughout the internship experience—the Professional School Counseling Internship: Developmental Assessment of Counseling Skills.
Questions to Consider:
- Review the items on the CIDACS Evaluation 1 & 2 beginning on page 65 of this article. If you are entering a school placement, would you benefit from using this assessment with your supervisor(s)? why or why not? How is it different from the assessment currently used in your program? If you are in a counseling field placement outside of school systems, is there a similar instrument for your specialty area or do you use a general counseling assessment with your supervisor(s)?
- How might an instrument such as this one serve both trainees and their supervisors? What misunderstandings might be avoided if all parties had a clear job description and mission statement, well defined roles and functions, and agreed upon evaluation criteria? Would such a structured placement suit you, or do you prefer more flexibility in your placement? How might you negotiate the best of both for yourself when selecting a site?
- The authors state that future researchers using and developing such instruments “…should also focus on the importance of standards-based assessment instruments as ‘living’ documents that remain current and relevant.” What do the authors mean by this and how can you contribute to this goal?