Introduction to Professional School Counseling

Introduction to Professional School Counseling: Advocacy, Leadership, and Intervention is a

comprehensive introduction to the field for school counselors in training, one that provides
special focus on the topics most relevant to the school counselor’s role and offers specific
strategies for practical application and implementation. In addition to thorough coverage of
the ASCA National Model ® (2012), readers will find thoughtful discussions of the effects of
trends and legislation, including the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Response to
Intervention (RtI), and School-wide Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support
(SWPBIS). The text also provides readers with an understanding of how school counselors
assume counseling orientations within the specific context of an educational setting. Each
chapter is intensely application oriented, with an equal emphasis both on research and on
using data to design and improve school counselors’ functioning in school systems.
Available for free download for each chapter: PowerPoint slides, a testbank of 20
multiple-choice questions, and short-answer, essay, and discussion questions. Visit
www.routledge.com/cw/kolbert.
Jered B. Kolbert, PhD, is a professor and coordinator of the school counseling program in
the Department of Counseling, Psychology, and Special Education at Duquesne
University.

Rhonda L. Williams, EdD, is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling and

Human Services at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Leann M. Morgan, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and

Human Services at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Laura M. Crothers, DEd, is a professor in the Department of Counseling, Psychology, and

Special Education at Duquesne University.

Tammy L. Hughes, PhD, is the Martin A. Hehir Endowed Chair for Scholarly Excellence
and professor and chair of the Department of Counseling, Psychology, and Special
Education at Duquesne University.

2
“In Introduction to Professional School Counseling, modern concepts in school counseling are
clearly explained in an engaging format. Descriptive examples bring research to life and
allow for the transfer of concepts into actual practice. Th e information about the ASCA
model goes above and beyond by infusing the model into the entire book and giving actual
samples of RAMP-certified comprehensive programs. A highlight for me was the chapter
about social justice, which focuses on fostering self-awareness to deliver culturally
competent programming.”
Jane V. Hale, PhD, LPC, assistant professor, Department of Counseling and
Development, Slippery Rock University
“This straightforward and concise approach to professional school counseling is unique in
being not only theoretically sound but, unlike many other textbooks, refreshingly rich in its
practicality. Th is well-sequenced and all-inclusive resource will greatly benefit future
school counselors as well as the future of comprehensive school counseling programs.”
Richard Joseph Behun, PhD, LPC, NCC, ACS, assistant professor, Department of
Psychology and Counseling, Marywood University
“This text provides a valuable introduction to the contemporary role and responsibilities of
the professional school counselor. The chapters are organized effectively around the ASCA
National Model®. For each component and theme of the ASCA National Model®, a brief
background of the topic is balanced with a comprehensive discussion of appropriate
intervention strategies in K-12 schools. A thorough literature review for each chapter
includes multiple practical strategies and techniques for implementation and evaluation.”
LeeAnn M. Eschbach, PhD, LPC, associate professor,Counseling and Human Services
Department, University of Scranton
“A practical, up-to-date, and comprehensive resource, one that can be used across the span
of any school counselor training program.”
Krista M. Malott, PhD, LPC, associate professor and school counselor educator,
Department of Education ! Counseling, Villanova University

3
Introduction to Professional School Counseling
Advocacy, Leadership, and Intervention

JERED B. KOLBERT
RHONDA L. WILLIAMS
LEANN M. MORGAN
LAURA M. CROTHERS
TAMMY L. HUGHES

4
First published 2016
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2017 Jered B. Kolbert, Rhonda L. Williams, Leann M. Morgan, Laura M. Crothers, and Tammy L. Hughes

The right of Jered B. Kolbert, Rhonda L. Williams, Leann M. Morgan, Laura M. Crothers, and Tammy L. Hughes to
be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

The parts of the CACREP Standards reproduced in this work represent only selected parts of the 2016 CACREP
Standards; inclusion of the CACREP Standards in this work is in no way intended to imply CACREP endorsement or
approval of the book, and use of the book as a teaching tool does not establish or connote compliance with CACREP
Standards for purposes of determining CACREP accreditation of any education program.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Kolbert, Jered B., author.
Title: Introduction to professional school counseling : advocacy, leadership, and intervention / Jered B. Kolbert,
Rhonda L. Williams, Leann M. Morgan, Laura M. Crothers, Tammy L. Hughes.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, [2016] |
Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015047609| ISBN 9780415746755 (hardback : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9780415746748 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315797441 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational counseling–United States. | Student counselors–In-service training–United
States.Classification: LCC LB1027.5.K5968 2016 | DDC 371.4–dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2015047609

ISBN: 978-0-415-74675-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-74674-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-79744-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion
by Out of House Publishing

5
 Dedicated to
Jered B. Kolbert – To my children, Kennedy Isabel and Karlena Swanhild.
Rhonda L. Williams – To my grandchildren: I pray you have excellent school
counselors throughout your education to support and guide you. And to my husband
and children who support my dedication to the profession of school counseling.
Leann M. Morgan – To my children, Courtney and Cash, that you may know the
unwavering support of amazing school counselors throughout your journey.
Laura M. Crothers – To my children, Meredith Julia Lipinski and Samuel Conrad
Lipinski.

6
 Contents

ONE History and Trends in the School Counseling Profession

TWO Professional Identity of School Counselors and the American School Counselor
Association National Model (2012)
THREE Social Justice, Advocacy, Collaboration, Leadership, and Systemic Change
FOUR Management and Accountability
FIVE School Counseling Core Curriculum
SIX Individual Counseling
SEVEN Group Counseling
EIGHT Consultation and Collaboration
NINE Academic Development
TEN College and Career Readiness
ELEVEN Prevention/Auxiliary Programming
TWELVE Helping Students with Exceptionalities
THIRTEEN Crisis Intervention, Response, and Recovery
FOURTEEN Legal and Ethical Concerns in School Counseling
Appendix A Group Counseling Parent Consent Letter: English Language Version
Appendix B Group Counseling Parent Consent Letter: Spanish Language Version
Appendix C The ASCA National Model® (2012) Group Counseling Student SMART
Goals Worksheet
Appendix D Middle School Career and College Readiness Standards (MS-CCRS)
Appendix E NEA Template for Initial Media Release: School Crisis
Appendix F NEA Sample School Fact Sheet: School Crisis
Appendix G NEA Sample Communications Command Post Supplies
Appendix H NEA Sample Volunteer Information
Appendix I NEA Daily Fact Sheet Example

Index

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 Chapter One
History and Trends in the School
Counseling Profession

Box 1.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
1.a History and development of school counseling
2.a School counselor roles as leaders, advocates, and systems change agents in P-12
schools
2.m Legislation and government policy relevant to school counseling

School counseling, in comparison to other professions and fields of study, is a relatively

recent area of inquiry and practice. That said, understanding the historical struggles and
successes of the school counseling profession enables its members to define its future. Since
the inception of the profession of school counseling 110 years ago, there have been name
changes, issues of role confusion, and shifts in professional focus as a result of political
influences. This chapter will elucidate some of the dynamics and the reasons for the slow
progress in other areas of the school counseling profession. Topics that have influenced the
profession of school counseling will be grouped so that readers may understand the
progression of each issue throughout the history of school counseling. A timeline is
provided to readers to clarify and isolate significant benchmarks in the evolution of the
profession (see Figure 1.1).

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
 Figure 1.1 Timeline of the School Counseling Profession. Information Taken from Baker, S. B. (1999). School
counseling for the twenty-first century (3rd ed.; pp. 10–11). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, and Herr, E.
L., & Erford, B. T. (2007). Historical Roots and Future Issues. In B. T. Erford (Ed.), Transforming the
school counseling profession (2nd ed.; pp. 13–37). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Establishing the Conditions for the Zeitgeist for Change

15
In their incisive chapter on the Historical Roots and Future Issues in Counseling in their
text, Transforming the School Counseling Profession (2nd ed.), Herr and Erford (2007)
explain that various authors during the 20th century proposed the conditions that
promoted the rise of guidance and counseling activities in US schools. In particular, Brewer
(1942) identified four conditions that facilitated the growth of the profession of school
counseling: (1) Division of labor, as population growth and efficiency as a result of task
analysis resulted in greater specialization of task completion; (2) Growth of technology, as
the ever-improving ability to multiply the reach of the individual thereby reduced the unit
cost; (3) The extension of vocational education, as options increased for measuring aptitude
to direct individuals to appropriate postsecondary training; (4) Spread of modern forms of
democracy, as individuals had options to pursue what they chose to do with their lives.
Similarly, Traxler and North (1966) traced the guidance movement in schools to five
disparate philosophical, psychological, or sociological foundational advances: philanthropy
or humanitarianism, religion, mental hygiene, social change, and the orientation to
knowing students as individuals. Regardless of the background or contextual variables
influencing the rise of school counseling at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th
century, the beginnings of school counseling seemed to generally focus on vocational
guidance. Additionally, there were concerns regarding the quality and utility of existing
educational processes that also promoted the need for the field of school counseling.
Moreover, the issue of individual choice and dignity appeared to be subsumed in both
vocational guidance and educational reform. Herr and Erford (2007) posit that these three
factors became entangled as philosophies and models of school guidance and counseling
were then proposed by pioneers in the field.

Pioneers in the Profession

The unofficial introduction of school counseling was ushered in through the form of
vocational guidance, which began in the late 1880s, with social reform initiatives and the
political spread of democracy and immigration. In 1881, Lysander Richards was the first to
present a model for career development, while in 1894, George Merrill advocated for
exploratory classes in public education for students in order to develop their occupational
interests. In 1907, Jesse Buttrick Davis, a principal in Michigan, initiated the first “school
for systemic guidance” (Thompson, 2012, p. 4), maintaining that “students should be
respected for their own abilities, interests, ideas, individual differences and cultural
identity” (Davis, 1956, p. 176) in an effort to support all the students within the school
setting. In order to incorporate school counseling classroom lessons into the general
curriculum, Davis encouraged English teachers to take on the role of teaching guidance (as
cited in Davis, 1956), which was the first time that teachers were encouraged to assume a
counseling role.
The Vocationalists. George Merrill, a visionary in the conceptualization of the
importance of vocational development, implemented the first systematic vocational
guidance program in San Francisco (Herr & Erford, 2007). Richard Weaver, another

16
pioneer in vocational awareness, developed one of the first publications regarding
occupational information (Gysbers, 2010). He encouraged students to acquire a part-time
summer job related to their educational plan, which can be regarded as an early form of job
shadowing. Through this exhortation, Weaver is considered to be one of the early architects
of the school counseling profession. However, Frank Parsons was graced with the title of
“Father of Guidance” because he is considered to be the primary architect of vocational
guidance in the US, based upon his advocacy work (Gysbers, 2010; Herr & Erford, 2007).
Parsons promoted the use of a more formal, scientific approach to career decision-
making, recognizing this process as one of life’s most important decisions, second only to
choosing a spouse. Parsons (1909) promoted a formal position of guidance, indicating that
“there is no part of life where the need for guidance is more emphatic than the transition
from school to work” (p. 4). Parsons’ Trait/Factor theory represented a three-step approach
to vocational guidance: (1) finding your aptitudes, strengths, and interests; (2) developing
knowledge of career choices and conditions for success; (3) understanding the relationship
between the first two steps.

Box 1.2
Did you know?
Parson’s Trait/Factor theory was originally developed as the talent-matching approach,
which later became the Trait and Factor Theory of Occupational Choice. The premise
of this theory is to match people’s individual talents and the attributes required in
particular jobs (CareersNZ, 2015).

Parson’s Trait/Factor theory was modified by E. G. Williamson, who is also recognized

as a pioneer in the school counseling profession (Thompson, 2012). Williamson’s book,
How to Counsel Students: A Manual of Techniques for Clinical Counselors (1939), advocates
for the use of empirical methods in assisting people to identify their abilities and aptitudes.
He believed that people would be more satisfied in a career that was consistent with their
aptitude. Williamson also wrote extensively about how overachievement, disabilities, and
personality problems were related to learning and career development (Thompson, 2012).
The advocacy of these early pioneers resulted in the establishment of a national
professional organization, the National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA), which
established an outline regarding the training emphases for school counseling professionals
(Thompson, 2012). This organization also helped with the development of the American
School Counselor Association (ASCA). In 1953, ASCA officially became a division of the
American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA), which is now referred to as the
American Counseling Association (ACA).
The Humanists. Although Carl Rogers was not directly involved in advocating for the
profession of school counseling, he was instrumental in influencing the approaches used by
school counselors (Thompson, 2012). Rogers’ concept of unconditional positive regard and
his non-directive, person-centered approach has become a foundational competency for

17
counselors in training. His theoretical premise of the self-determination of the client was
extended by school counselors to students and resulted in school counselors seeing
themselves as child and adolescent specialists.
The Integrators. A systemic approach to school counseling came about with Frank
Wellman’s identification of the school counseling profession’s focus upon the three
domains of educational, career, and social development, accompanied by operational
objectives, and Gysbers and Myrick’s advocacy for a comprehensive, standards-based,
developmental school counseling curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s (Gysbers, 2010).
Johnson and Johnson (1991) reinforced the need for a competency-based guidance
program that sought to promote all students’ acquisition of skills required for transitioning
to postsecondary preparation. ASCA first published a model of school counseling in 1998,
which was titled Vision into Action (Dahir, Sheldon, & Valiga, 1998). In 2003, ASCA
replaced Vision into Action with a comprehensive, standards-based model, titled The ASCA
National Model: A Framework for School Counseling Programs. This book references the
third iteration of the ASCA National Model® (2012).

Evolution of Professional Identity

The focus of those who today are recognized as the founders of the school counseling
profession was upon assisting students in understanding their career aspirations in a
formalized and structured manner (Gysbers, 2010). Instead of allowing students to select
careers without an informed selection process, the emphasis was upon “guiding” students
through developmentally appropriate career decision-making. The term “vocopher,”
meaning those who helped individuals “bring order out of chaos and form or establish a
system to enable a person to find the most fitting pursuit in which he can reap the greatest
success” (Richards, 1881, p. iv), was used to refer to this orientation.

Box 1.3
Web connection: www.vocopher.com
Vocopher is the name of a free career collaborative effort that provides practitioners and
researchers with instruments to assess different career-related issues (Glavin, 2015).

Although this term was eventually discarded, the focus on guiding students through a
career decision-making process was maintained (Gysbers, 2010). Similarly, in the 1920s,
the term “vocational guidance” began to decline in its use as this era was dominated by an
emphasis on psychometrics.
In the mid-1930s, the professional identity of the school counselor shifted from a focus
on the career development of students to that of assisting students with life adjustment,
which included an emphasis on social and “mental adjustment” (Gysbers, 2010). The term
“pupil personnel services,” which was borrowed from the industrial organizations of that
time, came into vogue. Schools were encouraged to make the pupil personnel services an

18
integral part of the educational system, and this emphasis is still in existence today, as
school counseling programs are expected to have a holistic view of student development.
Within this new orientation, career guidance moved from a specific position in the
education system to services provided in a framework of pupil personnel services. Gysbers
(2010) describes Bell’s (1939) assertion that counselors promoted student adjustment
through personal contact and by focusing on educational and vocational development as
being reflective of this era. Although “pupil personnel services” was the terminology used
for the responsibilities of professional school counseling during the 1930s, the term
“guidance” appeared occasionally, with a smattering of the term “counselor” being thrown
into the lexicon.
The profession struggled with role confusion during the 1940s and 1950s (Gysbers,
2010). Indeed, the National Vocational Guidance Association Yearbook of 1948–49 showed
53 varying titles attributed to the school counseling profession (Gysbers, 2010). Some
recommended that the term “counselor” be adopted to provide unity for the profession, as
counseling services were identified as the “heart and core” of the guidance program.
However, most of the counseling services provided within schools were practiced by
teachers, administrators, and deans of students, as there were few full-time school
counselors in existence. It was also common practice to have a guidance-teacher as opposed
to a trained counselor. Career development and social-emotional learning activities were
often provided in homeroom classes, and some schools began to deliver guidance activities
to small groups. However, there were only a few post-baccalaureate programs offering
coursework specific to the role of the school counselor.
In the 1960s and 1970s, new nomenclature such as “advisor,” “human relations
specialist,” and “applied behavioral scientist” were bandied about in heated debates
regarding whether or not the professional identity of school counselors should abide by the
guidance educational model, or adhere to the psychologist model of counseling. While the
argument escalated between those advocating for an educational focus and those advocating
adoption of the psychological framework, because many graduate programs in school
counseling emphasized a psychological orientation, some states began to eliminate the
requirement of teaching experience for school counseling certification.
The debate about the title of “personnel worker” or “counselor” persisted during the
1980s and 1990s (Gysbers, 2010). Gradually, the term “counselor” achieved prominence
while the term “guidance model” came to refer to the services provided by school
counselors. In 1993, ASCA officially advocated for use of the terms “professional school
counselor” and “comprehensive school counseling program.” In 2009, ASCA asserted that
school counseling refers to a comprehensive and coordinated program rather than solely
referring to the description of the position of school counselor.

Confusion and Diffusion of the Roles and Functions

Historically, there has been considerable confusion regarding the role of the school
counselor. The use of visiting teachers, administrators, and deans of students as “guidance”

19
educators in the school setting contributed to the ambiguity of the role of the school
counselor from the onset of the profession. McCradie and Ferguson (1929) analyzed
various positions in the school setting, differentiating the professional role of the school
counselor from novice visiting teachers, school social workers, and other newly added
educational positions. This initial attempt at role clarification resulted in the
recommendation that the position of school counseling required post-baccalaureate
training. The amount of time spent in scholarly preparation for the activities of the
“guidance counselor,” as such individuals were often called, became a means of role
clarification.

Box 1.4
Did you know?
There is a substantial overlap between the roles of a mental health counselor and a
clinical social worker. Both perform psychotherapy, but social workers tend to be more
focused on modifying the environment to accommodate their clients, while counselors
are more strongly oriented toward helping their clients adapt to the environments in
which they function (Socialworklicensure.org, 2015).

Holbrook (1927) explained that the propensity for school counselors to often be
promoted to an administrative role contributed to role confusion for the profession. Myers
(1923) recognized the necessity for vocational guidance to be viewed as integral to the
educational system and not as a nonessential add-on responsibility. He was one of the first
to call for specialized training at the post-baccalaureate level and for unification and
standardization of that training. Myers worried about the diffusion of the school counseling
role, arguing against “the tendency for vocational guidance to be viewed as quasi-
administration with non-counselor duties being piled on the counselor so no work of
counseling is being done” (p. 140). This statement reflects prescience, as the same concerns
are relevant today.
Higher standards for admission into the study of the profession of school counseling
became common in an effort to increase the clarity and legitimacy of the field (Gysbers,
2010). Even though university coursework for “guidance services” began at Harvard as
early as 1911, it was not until the 1920s that more courses specific to the profession of
counseling were developed. In 1925, there were as many as 35 colleges offering coursework
in vocational guidance, and this number increased to 70 colleges by 1928. Despite the
growth of the school counseling profession during this time, some educators continued to
suggest that all educators should be expected to provide guidance services, to which
counselor educators responded by attempting to separate the role and training of school
counselors from that of other educators.
The notion that school counselors were education specialists emerged during the
political and economic turmoil of the 1930s (Gysbers, 2010). In an attempt to define the
school counselor role, Reavis and Woellner (1930) identified three terms to describe the

20
provision of guidance: educational, personal, and vocational. Gysbers (2010) points out
that, interestingly, these domains seem similar to the domains of the ASCA National Model®
(2012). A report published in 1941 revealed that the ratio of school counselor to students
was 1:1,000, with only 16.4% of secondary schools even employing a qualified school
counselor. This report attempted to legitimize the profession in its recommendation that
guidance counselors complete at least 30 credits of graduate work and possess teacher
certification. In 1948, the Division of Higher Education of the US Office of Education
issued requirements for counselor education. Arnold (1949) conducted a study of school
counseling activities, concluding that “more time and effort are being given to attendance,
tardiness, discipline and school failure than are being given to counseling about vocational
and educational plans and about personal, social and school problems” (p. 392).
Despite the efforts to legitimize the profession through post-baccalaureate training, and
the number of research studies verifying the misdirection or misuse of professional skills,
the lack of definition regarding the role of the school counselor persisted. Gysbers (2010)
cites research published in the California Guidance Newsletter (1951) validating the
misapplication of these professional skills, finding that as much as 80% of the school
counselor’s time was spent on clerical duties. Despite exhortations to the contrary, it
appears that there was little difference between the early 1920s and early 1950s in terms of
the activities of school counselors.
The 1950s witnessed continued debate regarding the appropriate role of school
counselors (Gysbers, 2010). Conflict also emerged between those advocating for the
retention of the vocational guidance concept and those advocating for the adoption of the
use of psychological and personality development models. The widespread adoption of
Rogers’ non-directive approaches led many counselor preparation programs to deemphasize
the traditional Trait/Factor theory in favor of approaches that emphasized the promotion of
students’ self-concept and social adjustment. This new movement pushed the topics of self-
esteem and personality to the forefront of training, with the adjustment of the individual
becoming the new goal of guidance and counseling. This shift moved the profession on
from its vocational focus to the mental hygiene model of school counseling. With that shift
came another change in title and function from guidance to pupil personnel services.
The new philosophical orientation of psychotherapeutic models served to add to the role
confusion of the profession, yet again. However, the advocacy from the new professional
organization, the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), a division of the
American Personnel and Guidance Association (later American Counselor Association),
brought new support and direction to the profession from its inception in 1953. The initial
actions of the organization directed school counselors to vigorously advocate for their role
and position while also turning to focus again on university training programs.
ASCA focused upon establishing a uniform curriculum for school counselors. This
movement to standardize the curriculum of school counselors also instigated a debate
regarding whether school counselors should have teaching experience. Research then and
now supported the fact that both previous teachers and those with no teaching experience
had a large learning curve when entering the school counseling field (e.g., Baker, 1994),

21
causing many states to abandon the previous requisite of needing teaching experience to
become a school counselor.
During the 1960s and 1970s another shift in the role of school counselors occurred
(Gysbers, 2010). Organizational systems and preventive programming became the
professional focus, advancing the school counselor as a change agent. To that end, Hatch
(2008) purports that there are three theories that form the standards of professional
legitimacy: organizational theory, institutional theory, and political theory, which are
explained in Table 1.1. The following sections explore Hatch’s perspective of how these
theories of professional legitimacy elucidate some of the profession’s challenges, and offer
implications for establishing professional legitimacy.
Organizational theory. Organizational theory regards the effectiveness and efficiency of
an organization in achieving its desired results (Hatch, 2008). Organizations develop
formal structures, which includes the identification of members’ roles, policies, and
procedures, to evaluate both goal attainment and the efficiency of the formal structures in
contributing to goal attainment. One of the historical challenges of the school counseling
profession is that it has lacked formal structures, program definitions, or clear objectives.
School counseling programs vary considerably between sites and districts, and there is little
consistency regarding the role of the school counseling program and school counselor
within the larger organization of the school. As a result, it is difficult to evaluate how the
school counseling program contributes to the school’s mission and the efficiency of the
school counseling program’s related services/functions. The ASCA National Model® (2012),
first published in 2003, and which is discussed in considerable depth in Chapter 2, was
developed to provide a consistent structure and methods of evaluation to enable school
counselors and stakeholders to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the school
counseling program.
Institutional theory. Institutional theory concerns how organizations develop the
formal structures and processes for establishing rules, policies, and procedures. Operational
legitimacy is achieved within an organization when structural elements, including
standards, policies, and processes, define norms and routines. Social legitimacy is
established when organizational members contribute to objectives of the organization that
resulted in the development of such structural elements, such as evaluation measures or role
descriptions. Members are socially legitimate when they contribute to the decision/policy-
making. School counselors often have not been part of the process of establishing the
formal structures of schools. Rather, their role has often been defined by historical internal
and external pressures. For example, upon being hired a school counselor is often informed
of what duties he or she will have, not necessarily because the duties are defined in a formal
job description or contribute to the school’s efficiency, but rather because the previous
school counselor performed the respective duties, or because school counselors in nearby
schools do it this way. A graduate of the school counseling program in which the first
author of this text taught was informed by the principal in her first school counseling
position that she would be responsible for examining all of the students’ heads for lice
because that was a responsibility of the previous school counselor. The school counseling

22
profession has also lacked operational legitimacy. The profession was not included in the
development of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB: 2002) legislation, and in many states
school counselors are not mandated nor do they have state guidelines. Many school districts
do not have job descriptions, evaluation tools specific to school counselors, or policies and
procedures manuals.
Institutional legitimacy is obtained by adopting the current societal values, norms, and
procedures. Concern over the profession’s exclusion from the NCLB and other educational
reform movements resulted in ASCA seeking legitimacy through accepting the norms and
values of the standards movement. ASCA created the ASCA National Model® (2012) and
national standards for students, which closely resembled the form of similar student
standards in education. Hatch (2008) urges school counselors to use the operational
frameworks developed by ASCA to demonstrate to school personnel who are part of the
policy-making process that they are essential contributors to student learning. This would
increase the likelihood that school counselors will be invited to join the policy-making
process. School counselors can educate stakeholders through brochures, handbooks,
accreditation reports, etc. about the profession’s operational frameworks, and can
participate in efforts to reform state laws and education codes to reflect the new vision of
school counseling.
Political theory. Political decisions concern the process by which finite resources are
distributed, and often rest on the issue of value vs. resources. Programs that are highly
valued have “social capital” and are likely to receive additional resources. Programs earn
social capital by predicating and responding to the values and perceived needs of the
organization.
Four levels of political influence are essential for the growth of the school counseling
profession: site, district, state, and national. At the school level, school counselors must be
valued by the administration to ensure the continuance of their programs and avoid the
assignment of quasi-administrative and clerical duties. At the district level, the governing
board must regard the school counseling program as vital. At the state level, the profession
must influence state representatives who periodically receive pressure from various action
groups pursuing school reform at the expense of eliminating school counseling programs.
At the national level, school counselors must support the national professional
organizations in their efforts to be part of the policy-making process.
One of the primary ways in which professional school counselors develop political clout
is by evaluating and marketing the results of program initiatives. Evaluation indicates how
program efforts can be improved to maximize efficiency, and informs stakeholders of the
impact of the program. A school counseling student once remarked to the lead author of
this text that she could not see how using data would be meaningful to her. While this may
sound cynical, one can argue that the value of data is not so much of direct benefit to the
school counselor, but rather, the benefit is to those who have political clout. It can be said
that data is one of the “primary languages” through which we help others understand our
impact and what we do.

23
Table 1.1 Professional Challenges of School Counseling: Organizational, Institutional,
and Political
Theoretical Professional How is the How can the Desired Outcome
Construct Challenge Challenge Challenge be
Facing the Manifested? Addressed?
School
Counseling
Profession
Organizational Effectiveness Do not measure Evaluate the Measure results
(predictive, impact of program Know what works, and
desired and activities and do what does not work
intended not know
goals and whether they
outcomes are work or not
met)
Internal Status quo Program Do more of what works,
efficiency Inefficiency improvement less of what does not
(greatest Random acts of Program refinement
output for guidance Time efficiency
the least
energy and
resources)
Institutional Operational No structural Reporting Indispensability
legitimacy elements program Influence policy actors to
institutionalized results create institutionalization
(rules, norms Social and of structural elements,
and routines, cultural laws, policies, handbooks,
policies, pressure routines, and procedures
procedures etc.) Educate on reflecting appropriate role
Unaware of standards of school counselor
standards or and model
model programs
Social Not involved in Becoming Becoming a policy actor
legitimacy site leadership involved in Influencing policy actors
No legitimate decision- by contributing to the
voice in making cultural pressure that leads
programs, or Systems to the creation of
policies change structures
Student Partner with school
advocacy leadership for systems
change

24
Political Value versus Reduction in Reporting Seen as integral
resources force program Valued
Social capital Undervaluing results Performing school
Political profession Marketing counseling activities
clout Increase in non-
school
counseling
responsibility
Note: Reprinted with permission from Hatch, T. A. (2008). Professional challenges in school counseling:
Organizational, institutional and political. Journal of School Counseling, 6, 1–31.

Recent Efforts to Promote Unity within the Profession

The 1960s and 1970s encouraged individual school counselors to develop and define their
own roles and responsibilities, based on the needs of each school. This individualized
movement added fuel to the fire regarding the role confusion in the field of school
counseling.
During the 1980s and 1990s, there was increased concern within the field of education
regarding the achievement gap for children of color and those in poverty (Gysbers, 2010).
Partially as a result of these concerns, school counselors were encouraged to focus more on
prevention and providing developmental guidance than on conducting individual and
group counseling with at-risk students. ASCA encouraged school counselors to dispute
their assignment to activities that were not considered to be consistent with this prevention
role.
A number of organizations, including ASCA, the Education Trust, and the College
Board, became involved in an effort to transform and unify the school counseling
profession (Gysbers, 2010). In addition, the writings and work of Myrick (1987), Gysbers
(1990), and Johnson and Johnson (1982) were influential in defining school counseling as
a program, which is developmental and comprehensive in nature, rather than a position.
The focus shifted from the services provided by school counselors to viewing school
counseling as an integral program that supports but is also distinct from the school’s
academic curriculum. There was also an increased emphasis upon the need for
accountability and the collection of data to demonstrate the impact of the school
counseling program.
While ASCA is a division of the American Counseling Association (ACA), and ASCA
has actively promoted the use of the title “professional school counselor” vs. “guidance
counselor,” in the past decade there has been tension between ASCA and ACA. Whereas
other divisions of ACA are required to join ACA, persons may become ASCA members
without having to join ACA. In 2014, ACA, with the support of 29 other counseling
organizations, adopted the following consensus definition: “Counseling is a professional
relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental
health, wellness, education, and career goals” (Kaplan, Tarvydas, & Gladding, 2014, p.

25
366). However, ASCA did not endorse this definition, citing the fact that the definition did
not distinguish counseling from other mental health professions and that the definition was
not based on empirical support. The tension between ACA and ASCA may be partially due
to the desire of ASCA to define the term professional school counselor as being more
comprehensive in nature as opposed to focusing primarily on the mental health concerns of
at-risk students, and this is discussed in greater length in Chapter 2. While ASCA defines
professional school counselors primarily as educators, many counselor education programs
have adopted ACA’s recommendation that school counselors identify as counselors who
work within an education setting.

Political and Social Impact on the School Counseling Profession

The school counseling profession has been redefined numerous times, and much of the role
confusion inherent in the field can be attributed to the influence of political and social
issues of the times. In the 1880s, social reform was the primary focus as a result of the
working conditions of the Industrial Revolution. The Progressive Movement, which began
at the turn of the century, sought to address demographic changes taking place at the time,
which included the large increase in immigration and the nation’s transition from largely an
agrarian culture to an urban culture (Erford, 2004). The role of the school counselor
became focused upon providing students with a more structured method of choosing
postsecondary career options. Additionally, society’s concern with mental illness, partially
as a result of Clifford Beers’ (1908) book, A Mind That Found Itself, in which he described
the horrific conditions he experienced during his institutionalization in a mental hospital,
resulted in calls for school counselors to work increasingly with the mental and social issues
of children (Thompson, 2012).

Box 1.5
Did you know?
“The Army Alpha was a group-administered test that measured verbal ability, numerical
ability, ability to follow directions, and knowledge of information. The Army Beta was a
non-verbal counterpart to the Army Alpha. It was used to evaluate the aptitude of
illiterate, unschooled, or non-English speaking draftees and volunteers” (ASVAB, 2015).

World War I had a significant impact upon the role of the school counselor.
Standardized measurements, such as the Army’s Alpha and Beta intelligence tests, were
introduced to identify youth for armed services selection (Gysbers, 2010). During the war,
school counselors focused upon identifying students for armed services selection, and
students’ vocational aspirations often represented a secondary interest. The psychometric
movement inspired by World War I continued into the 1920s, and school counselors were
heavily involved in the coordination of assessments for intelligence and vocational
competencies. However, there was also considerable opposition to the psychometric

26
movement, and many educators argued that the emphasis upon psychometrics failed to
consider the “whole child.” During this time, child clinics were established to help what
were seen as problem children. As a consequence, school counselors began to focus more on
children with social and emotional difficulties and assisting with the personal adjustment of
students. The term “maladjusted child” became the new vernacular of the era (Johnson,
1972).
The 1930s brought the first recognition of the profession of school counseling “in the
form of legislation and the creation of a national office in the federal government as well as
state offices for guidance” (Gysbers, 2010, p. 42). School counselors returned to focusing
upon vocational education. During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential administration, the
Vocational Division of the US Office of Education was established. There was an effort to
specialize the training of school counselors, to distinguish them from teachers, as well as to
standardize the preparation curriculum.
In the subsequent decade, the passage of the Vocational Education Act of 1946, also
known as the George Barden Act, provided federal funds for guidance program supervision,
salaries of counselor-trainees and counselor supervisors, and research on the activities of
school counselors (Gysbers, 2010). The political and monetary support helped to expand
the profession in a dramatic fashion. A contributor to this professional momentum was the
establishment of a standard curriculum by the National Vocational Guidance Association
(NVGA) in 1948. Also in 1948, the National Conference of State Supervisors of Guidance
Services and Counselor Trainers established certification regulations for school counselors.

Box 1.6
Did you know?
In addition to providing monetary support for the math and science aptitude testing of
students, the Title V section of the National Defense Education Act provided funding
for educational and career counseling to public high school students and the creation of
guidance counselor training institutes. Guidance counseling preparation programs were
encouraged to match students’ abilities and courses of study and to assist qualified
students to prepare for college education. The training institutes aimed to bolster the
quality of the qualifications of those who provided counseling and guidance services for
students in secondary schools (Flattau et al., 2006).

Interestingly, the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 had a profound
impact upon the school counseling profession (Gysbers, 2010). At this time, it was
perceived that the defense of the nation was at risk because of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics’ launch of Sputnik and the escalation of the Cold War. The NDEA provided
funds for the testing of students to identify students with aptitudes in math and science.
The NDEA also provided funding for universities to train secondary school counselors,
which resulted in the tripling of the number of school counselors nationwide between 1958
and 1967 (Thompson, 2012).

27
 The political movements of the 1960s and 1970s, which included the Civil Rights,
Feminist, and Peace movements, profoundly impacted the school counseling profession.
Just as society was polarized in support or opposition to these movements, there was a
division within the school counseling profession. School counselors were divided between
those who identified primarily as educators versus those who classified themselves as human
relations specialists. Also, some leaders within the profession wished to establish a guidance
model that was a part of the educational system, whereas others wished to align school
counseling with psychology.
The Vocational Education Act of 1963, the Vocational Education Amendments of
1968, and the Education Amendment of 1976 redirected the professional focus back to its
origins of career awareness and career decision-making. These bills reflected the desire of
Congress to ensure that the US remained a viable global competitor by encouraging
students to pursue coursework and careers in math and the sciences. In contrast, the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 encouraged school counselors to address
social issues, as the Act provided grants to local school districts to establish programs to
prevent school dropout, particularly among the economically disadvantaged and students
with disabilities (Erford, 2004).
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act also increased the number of elementary
school counselors (Gysbers, 2010). While elementary school counselors were in existence as
early as the 1920s, during the first several decades of their professional functioning, their
positions were primarily viewed as educational and not therapeutic. Furthermore, the
foundational guidance provided by elementary school counselors was seen as a vital
component to the education of all students. However, gradually, there was an increasing
overlap in the duties of school psychologists, school social workers, and school counselors.
There was also debate regarding the relationship between elementary and secondary school
counselors, with some arguing that elementary school counselors should seek to see
themselves as distinct and separate from secondary school counselors. Dinkmeyer was a
strong advocate for elementary school counselors at this time, asserting that the roles and
functions of elementary school counselors should include consultation, counseling, school
counseling classroom lessons, group guidance, and coordination of services.
Several social issues impacted the school counseling profession during the 1970s. Both
an economic recession and a decline in the school population resulted in declining school
budgets and the elimination of school counseling positions (Gysbers, 2010). There was a
call for greater accountability for school counselors to identify their effectiveness and justify
their positions. However, The Career Education Act of 1978 and the Carl Perkins
Vocational Education Act of 1984 re-energized the school counseling profession (Erford,
2004). These acts supported school counselors’ role in preparing students to enter the
world of work, and provided federal funds for transition programs.
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and the Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 expanded the professional focus of school
counseling to include all students in the educational system, not just those who were college
bound (Gysbers, 2010). These legislative initiatives provided legitimacy to school

28
counselors being integral to the educational process, while maintaining the focus upon
career decision-making and enhancing students’ transitions from school to work.
During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a shift toward establishing a comprehensive,
standards-based curriculum, based on the work of Gysbers, Myrick, and Johnson (Gysbers,
2010). ASCA supported this movement in the establishment of the National Standards for
School Counseling Programs (Campbell & Dahir, 1997), and its companion, Vision into
Action: Implementing the National Standards for School Counseling Programs (Dahir et al.,
1998). Federal funding to support the school counseling profession’s implementation of a
comprehensive, standards-based curriculum was provided through the Elementary School
Counseling Demonstration Act of 1995 and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied
Technology Act of 1990 (Erford, 2004). However, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
(NCLB: 2002) represented a political setback for the school counseling profession as it was
not included in the planning and development of this monumental legislative movement.
This omission compelled ASCA, ACA, the Education Trust, and other professional
advocates to develop initiatives to establish the legitimacy of the profession. In 2015 NCLB
was replaced with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA: US Department of Education,
n.d.). ASCA (2015) issued a statement in support of ESSA, citing the legislation’s emphasis
on academic and career counseling, the importance of providing students with a well-
rounded education, and improving the safety and health of school environments. In ESSA,
the Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program (ESSCP) grants were incorporated
into a large block grant along with many other programs. This large block grant now
explicitly lists school counselors as being eligible for federal professional development
monies, which could result in increased funding for school counselors.

Professional Association Influences and Impact

The need for advocacy led by professional organizations is apparent in the evolution of the
school counseling profession (Gysbers, 2010). The evolution of the professional
organizations has closely mirrored changes in the school counseling profession. In the early
1920s, the National Education Association (NEA) created the Commission on the
Reorganization of Secondary Education (CRSE), which directed public schools to
incorporate vocational education throughout the educational process. Ironically, however,
the CRSE did not include school counselors in their planning (Johnson, 1972).
The Occupational Information and Guidance Service (OIGS) of the late 1930s may
have been the first official voice for the school counseling profession (Gysbers, 2010). This
organization eventually became the National Association of Guidance Supervision and
Counselor Trainers, currently known as the Association of Counselor Education and
Supervision (ACES). Concerned with the lack of consistency in the education and training
of school counselors, the OIGS collaborated with the Division of Higher Education of the
US Office of Education. In 1948, the first National Conference of State Supervisors of
Guidance Services and Counselor Trainers was held in Washington DC, and this
conference ultimately resulted in the publication of the first manual on counselor

29
preparation by the NVGA (Thompson, 2012). The American Personnel and Guidance
Association (APGA) grew out of the NVGA, and eventually the APGA became the ACA.
In 1952, the APGA (which is now ACA) created the American School Counselor
Association (ASCA) division, which was the first organization specific to the profession of
school counselors. From its inception, ASCA has sought to define, unify, and promote the
school counseling professional through the publication of a professional journal,
newsletters, professional position papers, etc.
In addition to ASCA, the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related
Educational Programs (CACREP) and the National Board of Certified Counselors
(NBCC; Gysbers, 2010) have published preparation standards for school counselors.
CACREP was formed in 1981 for the purpose of developing standards of preparation for
all types of counseling professionals, including addictions counseling, clinical mental health
counseling, and school counseling, to establish a standardized curriculum for the protection
of the public welfare. NBCC was established in 1982 for the objective of developing a
national credentialing exam that assesses students’ mastery of CACREP’s eight knowledge
areas: human growth and development, social and cultural foundations, helping
relationships, group counseling, career and lifestyle development, appraisal, research and
program evaluation, program orientation, and ethics. NBCC issues a National Certified
Counselor (NCC) certificate, and also issues certificates for specific types of counseling
professionals, including the National Certified School Counselor (NCSC) designation.
Some states and school systems offer increased salaries for NCSCs.

Summary
The evolution of school counseling has been more cyclical than linear. Initially, the
profession’s focus was upon vocational education. However, school counseling now
emphasizes a more holistic view of students as reflected in the ASCA National Model’s®
(2012) prioritization of the career, personal/social, and academic domains. The pioneers of
this profession began with the realization of the need for a structured process in which
students could make effective career decisions. Assisting students in understanding their
unique personal strengths, talents, interests, and abilities became the foundation of the
profession. While the Trait/Factor Theory was the initial assessment method for career
decision-making, new career theories, personality and ability assessments, and career
portfolios now also contribute to students’ career decision-making process.
The original focus of “guidance counseling” involved assessments for career decision-
making; however, educators often presumed that the role of a school counselor was the
coordinator of assessments related to learning. Ironically, this controversy continues to
concern the profession, as the coordination of testing is a time-consuming responsibility of
many school counselors. Although school counselors are trained in test preparation, the
distribution, scheduling, and proctoring of tests is not considered by ASCA to be an
effective use of the professional school counselor’s time.
Through the evolution of the profession, many types of nomenclature have been used to

30
explain the roles and functions of this education position. From vocational guidance to
guidance services, pupil personnel services to guidance office, ASCA ultimately selected the
term of professional school counselor. In the early years of the profession, utilizing the
services of teachers and administrators to provide vocational guidance may have been a
pragmatic measure. However, this decision may have also contributed to the role confusion
within school counseling, as teaching credentials were considered to be a prerequisite for
the school counseling position. Research has not supported the need for school counselors
to have a teaching background, and thus the vast majority of states have eliminated this
requirement.
The rigor of school counselors’ preparation has been questioned at various times.
Graduate courses specific to the occupational needs of a school counselor became necessary
to legitimize the profession. The training of school counselors has been enhanced by
CACREP’s establishment of a standardized curriculum, and NBCC’s standardized
assessment criteria for the NCC and NCSC. The breadth of knowledge required of today’s
school counselors is considerable, as school counselors are expected to be able to effectively
use both evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies to promote students’
academic, social/emotional, and career development.
Many social and political issues have impacted the development of the school counseling
profession. At times, school counselors have been expected to focus upon meeting the needs
of at-risk students, whereas at other times school counselors were expected to focus upon
the needs of all students by providing services or implementing programs that were infused
into the school’s curriculum. In response to the Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik, the
NDEA of 1958 came about, offering federal funding for school counseling positions and
professional education. In 1963, the Vocational Education Act redirected the focus of
school counseling back to career decision-making as the threat of global competitiveness
loomed. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act broadened the focus of school
counseling from career information to include the social/emotional needs of students.
However, the Carl Perkins Act brought the career focus back to the school counseling
profession full circle.
Unfortunately, several educational reform efforts through the years have ignored the
school counseling profession as an integral part of the discussions. No dismissal was more
apparent than being left out of the NCLB educational reform legislation. Paradoxically,
however, this rebuff propelled the school counseling profession and the professional
organization into a new paradigm of educational collaboration. Prominent figures in this
field began to advocate for a more proactive, developmental, standards-based approach to
the school counseling profession.
This new realization highlighted the value of a comprehensive, standards-based, school
counseling profession, which emerged during the 1980s and 1990s. This movement is seen
as a turning point in the effort to establish legitimacy for the school counseling profession.
The ASCA National Model® (2012) seeks to align school counseling with the mission of
schools, ensuring that school counselors devote 80% of their time to provision of direct and
indirect services to students, and promoting the utilization of strategies for management

31
and accountability to ensure that school counselors impact the entire student population.
Perhaps more importantly, the school counseling profession’s commitment to a
comprehensive, standards-based system of service delivery renders it less vulnerable to the
reactionary responses of prevailing political and social issues.
The paradigm of the profession has been changed through viewing school counseling as
an integral service in the educational system, and not merely as that which is provided by or
to a few lone individuals within the school or district. In embracing this shift, the school
counseling profession has taken the next step in its evolution. With legislative advocacy and
proactive behaviors exhibited on the part of individual school counselors, state school
counseling organizations, and national professional organizations, school counseling is
poised to no longer be viewed as ancillary to the educational system, but rather as a service
that ensures the holistic development of all students.

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33
 Chapter Two
Professional Identity of School
Counselors and the American School
Counselor Association National
Model (2012a)

Box 2.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
1.a History and development of school counseling
1.b Models of school counseling programs
2.a School counselor roles as leaders, advocates, and systems change agents in P-12
schools
2.c School counselor roles in relation to college and career readiness
2.d School counselor roles in school leadership and multidisciplinary teams
2.f Competencies to advocate for school counseling roles
2.l Professional organizations, preparation standards, and credentials relevant to the
practice of school counseling
3.a Development of school counseling program mission statements and objectives

This chapter explores the professional identity of school counselors. An overview of the
four components of the ASCA National Model: A Framework for School Counseling Programs
(ASCA, 2012a), which include its foundation, management, delivery, and accountability, is
provided. Much of the content of this specific chapter and this book in general are
informed by the content of the ASCA National Model® . The Education Trust’s
Transforming School Counseling Initiative (TSCI; 2009) and the partnership between
ASCA and the Education Trust are discussed. The impact of various educational reforms
upon the role of the school counselor and school counseling program will be reviewed,
including the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2002), the Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA: US Department of Education, n.d.), Common Core State Standards (CCSS;
National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010),
Response to Intervention (RtI), School-wide Positive Behavior and Intervention Supports
(SWPBIS), and the Reach Higher Initiative. The chapter includes an overview of systems-
ecological theory, which is either implicitly or explicitly identified in the various

34
educational reforms previously referenced, together with the efforts made to transform the
profession of school counseling. Finally, a discussion of McMahon, Mason, Daluga-
Guenther, and Ruiz’s (2014) ecological model of professional school counseling is provided
as a specific example of how school counselors can use a systems framework.

Professional Identity of School Counselors

The school counseling profession continues to pursue the long-sought objective of
achieving a consistent identity. As an example of the problems associated with achieving
this objective, the role of the school counselor often varies between districts and even
between schools within the same district. In some schools, school counselors function in a
manner similar to mental health therapists, providing individual counseling to at-risk
students. In other schools, school counselors are heavily burdened with clerical duties,
which may include registering and scheduling new students, coordinating the standardized
test administrations, coordinating student study teams, maintaining attendance records,
completing college applications, etc.
A new elementary school counselor recently complained to one of the authors that each
principal of the three schools in which she worked had an entirely different view of her role.
One principal wanted her to function as a crisis counselor, expecting her to constantly be
on call to assist with students who had been removed from class for disciplinary reasons.
Another principal requested that the school counselor primarily organize the administration
of various standardized tests. Finally, her remaining principal wanted her to establish a
comprehensive school counseling program, including the development of a school
counseling curriculum; however, she found that her duties at her other schools interfered
with her ability to implement such a program.
The effort to achieve a consistent identity is currently affected by the declining
education budgets and the considerable emphasis on the accountability of educational
institutions. School counselors are not mandated by law in many states and sometimes are
among the first school personnel to be eliminated due to budget reductions. The increasing
expectation is that schools and educators should be accountable for students’ achievement
or lack thereof, an expectation which is significantly represented in the No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) Act (2002) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA: US Department of
Education, n.d.) of 2015. This has exerted pressure on the profession to identify how
school counselors contribute to the academic mission of schools and to measure the impact
of these contributions.
The school counseling profession must not only establish a niche within the education
professions, but also must help the public understand their role and the positive impact of
school counseling related programs in order to counter some of the common negative
perceptions of school counselors. School counseling students may find that they receive
interesting reactions when they reveal what they are studying to laypeople, and it is
common for such individuals to complain that their school counselor only helped them
with scheduling, and claimed that they would not amount to anything, etc. A national

35
survey of recent high school graduates conducted in 2009 revealed that the students
primarily gave their high school guidance counselors a fair or poor rating and viewed them
as less helpful than teachers in providing career development support (Johnson, Rochkind,
Ott, & DuPont, 2010). Moreover, 67% of respondents rated their school counselor as fair
or poor for the assistance they provided in selecting a college, and 55% rated their school
counselor as fair or poor in the assistance they provided with the college application
process.

The ASCA National Model ® (2012a) and Comprehensive School Counseling

Programs
Thankfully, there appears to be progress in the development of a consistent and unique
professional identity for school counselors. During the last few decades, ASCA and
prominent school counselor educators have encouraged school counselors to work
systematically and collaboratively to meet the developmental needs of all students through
the design and implementation of what are referred to as comprehensive school counseling
programs. A comprehensive school counseling program includes a school counseling
curriculum that proactively addresses the academic, career, and personal/social needs of
students. The curriculum is distinct from but supports the school’s academic curriculum.
Whereas in previous decades the profession focused upon the role of the school counselor
and the services he or she provided, in the comprehensive school counseling program
model, the emphasis is on the effectiveness of the program as opposed to the services
provided by the school counselor. In this model, the school counselor is regarded as a
coordinator or leader of the program and works collaboratively with other school personnel,
including teachers and administrators, in delivering the curriculum. The curriculum is
delivered through a variety of program components, including classroom lessons, individual
student planning, individual and group counseling, crisis response, referrals, consultation,
and collaboration.
The ASCA National Model® (2012a) is the predominant comprehensive school
counseling program, and several chapters of this book are devoted to this Model in
significant detail. The ASCA National Model® is comprised of four interrelated components:
foundation, management, delivery, and accountability. The foundation concerns what the
program is about – student knowledge, attitudes, and skills that the program seeks to
promote – and the beliefs that will influence the activities used to facilitate the identified
student competencies.

Box 2.2
Did you know?
The International Model for School Counseling Programs (Fezler & Brown, 2011) is closely
related to the ASCA National Model® (2012a) but was developed to allow school
counselors to meet the specific needs of their school population.

36
 Beliefs. One of the first steps in creating a comprehensive school counseling program is
for the school counseling team, which should consist of the school counselor(s) and
representatives of the various stakeholder groups, including administration, teachers,
parents, and community members, to identify the beliefs that influence the team members’
thinking about student development and the program. According to the ASCA National
Model® (2012a), belief statements should reflect the fact that all students have the capacity
to achieve at a high level, indicate how the school counseling program addresses students’
developmental needs, emphasize that the school counselor is an advocate for all students,
identify the persons involved in the creation and delivery of the program, describe how the
data influence program decisions, and require that school counselors abide by ASCA’s
Ethical Standards for School Counselors (2010).

Figure 2.1 The ASCA National Model® Diamond Graphic. Copyright American School Counselor Association
(ASCA). Reprinted with kind permission.

37
Box 2.3
Sample Belief Statement
The following is the belief statement (Lamberto, 2015) from Haine Elementary School
in Cranberry, Pennsylvania, which became a Recognized ASCA Model Program
(RAMP) in 2015.

• All students are our highest priority.

• All students are entitled to a safe, nurturing environment in order to help them
achieve their highest potential.
• All students have the ability to learn and have the right to take advantage of quality
educational opportunities provided.
• All students’ ethnic, cultural, and racial differences and/or special needs are
considered in planning and implementing the school counseling program.
• All students have the right to participate in a school counseling program that focuses
on academic, career, and personal/social development with special attention to
barriers that impede student learning.
• All students have the right to be served by a professional school counselor who is
accessible, collaborates with other educators, families, and the community as an
advocate for student success in a timely and effective manner.
• The Comprehensive School Counseling Program is for every student, and is
developmental and comprehensive in scope and is proactive in design.
• The mandates and guidelines of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA)
and the Pennsylvania School Counselors Association (PSCA) set the standards for the
school counseling program.
• The Comprehensive School Counseling Program ensures a delivery system that
provides school counseling core curriculum, individual student planning, responsive
services, and system support.
• The Comprehensive School Counseling Program is driven by data through an
ongoing review of service delivery, curriculum management, and ASCA Model results
reports.
• The Comprehensive School Counseling Program is an integral part of the total
educational program for each student’s success.
• The Comprehensive School Counseling Program collects and shares process,
perception and outcome data and analyzes critical elements of the data.
• The Professional School Counselor is the advocate and catalyst for the growth of and
support for every student, fostering student connectedness with students, staff and
families while creating the possibility for transformation and success.
• The Professional School Counselor collaborates with professional and support staff,
families, and the community to remove educational barriers for all students.
• The Professional School Counselor abides by professional school counseling ethics
promoted by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA).

38
 • The Professional School Counselor regularly participates in professional development
activities needed to maintain an excellent program consistent with the American
School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model® .
• The Professional School Counselor designs, implements, and evaluates the
comprehensive school counseling program to ensure its alignment to Seneca Valley
School District’s strategic plan, Haine Elementary School’s Improvement Plan and
Report Card and Haine Elementary School’s data profile.
• The Professional state-certified School Counselor plans and manages the
comprehensive school counseling program in collaboration with the building
administrators and in conjunction with the Pupil Services Director and the Seneca
Valley School District’s Elementary School Counseling Department and the Advisory
Team of the Haine Elementary School’s Counseling Program.

Vision statement. The foundation also includes a vision statement that is compatible
with the school’s and district’s vision, and that reveals what the school counselors ideally
wish the students and school community to attain or achieve in the future. The vision
statement should indicate the best, but also achievable, outcomes for students within the
next five to fifteen years, and depicts a future in which the goals of the school counseling
program are being realized.

Box 2.4
Sample Vision Statement (Gordon, 2015)
Through the collective efforts of Blackhawk Intermediate School staff, families, and the
community at large, the students at Blackhawk Intermediate School are educated in a
positive, safe, and comfortable learning environment where they have opportunities to
enrich their academic, career, and social/emotional development. Each student is
supported, valued, and respected for his/her unique learning style to ensure overall
success. Supported by the school counseling program, all students at Blackhawk
Intermediate School participate in a curriculum that focuses on rigor, relevance and
relationships. As students strive to become productive and confident citizens in the
community, they are empowered to persevere, exhibit accountability for their actions,
display respect, and demonstrate trustworthiness. As goal-oriented learners, our students
continue to strengthen their skills necessary for a “college and career-ready” education.
Reprinted with permission.

Mission statement. The mission statement is also more concise than the vision
statement, and identifies the specifics for achieving the depiction provided in the vision
statement. The mission statement should be compatible with the school and district’s
mission, have students as the primary focus, advocate for equity and success for all students,
and indicate the long-term goals for students.

39
 Box 2.5
Sample School Counseling Mission Statement (Gordon, 2015)
Through leadership and advocacy, The Blackhawk Intermediate School’s School
Counseling Program promotes rigor, relevance, and relationships among students by
providing:

• career awareness and exploration;

• strategies for healthy decision-making skills;
• social and emotional competencies;
• academic support to maximize student potential.

Therefore, the collaborative efforts among The Blackhawk Intermediate School’s school
counselor, teachers, parents, community members, and administration will ensure that
all students have equitable access to opportunities to succeed in a global community.
Reprinted with permission.

Program goals. Program goals reflect how the vision and mission statement will be
achieved, and direct the development of curriculum, small group, and closing-the-gap
action plans. The program goals identify specific, measurable student outcomes in the
academic, career, and social/emotional development domains. School data are used to
identify the particular needs of the school, and often seek to address gaps between
educational access, equity, and achievement between White students and typically
disadvantaged groups of students. School data that are reviewed for disparities include the
frequency of discipline referrals, enrollment patterns in rigorous courses, and student
absences (e.g., Dimmitt, Carey, & Hatch, 2007). There is more discussion of the process of
using data in the goal-setting process in Chapter 4: Management and Accountability.
Examples of specific, measurable, and attainable goals may include the following:

• a 20% increase in attendance for the students who had ten or more absences the
previous year;
• a 20% increase in the number of African American students enrolled in Advanced
Placement courses;
• within two years, Latino American students’ average gain in reaching achievement, as
indicated by the state achievement test, will be 20% greater than the White students’
gain scores.

ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (ASCA, 2014)

The ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (ASCA, 2014), which are available on
the ASCA website, “describe the knowledge, skills and attitudes students need to achieve
academic success, college and career readiness, and social/emotional development” (p. 1).

40
They were developed based upon a review of the literature conducted by the University of
Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research concerning five categories of non-
cognitive factors that are associated with student achievement (Farrington et al., 2012).
These five categories include academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic
mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills. The 35 mindset and behavior standards
identify the expected outcomes for the school counseling program (ASCA, 2014). School
counselors identify the standards and behaviors that are addressed in classroom lessons and
small groups. The ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors are comprised of three domains of academic,
career, and personal/social development, and each of the 35 standards may be applied to
any of the three domains. The Mindset Standards are comprised of six psychosocial
attitudes students have about themselves regarding their learning. The Behavior Standards
are grouped into three subcategories: learning strategies, self-management skills, and social
skills. For example, the first mindset is “Belief in development of whole self, including a
healthy balance of mental, social/emotional, and physical well-being” (p. 2). Each of the
subcategories of Behavior Standards has nine to ten more specific behaviors. For example,
the Behavior Standard for learning strategies is “Demonstrate critical-thinking skills to
make informed decisions” (p. 2).
ASCA School Counselor Competencies (ASCA, 2012b). The ASCA School Counselor
Competencies (2012b), which can be found on the ASCA website, identify the knowledge,
skills, and attitudes that are regarded as necessary for implementing a comprehensive school
counseling program. School counselors may use the ASCA School Counselor Competencies
for self-evaluation and identify potential areas for professional development.
Management, delivery, and accountability. The management component of the ASCA
National Model® (2012a) is comprised of both organizational tools and assessments. The
tools of the management component include: (1) an advisory council that coordinates the
school counseling program; (2) annual agreements between the school counselor(s) and
administration concerning the structure and goals of the school counseling programs; (3)
curriculum, small group, and closing-the-gap action plans that identify the objectives for
these activities and specify how they are measured; and (4) annual and weekly calendars to
inform stakeholders of program activities. Using data is an explicit management
component, and is an integral aspect of each of the organizational assessments that consist
of school counselor competency and school counseling program assessments developed by
ASCA, and audits to determine the time ratio in which school counselors are engaged with
students.
The delivery system involves both direct and indirect student services. Direct student
services are comprised of the school counseling core curriculum, which includes both
classroom and group activities that support the school counseling program’s curriculum,
individual student planning, and responsive services, which are defined as individual and
group counseling and crisis response. The delivery system also involves indirect services that
may consist of providing referrals and consulting and collaborating with parents, school
personnel, and community organizations. The last component of the Model, accountability,
refers to the need to use data to assess the impact of the school counseling program upon

41
student achievement and to inform revisions to the program. These three components of
the ASCA National Model® (2012a) are reviewed in greater depth in various chapters of the
book.
Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) (ASCA, 2003). Schools may apply to
ASCA for RAMP, the designation indicating that the school’s counseling program is
consistent with the ASCA National Model® (2012a) and is recognized by the professional
community as following best practice. School counselors submit an application
documenting the activities they used to create and establish a data-driven, comprehensive
program designed to address the specific needs of the school. The application requires a
narrative documenting the efforts in 12 areas, including the activities used to develop the
school counseling program’s philosophy, mission statement, goals, involvement of an
advisory council, employment of outcomes-based classroom and small group programming,
and what is referred to as “closing-the-gap” activities, which are defined as interventions
intended to lessen the academic achievement gap between races or other specified category
of difference (e.g., gender, SES, etc.). RAMP applications are reviewed by an independent
panel of school counseling professionals who use a 28-page scoring document. RAMP
status is maintained for five years, and schools may reapply for RAMP status at the end of
the five-year term.

Box 2.6
Did you know?
Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia have a large number of schools that
received RAMP status (ASCA, 2015a).

The Education Trust’s Transforming School Counseling Initiative (TSCI)

The Education Trust (2009) is a nonprofit organization that seeks to reform education
consistent with the primary aims of NCLB (2002), namely, promoting high levels of
academic achievement for all students and closing the achievement gaps between Asian and
White students and typically disadvantaged students, including low-income students and
students of color. The Education Trust formed a subgroup called the National Center for
Transforming School Counseling (NCTSC), which seeks to “prepare graduates [of school
counseling programs] to serve as student advocates and academic advisors who demonstrate
the belief that all students can achieve high levels on rigorous, challenging academic course
content” (Martin, 2002, p. 148).
ASCA and NCTSC have worked to position the school counseling profession as a
significant contributor to educational reform. ASCA developed the ASCA National Model®
(2012a) and Mindsets & Behaviors (2014) to influence currently practicing school
counselors. The Education Trust’s Transforming School Counseling Initiative (TSCI) has
primarily focused upon modifying the way in which school counselors are educated in
graduate schools, providing grants to select universities to train students in a transformed

42
model of school counseling, and encouraging state departments of education to adopt new
standards for school counselor preparation (Perkins, Oescher, & Ballard, 2010). The TSCI
vision for school counselors involves the following: (1) deemphasizing a mental health
perspective in favor of an academic/student achievement focus; (2) adopting a whole school
or systems perspective vs. focusing on individual student issues; (3) using data to effect
change as opposed to school counselors simply being involved with data as part of record-
keeping; and (4) serving as change agents to promote educational equity (Education Trust,
2009).
ASCA and TSCI have provided a framework for unifying the school counseling
profession, but debate continues regarding the role of school counselors. A 2010 survey of
elementary school counselors, elementary principals, elementary teachers, and school
counselor educators revealed that each group identified the personal/social domain as being
a more important focus for elementary school counselors than the academic and career
domains (Perkins et al., 2010). This finding may indicate that elementary school counselors
and their stakeholders may not have accepted the Education Trust’s encouragement of
school counselors to primarily adopt an academic focus in their role functioning.

The ASCA National Model ® (2012a) Themes

The close partnership between ASCA and NCTSC is reflected in the ASCA National
Model’s® (2012a) four themes: leadership, advocacy, collaboration, and systemic change,
which were part of the initial TSCI efforts. School counselors function as leaders in
coordinating the school counseling program and promote systemic change by removing
barriers and implementing programs that facilitate high levels of academic achievement for
all students. TSCI and ASCA agree that school counselors must use data in advocating for
the rights of all students to be taught at a high level. School counselors collaborate with
other stakeholders, including administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community
members in order to effect systemic change. Subsequent chapters of this book will explore
the Model themes in greater detail.

Empirical Support for Comprehensive School Counseling Programs

Whereas past research in school counseling has primarily focused upon specific school
counseling related interventions, such as career planning or social skills activities, there is
emerging evidence for the effectiveness of school counseling programs as a whole
(Wilkerson, Pérusse, & Hughes, 2013), particularly at the elementary level. Sink and Stroh
(2003) found that, over time, students who attended elementary schools with
comprehensive school counseling programs made greater gains in academic achievement
than students who attended elementary schools that lacked comprehensive school
counseling programs, although the difference in gains in academic achievement was not
very large. Two studies found that elementary students at RAMP-designated schools had
greater academic achievement than the state average (Ward, 2009) and control schools
(Wilkerson et al., 2013). However, Wilkerson et al. (2013) revealed that RAMP schools at

43
the middle and high school levels did not outperform non-RAMP schools.

Educational Reforms
Some have argued that one of the reasons why the school counseling profession has lacked a
consistent identity is related to its little to no involvement in educational reform
movements. As school districts look to eliminate personnel, the profession no longer has
the luxury of watching educational reform from the sidelines. The ASCA has sought to be
actively involved in the educational reforms that have had considerable impact on school
operations within the past two decades. The rest of this chapter seeks to enhance school
counseling students’ understanding of current educational reforms and how these reforms
impact the school counseling profession.
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The NCLB Act of 2001 (2002) is probably
considered as the most significant legislation to affect education within the past 30 years,
and it will continue to impact education despite its replacement in 2015 with the Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA: US Department of Education, n.d.). One of the primary aims
of the NCLB Act was to increase schools’ accountability for ensuring student achievement
through the administration of statewide standardized tests.
The NCLB Act also strove to reduce the achievement gap between White and Asian
students and historically disadvantaged groups, including Latino American, African
American, and Native American students, economically disadvantaged students, students
with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency. NCLB mandated that states
ensure that school districts collect such “disaggregated data” of subgroups (defined by
gender, race, ethnicity, disability status, low-income status, English language proficiency,
and migrant status), and implement corrective actions to address the needs of these
subgroups. Whereas in the past, students were held liable for a lack of academic
achievement, now teachers and school personnel are also deemed to be accountable for
student achievement.
While NCLB (2002) did not explicitly identify the role of school counselors, the Act
had an impact on the profession. A national survey of school counselors revealed that while
2.3% of the participants identified positive effects of NCLB upon the school counseling
program’s delivery system, 33.6% of the study participants identified negative impacts,
including teachers being hesitant to yield class time to counseling or the developmental
curriculum, testing responsibilities interfering with counseling students, and a decreased
focus on the social and emotional needs of students (Dollarhide & Lemberger, 2006).
Although 25.1% of the school counselors indicated that they were engaging in activities
related to testing processes that are considered to be appropriate within the ASCA National
Model® (2012a), such as interpreting tests and counseling students about test anxiety, the
majority of school counselors identified that they were having to engage in testing activities
that are not considered appropriate by ASCA. Inappropriate activities included functioning
as the building test coordinator, proctoring tests and conducting make-up tests, ensuring
the implementation of test accommodations for students with disabilities, and providing

44
academic remediation. Dollarhide and Lemberger (2006) concluded that NCLB high-
stakes testing has reinforced the perception that school counselors function as test
administrators. In order to counter this perception, these authors recommend that school
counselors use data to advocate the need for students’ holistic development.
Accountability was also emphasized within NCLB (2002) through the expectation that
schools rely upon scientifically based research for teaching methods, which has resulted in
an effort within the school counseling profession to increase the rigor of studies evaluating
the impact of school counseling related programs and interventions. Prior to NCLB,
evaluation studies yielded support for the effectiveness of a variety of school counseling
interventions, including providing group, peer, and individual counseling, and conducting
school counseling classroom lessons (McGannon, Carey, & Dimmitt, 2005). However,
much of this research did not employ an experimental design and thus does not qualify as
scientifically based according to the definitions used by NCLB. Consequently, the Center
for School Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation (CSCORE) established the
National Panel for School Counseling Evidence-Based Practice to develop the research base
required for evidence-based practice (Carey, Dimmitt, Hatch, Lapan, & Whiston, 2008).
The Panel developed a standardized method for evaluating school counseling interventions,
using the categories of strong, promising, and weak evidence, and has begun to evaluate
common school counseling programs.
NCLB (2002) was comprehensive and was designed to impact various aspects of
education, including activities that historically have been associated with the role of school
counselors. For example, it mandated that schools regularly provide parents and the public
with data regarding students’ achievement and create programs that involve parents in
meaningful ways. The “Safe and Drug-Free Schools” provision of NCLB required that state
departments of education identify schools that are unsafe. Schools that have consistently
high levels of violent behavior for two years are designated “persistently dangerous” and
suffer penalties such as voluntary student transfers.
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA: US Department of Education, n.d.) of 2015.
ESSA represents a significant shift from NCLB. School districts are still required to assess
students’ learning in the form of standardized testing in reading and math in grades 3–8
and once in high school (Education Week, 2015). However, ESSA reduces the emphasis on
standardized testing in several major respects, which are listed below:

• the NCLB requirement that schools demonstrate adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward
achieving 100% proficiency in reading and math was replaced with the requirement that
states must establish long-term achievement goals with measures of interim progress;
• federal funding is provided to states to develop alternative assessments that will reduce
duplication of assessments;
• high schools may apply to use another nationally recognized assessment, such as the
ACT (2016), instead of the state assessment test;
• states may establish a cap limiting the amount of time students engage in test-taking;
• parents have the right to opt children out of state assessments where local and state

45
 policies allow them to do so;
• elementary and middle schools may use a measure of student growth or another
academic indicator to assess differences among student groups.

ESSA maintains NCLB’s emphasis on reducing the achievement gap, but uses different
indicators to identify struggling schools and different interventions to support those schools
(US Department of Education, n.d.). Whereas NCLB required that all schools which failed
to meet AYP for several years provide students the option of transferring to other schools
and required the restructuring of the school’s leadership and staff, ESSA uses different
indicators to identify struggling schools. In ESSA, states would have to identify and provide
assistance to schools which are in the bottom 5% in terms of performance, schools which
have a graduation rate below 67%, and schools which have subgroups (e.g., race, gender,
special education) who are struggling. Under ESSA, schools identified in need of support
must implement evidence-based, locally determined interventions, and for schools which
have a low performing subgroup, the school must identify in their improvement plan
resource inequities that likely contribute to the underperformance of the subgroup. ESSA
indicates that schools may but are not required to permit students to transfer to another
school. School counselors were explicitly identified as professionals who should have an
input to the required improvement plan for struggling schools (ASCA, 2015a).
It is unclear how ESSA will impact the school counseling profession, but there are
aspects of the legislation that appear to provide hope for an expanded role for school
counselors.
With the increased emphasis on graduation rates ushered in by ESSA, it is possible that
high school counselors may be seen as key contributors in efforts to promote enhanced
graduation rates given that historically this has been an area of focus for high school
counselors. States must require elementary and middle schools to include at least four
indicators in their accountability systems, and may include various kinds of assessments
such as student and teacher engagement, postsecondary readiness, access and completion of
advanced coursework, and school climate/safety (Education Week, 2015). The opportunity
to use more varied forms of indicators may lead to an increased emphasis on career and
personal/social development, which have been traditionally associated with the school
counseling program.
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (National Governors Association and
Council of Chief State Schools Officers, 2010). The CCSS are an initiative by states to
use universal standards in English and mathematics (Rothman, 2012). The CCSS were
developed by the states to address some of the perceived limitations of NCLB (2002).
NCLB sought to increase standardization within education by requiring states to establish
academic standards and corresponding assessments. NCLB left it up to the individual states
to define proficiency, and research indicated that state definitions of proficiency varied
widely. Another common concern is that the NCLB’s focus on proficiency meant that state
assessments were designed to measure a low to moderate level of knowledge and skills. The
CCSS initiative intended to develop a higher level of standards that are based on the skills

46
necessary for postsecondary success. Students would be required to understand content at a
deep level and be able to apply the content to problem-solving and reason from evidence, as
these skills were deemed to be required to succeed in college. Although most states had
indicated a commitment to adopt the CCSS, many states have rescinded their
commitment. ESSA requires that states adopt “challenging” academic standards, but
explicitly states that they do not have to adopt the CCSS (Education Week, 2015).

Box 2.7
Achieve (2013) and several other educational organizations that support the CCSS
developed a position paper outlining how school counselors can collaborate with other
school personnel in order to promote the CCSS. Their recommendations for school
counselors can be summarized as follows:

• become familiar with the math and literacy standards;

• join the school leadership teams to advocate for increased academic rigor;
• gather and analyze data to identify patterns of student performance;
• develop strategies for addressing math and literacy standards as part of the
comprehensive school counseling curriculum;
• maintain and analyze data concerning the number of students who are on target for
college and career readiness, including at the elementary level;
• review the school’s curriculum to ensure that all have access to higher-level
mathematics courses;
• establish dual and concurrent enrollment options with local colleges;
• assess the impact of Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions;
• create and update a six-year individual education plan for students;
• develop and implement lesson plans that are aligned with CCSS college and career
readiness standards;
• incorporate career and college readiness principles in the philosophy, vision, and
mission statements of the school counseling program;
• create a college-going culture through the use of visual displays depicting college and
scholarship information, announcing upcoming opportunities concerning college,
celebrating academic achievements, and infusing a high level of rigor throughout the
academic curriculum.

Response to Intervention (RtI). Another major trend impacting education and school
counseling programs has been the emergence of tiered intervention approaches such as RtI
and School-wide Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support (SWPBIS). RtI uses data-
driven decision-making and a multi-tiered approach for the dual purposes of reforming
general education and assisting struggling learners (Buffum, Mattos, & Weber, 2009). The
2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) allowed
schools to use RtI as an alternative to the traditional discrepancy model for determining

47
whether a child has a specific learning disability (P.L. No 108–446). The federal
government permitted this alternative for identification of a learning disability partly as a
means to address the over-representation of minority students in special education (Buffum
et al., 2009). RtI is also designed to improve the core curriculum and provide a framework
for providing increasing levels of differentiation to students within the regulation education
setting in order to reduce inappropriate referrals to special education.
RtI models vary in implementation, but they typically have three tiers of increasing
instructional intensity. Tier 1 refers to the core curriculum. RtI emphasizes the need to
ensure the effectiveness of the core curriculum through the use of empirically supported
practices that are implemented with treatment fidelity, which means that the practice was
applied in a manner that is consistent with the protocol. The model expects that 80–85%
of students will respond positively to the core curriculum. Failure of more than 20% of the
students to achieve benchmarks results in a review and possible modification of the core
curriculum. The 15–20% of students who fail to demonstrate expected levels of progress
receive Tier 2 intervention, which consists of small group intervention, typically involving
three to five group sessions of up to 30 minutes per week. Lack of response to Tier 2
intervention results in the application of Tier 3 intervention, which often consists of
individualized instruction. It is estimated that 3–5% of students may require Tier 3
intervention if the model is being effectively implemented. In some states failure of a
student to respond to Tier 3 intervention automatically results in assessment for special
education services, whereas in others the student would automatically receive special
education services without a disability assessment.
RtI uses data-driven decision-making, which involves “a continuous process of regularly
collecting, summarizing, and analyzing information to guide development,
implementation, and evaluation” (Buffum et al., 2009, p. 206). Universal screens are
typically used at the beginning, middle, and end of each academic year to assess student
performance in comparison to benchmarks and learning standards. With each level of
instruction, there is an increase in how frequently student performance is assessed. For
example, at Tier 2, progress monitoring of a student’s reading achievement may occur twice
a month. At Tier 3, a student’s progress may be assessed on a weekly or even daily basis.
ASCA’s (2008) position statement regarding RtI is that school counselors are
“stakeholders” (p. 34) in the design and implementation of RtI and vital contributors in
meeting students’ academic and behavioral concerns through the implementation of
comprehensive school counseling programs. Ockerman, Mason, and Hollenbeck (2010)
assert that RtI and comprehensive school counseling programs have important similarities,
in that they can be characterized as collaborative, proactive, data-driven, multi-tiered, and
advocating for holistic development and educational equity. Both RtI and comprehensive
school counseling programs emphasize increased attention to Tier 1 interventions, given
that they are the most efficient way to serve the majority of students. Tier 1 or school-wide
interventions within the comprehensive school counseling programs could be considered to
include lessons that support the school counseling core curriculum, substance abuse
prevention activities, career development events such as career days, and academic incentive

48
programs. Tier 2 interventions could involve group counseling and peer support services
such as peer mentoring on tutoring. Tier 3 interventions represent the most intensive and
individualized level of service, which for school counselors could involve individual
counseling, behavior or academic improvement plans, repeated parent consultation, or
community referral.
The limited research available concerning school counselors’ involvement with RtI
indicates that some school counselors coordinate the Student Support Team, which may
also be called the Child Study Team, Behavior Intervention Team, or RtI Team
(Ockerman et al., 2012). In their role as team coordinator, some school counselors monitor
and analyze the data for both academic and behavioral interventions for each tier of RtI.
Ockerman et al. (2012) recommend that school counselors seek to achieve a balance
between serving a supportive role as an RtI team member and an active role as an
intervention provider. School counselors can make significant contributions to the RtI
team, sharing their knowledge of the connections between the academic, social/emotional,
and career development of students, expertise in the use of data, their knowledge,
prevention and intervention strategies, and facilitating constructive collaboration between
school personnel and family members. However, they should avoid serving as the RtI team
coordinator as the considerable coordination duties may interfere with their ability to
coordinate the comprehensive school counseling program. Ryan, Kaffenberger, and Carroll
(2011) provide an example in which a school counselor coordinated the screening and
placement of students within the tiers and evaluated the impact of the RtI program on
student achievement, but also infused personal/social and career objectives into the
academic curriculum objectives. A survey of teachers revealed that they positively viewed
the school counselor’s contributions to the program.
School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS is a
universal, behavioral theory-based prevention and intervention program that is employed
by many schools that use RtI to focus specifically upon students who exhibit behavioral and
mental health issues. SWPBIS, encouraged by the US Department of Education and several
state departments of education, similar to RtI, uses a three-tiered model to address
disruptive behavior (Bradshaw, Mitchell, & Leaf, 2010). Whereas traditionally, school-
based behavioral interventions primarily focused upon the individual student, SWPBIS and
other types of “proactive classroom management” programs seek to alter the school
environment through the universal application of principles of behavioral theory. At the
Tier 1 level, students are taught and positively reinforced for demonstrating school-wide
behavioral expectations. Data are used at all levels to establish the behavioral expectations,
evaluate the effectiveness of tiered interventions, and identify students in need of an
increased intensity of intervention. Research suggests that when implemented with fidelity,
80–85% of students positively respond to Tier 1 interventions.
The second tier is intended to assist the 10–15% of students who tend to not positively
respond to Tier 1 interventions. Common examples of Tier 2 interventions include social
skill and academic instruction groups, and Check-In/Check-Out (CICO). Tier 3
interventions are individualized for the 3–5% of students who fail to respond to both Tier

49
1 and 2 interventions. Common Tier 3 interventions are assigning an adult mentor, social
skills training, behavioral modification, and self-monitoring. Research indicates that the
implementation of SWPBIS has resulted in reduced student suspensions, office discipline
referrals (e.g., Bradshaw et al., 2010), and increased student perceptions of safety at school
(Horner et al., 2009).
Data-driven decision-making is used within the various tiers of SWPBIS. A variety of
universal screening instruments are used to identity students at risk for emotional and
behavioral difficulties, including Systematic Screening for Behavioral Disorders (Albers,
Glover, & Kratochwill, 2007), the Student Risk Screening Scale (Drummond, 1994),
Behavioral Assessment for Children-2 (BASC-2) (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004), and the
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, Meltzer, & Bailey, 1998). The
universal screening instruments use a multiple gating procedure, which typically involves
having teachers rank in order which students they consider to be at risk as indicated by
observable behaviors, followed by the teacher completing a standardized assessment for the
identified students. Students who are identified as at risk through both procedures are
referred to Tier 2 intervention. Other forms of data used to identify behaviorally and
emotionally at-risk students include office discipline referrals (ODR) and the students’
attendance/tardy rates. The effectiveness of Tier 2 interventions may be assessed through a
daily progress report that indicates students’ progress in meeting individualized behavioral
expectations. At Tier 3, a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and functional assessment
interview are often conducted to identify hypotheses regarding the function of the student’s
behavior and to develop a more comprehensive behavioral modification plan. Some states
use universal screens to identify students who are at risk for mental health issues, including
depression and suicide among adolescents. Students who are identified as having an
elevated risk for depression and suicide may receive services from mental health
professionals in the community or within the schools. Clearly, school counselors are likely
to play a significant role in administering and interpreting data concerning behavioral and
emotional functioning, providing services to such students, and collaborating with mental
health professionals for students receiving Tier 3 interventions.
School counselors are likely to be an integral member of the school committee
coordinating SWPBIS, given their background in data-driven decision-making, and the fact
that students who require increased levels of support are more likely to qualify for a mental
health diagnosis (Martens & Andreen, 2013). Martens and Andreen (2013) encourage
school counselors to collaborate with other school staff in implementing Check-In/Check-
Out (CICO). CICO uses a structured routine in which an identified student meets with a
school staff member to review the student’s progress in meeting targeted behavioral
expectations. Students carry a daily report card throughout the school day on which
teachers rate students’ exhibited targeted behaviors using a Likert-type scale. In
demonstrating progress, students receive positive reinforcement that is uniquely developed
for the individual child, and students’ progress is regularly shared with both the students’
teachers and parents/guardian. Research indicates that CICO is effective in reducing
problematic behavior and is one of the few Tier 2 interventions to be considered

50
worthwhile by school personnel. Martens and Andreen believe that CICO enables school
counselors to positively impact a group of students through individualized interventions,
and is consistent with the ASCA National Model’s® (2012a) emphasis on data-driven
decision-making. School counselors can use their knowledge of mental health issues and
principles of behavioral modification in constructing students’ behavioral expectations and
in consulting with school personnel who are involved in the CICO process.
Reach Higher Initiative. The Reach Higher Initiative is Michele Obama’s agenda to
encourage all students to pursue postsecondary education and/or training (ASCA, 2015c).
The First Lady has partnered with ASCA to increase students’ exposure to college and
career opportunities, knowledge of the availability of financial aid, academic planning, and
summer learning opportunities. ASCA’s partnership with the First Lady has resulted in
greater public exposure for the profession, as the 2014 and 2015 School Counselor of the
Year award ceremonies were conducted at the White House. In a related effort, the former
Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, published guidelines for school administrators to
devote financial resources to the professional development of school counselors, and
identified sources of federal funding for this pursuit.

Systems-Ecological Theory
A prevailing theme found within recent educational reforms, and efforts to transform the
school counseling profession, is the need for school personnel to adopt a broader,
comprehensive perspective of students. The following statement by Dr. Peggy Hines, who
has served as Director of TSCI, succinctly states the need for systemic change:

The idea is that it’s not always the students that are broken; sometimes it’s the system
or the school that is broken. If school counselors can get schools to change policy and
practice, and support those kinds of systemic interventions for students, then that’s
going to be a lot more effective than trying to change kids one at a time.
(Pérusse & Colbert, 2007, p. 478)

Much of ASCA’s efforts in the past few decades emphasize the need for school counselors
to implement and support programs that promote all students’ achievement by enhancing
the environments in which students function. The trends in educational reform, and as a
consequence, the transformation of the school counseling profession, are reflective of the
emergence of an ecological perspective of student achievement.
The systems-ecological framework represents an alternative scheme for understanding
children’s behavior in contrast to the traditional linear model of cause and effect. We are
using the term “systems-ecological” to refer to two similar theories: general systems theory
(von Bertalanffy, 1968) and social ecology theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The main
assumption of the systems-ecological framework is that children’s functioning and
development is the result of the interaction between the child and the environment.
General systems theory represents a paradigm shift in that it rejects the traditional linear
causal perspective of Western science and the medical model, which conceptualizes

51
behavior as being the result of a single cause or chain of causes that occur within the child.
In contrast, general systems theory posits a circular causal perspective in which a child’s
behavior instead is believed to be a function of numerous interacting variables that
reciprocally influence each other.
Parents, teachers, and peers are seen as potentially impacting a child’s behavior, and in
turn, being impacted by the child in question. No one person or environmental context is
regarded as causative; persons and contexts are seen as potential contributors to children’s
development. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory of social ecology shares some of the basic
principles of systems theory, including the importance of reciprocal interaction, but is
broader in scope than systems theory. Whereas systems theory tends to focus upon the
interactions within a system, particularly the family system, Bronfenbrenner claimed that
the multiple embedded systems in which the child exists, which include the peer group,
family, school, community, and cultural environments, may be equally as important in
promoting children’s development. Children do not develop in isolation but instead are
influenced by various contexts (e.g., society, peers, family, etc.) in which they interact.
Although not as intensely researched as traditional, linear behavioral models, some studies
have directly evaluated systems-ecological models for childhood issues, providing empirical
support for the model’s application to school violence (Khoury-Kassabri, Benbenishty,
Astor, & Zeira, 2004) and bullying (Espelage, Rao, & De La Rue, 2013). Indeed,
Henggeler et al.’s (1996) review of the research literature revealed that “serious antisocial
behavior is multidetermined by the reciprocal interplay of characteristics of the individual
youth and the key social systems in which youths are embedded (i.e., family, peer, social,
neighborhood, and community)” (pp. 6–7).
Systems-ecological theory offers significant advantages over the traditional, linear model
for identifying implications for intervention and prevention with children. In the
traditional, linear model, school personnel have a tendency to become overly focused upon
the individual child, often resulting in thinking about the child’s deficits and their causes,
such as biological deficiencies, lack of student motivation, etc. This tends to lead to what
has been referred to as a “blame game,” in which teachers overly focus upon the deficiencies
of the student, parents, or previous teachers, and parents focus on the school’s inadequacies.
The systems-ecological theory provides practitioners with a framework that is more
complex, in terms of encouraging them to think about various variables and their
interactions, which most likely is a more realistic view of behavior and child development,
and more conducive to self-reflection by school personnel. School personnel can consider
the school- and community-based factors that may contribute to a student’s lack of
achievement, implications for modifying the larger environment, or what might be referred
to as prevention. In terms of intervention, school personnel can examine how their
instruction of a child or their relationship with a child may possibly contribute to the issue,
or how family factors may contribute, or even how the relationship between the family and
the school could be enhanced. It can be argued that NCLB, RtI, and SWPBS were
instituted in order to create such a paradigm shift in encouraging school personnel to
assume more ownership for student achievement.

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Ecological Model of Professional School Counseling
McMahon et al. (2014) presented an ecological model of professional school counseling
which they developed to support the ASCA National Model® (2012a) by providing a
theoretical/conceptual foundation for the atheoretical structural model of the ASCA
National Model® . This model was also developed as a framework for guiding comprehensive
interventions, in contrast to the more individualistic counseling theories that have
traditionally informed the work of school counselors. McMahon et al. (2014) present a
number of basic assumptions for their ecological model of professional school counseling.
The core assumption from which all of their other assumptions derive is that schools are
ecosystems. As ecosystems, schools are comprised of numerous subsystems (e.g., classrooms,
grade levels, clubs, cliques), and are part of larger systems, or a “suprasystem” (e.g., school
districts, community, state). The school, its subsystems, and the suprasystems in which the
school is embedded are interconnected in various ways, and changes within any of these
levels can affect each other.
Another principle of the Model is that well-functioning schools are dynamic, balanced,
and flexible. Schools function as a network of interdependently related components that are
continually undergoing change but also strive to achieve a healthy balance within the face
of change. They require semipermeable boundaries that permit the distinction of clear
subgroups (e.g., teachers, students, administrators), but are also flexible enough to allow for
healthy connections between the groups. In schools that achieve this balance, members
comprehend the roles and expectations to be part of the system and any subsystems with
which they might identify. Well-functioning schools are also more likely to be diverse. A
diverse faculty can promote academic achievement, as students are more likely to identify
with school personnel who are similar to them in terms of race and/or ethnicity. A diverse
peer group provides students with enhanced perspective-taking by being exposed to
different forms and styles of communication. Exposure to such diversity increases the
likelihood that graduates will more readily adapt to changes within the larger society.
Similar to a family system, schools use feedback to identify and manage emerging issues
(McMahon et al., 2014). Ecosystems must have mechanisms, referred to as feedback loops,
to address imbalances in the system. When ecosystems become unbalanced, either toward
too much structure, meaning they are rigid in the face of change, or too much change, in
which members lack clear expectations regarding their roles and the rules of the
organization, new structures or patterns will spontaneously develop within the ecosystem in
an effort to find order within the system. Intentional feedback loops used in schools include
the use of data for decision-making and strategic planning. However, as with all ecosystems,
schools also have feedback loops that emerge spontaneously, often among students who
have less officially sanctioned power. McMahon et al. (2014) present the examples of
absenteeism and gangs as indicators that the ecosystem is not addressing the needs of the
members, but which are often perceived by school personnel as problems that must be
eradicated as opposed to a need for redress of the ecosystem.
McMahon and colleagues’ (2014) ecological model of professional school counseling

53
postulates that meaning is both constructed and experienced within schools and their
subsystems. Meaning-making is an essential aspect of the human condition, and people
constantly make meaning of their experiences that occur within an environmental context.
McMahon et al. (2014) identify two main implications of the meaning-making process.
One is that the school must provide a process in which members of both the school and its
various subsystems define the identity and purpose of the respective systems for that
particular time. The other implication is that meaning-making is derived from feedback
that is received by the school-as-system. The feedback is received through both through
formal processes, such as school outcome data, and informal processes, such as off-hand
complaints by parents about teachers. These data do not reveal objective truth; rather, they
are interpreted differently based on the unique perspectives of the viewer and his or her
context.
The final principle of McMahon et al.’s (2014) model is that healthy schools are
sustainable. The organisms and subsystems contribute in their unique way to the
functioning of the system, and the school has a reciprocal relationship with the community
in which it is embedded. An effective reciprocal relationship between the school and
community involves the production of graduates who are to fulfill the various jobs and
functions of the community, including the teaching, parenting, and mentoring of the new
generation of students who will comprise the school community. The implication is that
schools should keep at the forefront its mission of preparing graduates to meet the needs of
the community.
ASCA and TSCI urge school counselors to adopt such a systems-ecological perspective.
ASCA incorporated TSCI’s emphasis on systemic change, which is one of the four ASCA
National Model® themes. The description of systemic change within the ASCA National
Model® indicates that a school functions much like a family system in that the various
components or members reciprocally influence each other. The ASCA National Model®
(2012a) and the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (2014) provide school
counselors with models to promote all students’ academic, personal/social, and career
development, thus providing students with the skills to negotiate developmental challenges,
as opposed to school counselors primarily focusing upon remediating the problems of at-
risk students. TSCI calls for school counselors to contribute to increases in the rigor and
effectiveness of the academic curriculum in promoting college and career readiness. The
systems-ecological perspective has significant implications for the way in which school
counselors intervene with individual students and expands intervention options. School
counselors can conduct brief individual counseling with students, but can also consider
consulting with teachers and parents to assist them in more effectively responding to a
student’s needs. School counselors need to consider what intervention with whom is most
likely to be successful and which is the most time-efficient. Talking with a teacher or parent
for 20 minutes may be more effective than conducting three individual sessions with a
child. In consulting with parents and teachers, school counselors can use a systems-
ecological perspective to identify how the patterns between the child and the teacher or
parent may contribute to the respective issue, or even how the relationship between the

54
parents and the teacher may be modified.
The phenomenon of bullying can be used as a case illustration of the systems-ecological
approach. Espelage et al.’s (2013) review of the literature found support for the contention
that bullying behaviors are influenced by characteristics of the individual, family, and
school environments. In terms of individual characteristics, perpetrators of bullying are
more likely to be male, physically larger than their peers, and be enrolled in special
education. Victims tend to be less popular and have lower social status than their peers.
The parents of perpetrators are more likely than the parents of non-perpetrators to provide
inadequate supervision, be less involved in their children’s lives, and encourage aggression
and retaliation. The parents of victims of bullying are more likely than the parents of non-
victims to be abusive or inconsistent, while victims of bullying who have nurturing
relationships with their families have more positive outcomes. Classrooms that are less
democratic and have larger disparities in social power are associated with greater bullying.
In schools which have higher rates of bullying, students are less likely to seek assistance
from teachers and staff, and perpetrators are more likely than victims to have high social
status.
The complex nature of bullying and the fact that it is influenced by contextual variables
appears to be recognized in the comprehensive approach used by many bullying prevention
programs. For example, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP; Olweus &
Limber, 2010) seeks to modify the school’s environment through the implementation of
rules and sanctions for bullying, increased supervision of identified high frequency areas for
bullying, and classroom lessons that define bullying and provide bystanders and victims
with strategies to address bullying. A meta-analytic study, which involves aggregating the
results of various studies, revealed that on average, programs reduce bullying by 20–23%,
and that many of the program components that are associated with effectiveness are
comprehensive in nature (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). Having a whole-school anti-bullying
policy, classroom rules, teacher training, classroom management, firm disciplinary
methods, improved playground supervision, and parent training/meetings were associated
with effectiveness in reducing bullying. In contrast, the researchers did not find evidence to
support individual approaches with victims and perpetrators of bullying.
These findings have implications for school counselors’ roles in bullying prevention, and
illustrate the need for school counselors to think comprehensively. Within the mental
health model, in which school counselors were trained in previous decades, the school
counselor might tend to focus upon providing individual counseling to victims and
perpetrators of bullying. However, the data do not appear to support such an approach.
Certainly, school counselors should consider providing counseling to students in need, but
they should simultaneously consider programmatic/systemic interventions that seek to alter
the school and community environment that support bullying behaviors. School counselors
can advocate for the need for a bullying prevention program, and lobby the state and
federal government for legislation and funding for bullying prevention programs. School
counselors can collaborate with teachers, administrators, and parents in creating and
coordinating a bullying prevention program. School counselors can lead training sessions

55
for parents and teachers. For individual victims and perpetrators, school counselors might
most effectively intervene by consulting with their parents. School counselors have
erroneously equated systems theory with conducting family counseling. Rather, systems-
ecological theory provides a way of thinking about issues that enables practitioners to
consider the larger framework of contextual variables and their implications for working
with the specific needs of an individual student.

Summary
School counselors must understand the reforms that are reshaping the US educational
system in order to remain relevant in an era of accountability and shrinking budgets. ASCA
and TSCI provide school counselors with a framework for contributing to the academic
mission of schools while simultaneously developing a distinct identity. School counselors
are encouraged to understand systems-ecological theory and the implications it has for
prevention and intervention at multiple levels. The chapters that follow will examine many
of these issues in greater depth and provide applied examples.

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 comprehensive school counseling programs. Professional School Counseling, 6, 350–354.
Ttofi, M. M., & Farrington, D. P. (2011). Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: A systematic and
meta-analytic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 7, 27–56.
US Department of Education (n.d.). Every Student Succeeds Act. Available online at www.ed.gov/essa (accessed March
3, 2016).
von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). General systems theory: Foundation, development, applications. New York: Braziller.
Ward, C. A. (2009). An examination of the impact of the ASCA National Model on student achievement at recognized
ASCA Model Program (RAMP) elementary schools. PhD Dissertation. Corpus Christi, TX: Texas A&M University.
Retrieved from ProQuest (ED515238).
Wilkerson, K., Pérusse, R., & Hughes, A. (2013). Comprehensive school counseling programs and student achievement
outcomes: A comparative analysis of RAMP vs. non-RAMP schools. Professional School Counseling, 16, 172–184.

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 Chapter Three
Social Justice, Advocacy,
Collaboration, Leadership, and
Systemic Change

Box 3.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
1.d Models of school-based collaboration and consultation
2.a School counselor roles as leaders, advocates, and systems change agents in P-12
schools
2.d School counselor roles in school leadership and multidisciplinary teams
2.f Competencies to advocate for school counseling roles
2.j Qualities and styles of effective leadership in schools
3.k Strategies to promote equity in student achievement and college access

According to the ASCA National Model® (2012), school counselors pursue socially just
outcomes by infusing their school counseling program with the four themes of leadership,
advocacy, collaboration, and systemic change. These roles are considered necessary in order
to ensure that all students achieve college readiness by the completion of high school. The
four themes each imply the need for school counselors to implement and support programs
that enhance the environments in which students function, reflect the school counseling
profession’s desire to distance itself from a responsive model, and, instead, emphasize
providing services to at-risk students, and implement comprehensive interventions that
result in systemic change. We provide practical and specific examples of the way in which
school counselors use the ASCA National Model’s® themes of advocacy, collaboration, and
leadership toward systemic change to promote minority students’ achievement. We also
identify school counselors’ use of direct services, including small- and large-group
instruction and counseling, which incorporate a social justice focus.

Achievement Gap
The two primary objectives of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB; 2002) Act and the Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA: US Department of Education, n.d.), which replaced NCLB
in 2015, are to raise academic achievement for all students and to decrease the racial

59
achievement gap, which is defined as the gap in academic performance between Asian and
White students on the one hand, and Latino and African American students on the other
hand.

Box 3.2
Achievement Gap – a term used to describe the sizable differences between African
American and White, Latino and White, and recent immigrant and White students on
both standardized testing scores and overall academic achievement nationwide (Ladson-
Billings, 2006).

Despite the implementation of these educational reform legislative acts, there remain
considerable racial disparities in educational achievement. In 2012, the school dropout rate
for Whites was 4%, 8% for African Americans, and 13% for Latinos (US Department of
Education, 2014). The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2013)
revealed that among high school seniors, the White-African American gap in math and
reading scores was 30 points, and the White-Latino gap was 22 points in reading and 21
points in math. In 2011, 72% of White high school graduates enrolled in college that same
year, whereas the rate for African American students was 44%, and 50% for Latino
students (US Department of Education, 2011). Despite federal and state efforts to increase
minority students’ participation and achievement in classes in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (commonly referred to as STEM subjects), in 2013, African
American and Latino students were significantly less likely than Whites and Asians to both
take and pass STEM-related Advanced Placement (AP) tests (College Board, 2013).

60
 Figure 3.1 Picture of Four Children Holding the American Flag. Copyright: www.istockphoto.com.

Causes of the Achievement Gap

According to Chambers (2009), initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s to reduce the racial
achievement gap primarily focused on addressing the perceived cultural deficits and
intrapsychic issues of African Americans and Hispanics, which implied that the problem
resided within minority students’ ability to achieve. It is now commonly understood that
the issue of racial disparities in education is complex and multifaceted and cannot be
explained in terms of individual deficits of minority students. Researchers have identified a
number of environmental variables that are associated with the racial achievement gap,
although the research literature is not always conclusive regarding which variables are most
strongly related to the racial achievement gap. For example, the extant literature base
concerning whether teacher-student ratios are associated with the racial achievement gap is
mixed (Rowley & Wright, 2011).

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 Box 3.3
Historically, there have been two types of theories as to what has caused the achievement
gap:

• Cultural or intrapsychic deficit – minority groups have some internal issue or

inherent skill deficit that causes them to be less likely to achieve
• Environmental deficit – problems with the environment that minority students are
more likely to be exposed to causes them to be less likely to achieve.

McKown’s (2013) review of the research literature identified a number of factors that
appear to contribute to the White-African American achievement gap. Racial-ethnic
differences in parenting practices appear to account for a substantial portion of the White-
African American achievement gap even after controlling for socioeconomic status. This is
demonstrated through findings suggesting that White parents are more likely than African
American parents to engage in practices that are associated with academic achievement,
including such practices as warmth, sensitivity, involvement in school activities,
monitoring, and involving children in decision-making. White students are also more likely
than African American students to receive high-quality instruction, in that they often are
taught by better teachers, are exposed to a more challenging curriculum, and have better
relationships with teachers than their African American peers with comparable records of
achievement.
McKown concluded that the extant research supports the contention that racism
contributes to the racial achievement gap as African American students receive direct and
indirect messages from society and teachers that their race is considered inadequate in
comparison to Whites. For example, African American students are likely to interpret lower
teacher expectations as an indicator of being less competent than White students. Similarly,
studies have found that higher rates of disciplinary referrals for African American and
Latino students are associated with minority students perceiving school personnel as unfair,
and may be interpreted by minority students as indicating that they are less valued, which is
likely to negatively impact their academic achievement.
Peer and neighborhood influences are also likely to partially explain the White-African
American achievement gap, although McKown indicated that the empirical support for
their role is not as strong as it is for family factors and high-quality instruction. Some
studies have found that the stigma related to academic achievement and its association with
White culture, which has been referred to as stereotype threat, contributes to the
underachievement of African American students. The level of cohesion and social support
within a community, which may be considered as protective factors when strong, also may
contribute to the academic achievement of African American students when lacking.
Segregation and tracking, such as scheduling students in classes with fewer academic
demands, also appear to contribute to the racial achievement gap. In one of the most

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comprehensive studies conducted to date, Condron, Tope, Steidl, and Freeman (2013)
found that school segregation between schools was a small but statistically significant
contributor to increases in the White-African American achievement gaps in math and
reading. However, increases in the exposure of African American to White students resulted
in small but statistically significant reductions in the achievement gaps. Segregation within
schools also appears to contribute to the racial achievement gap. Berends, Lucas, and
Penaloza (2008) found that the percentage of African American students who reported
being enrolled in a college track placement in high school increased between 1972 and
2004, and that this increase was associated with a considerable decrease in the White-
African American gap in mathematics test scores during this time period.
Despite the increase in the number of African American students who reported being in
a college track placement, many minority students appear to believe that postsecondary
degrees are not within their reach. This is thought to lead them to disengage from an
educational setting that they do not perceive to be encouraging their aspirations (Herring
& Salazar, 2002).

Box 3.4
While formal segregation has been famously outlawed (e.g., Brown v. Board of
Education), research suggests that minority students still experience educational
segregation as minority students often attend neighborhood schools with high minority
populations and are also less likely to be placed in college preparatory tracks in an
integrated high school compared to their White peers.

It has been proposed that between-school segregation and within-school segregation, or

tracking, increases racial stratification by creating richer educational environments for
White students, which further exacerbates the unequal access to resources that Whites have
outside of schools (Condron et al., 2013). In summary, it appears that non-school factors
(e.g., parenting practices, socioeconomic status, neighborhood cohesion), between-school
factors (e.g., racial segregation), and within-school factors (e.g., curriculum
differentiation/tracking) all contribute to the racial achievement gap.

Educators’ Negative Contributions to the Achievement Gap

As mentioned earlier, McKown’s (2013) review of the research literature indicated that
teachers’ racism and their differential approaches toward White and African American
students appears to contribute to the White-African American achievement gap. McKown
(2013) concludes that the racial achievement gap is likely to be reduced by emphasizing
strong instruction for all students, promoting positive teacher-child relationships, and
training school personnel to reduce stereotyping of students. Many educational experts
have written about the need for training to help school personnel learn about how their
frequently unconscious assumptions about minority students and their learning negatively

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impacts minority students.
Stephens and Lindsey (2011) assert that education is permeated by the values and
assumptions of the dominant White majority culture with the simultaneous denial that
culture and heritage are not an inherent part of the learning process. They argue that
teachers who identify with the dominant group perspective merely tolerate minority
students whom they regard as problematic because of their underperformance.
Stephens and Lindsey (2011) have several terms to characterize such educators. Cultural
destructiveness is defined as the desire to eliminate any mention of cultures other than the
dominant, majority culture within the school setting. Educators who are culturally
destructive might issue such statements as “I don’t see why we have to have Black History
month, we don’t have a White History month,” or “I am here to teach students math, I’m
not here to babysit.”
Cultural incapacity involves demeaning other cultures and persons from lower
socioeconomic statuses, often characterizing them as deficient. Educators who are culturally
incapable might make such statements as “They just need to pull themselves up by their
bootstraps,” “I don’t see why they keep bringing up slavery, I never owned slaves,” or
“Their problem is that they don’t care about education.”
Cultural blindness refers to the failure to recognize the culture and socioeconomic status
of others. Educators with such a perspective might be heard to utter “I don’t see color, I
only see individuals.” Or, such teachers might assert that the racial achievement gap is
about socioeconomic status rather than race or ethnicity, implying that a student’s cultural
background is not important to consider in relating to and teaching students. Stephens and
Lindsey (2011) assert that some educators are resistant to change, believing that persons
from other cultures should change by adapting to the dominant, majority culture. Some
educators even deny the existence of both oppression and the privileges enjoyed by the
White, middle class that are not available to members of traditionally disadvantaged
groups.

Box 3.5
Cultural Destructiveness – the desire to eliminate any mention of culture, other than
the dominant culture.
Cultural Incapacity – demeaning persons from other cultures or socioeconomic statuses
as deficient.
Cultural Blindness – the failure to recognize the culture and/or socioeconomic status of
others.

Stephens and Lindsey (2011) also identify several types of barriers to cultural proficiency
that are often displayed by educators. One barrier is being resistant to change. Educators
may believe that others, but not them, are responsible for making changes. Another barrier
is failing to acknowledge that systems of oppression, including classism, racism, sexism, and
ethnocentrism, are real. Finally, Stephens and Lindsey (2011) state that educators may

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deny the notion of privilege, meaning that they fail to recognize that certain groups receive
more benefits than others simply because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or
socioeconomic status.

Social Justice and School Counselors

The disparities in achievement between racial groups and the role of the environment in
contributing to the gap highlight the need for school counselors to demonstrate a
commitment to social justice. Social justice counseling has been defined as intentional
efforts to remove systems of oppression, inequity, inequality, or exploitation of traditionally
marginalized groups in order to promote equity and participation (Constantine, Hage,
Kindaichi, & Bryant, 2007). During the past decade, the school counseling literature has
increasingly focused upon the need for school counselors to engage in advocacy and
leadership in order to address educational inequalities by removing institutional barriers to
student achievement. It has been argued that school counselors, for a variety of reasons, are
in a unique position to assume a leadership position to advocate for persons from
marginalized groups in order to promote systemic change and thereby social justice.

Box 3.6
Social Justice Counseling – intentional efforts to remove systems of oppression,
inequity, inequality, or exploitation of traditionally marginalized groups in order to
promote equity and participation.

First of all, school counselors have traditionally been expected to fix the “underachieving
students,” who Stephens and Lindsey (2011) argue should more rightly be referred to as
“underserved students.” In contrast, as the school counseling profession seeks to move away
from primarily being identified as working with solely at-risk students, they have the
challenge articulated in the ASCA National Model® (2012) of meeting the needs of the entire
student population. Such a commitment requires a broad perspective and a focus on
comprehensive interventions.
School counselors also have unique access to both formal data, such as school-wide data
regarding academic achievement, attendance, and disciplinary reports, and informal data, in
the form of their interactions of with the diverse array of students and parents.
Additionally, school counselors’ training in multiculturalism, human relations, change
processes, group work, learning theories, and program evaluation sets them apart from
other school personnel, providing school counselors with the skills to promote
collaboration among school personnel and to serve as the liaison between families and the
school (Borders & Shoffner, 2003).
The school counseling profession rightly recognizes that the achievement gap should not
be conceptualized merely from an intrapsychic model, which emphasizes individual student
deficits. The ASCA National Model® (2012), through the four themes, emphasizes the need

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for school counselors to think comprehensively to promote equity and educational
achievement for all students. As discussed in depth in Chapter 1, the systems-ecological
perspective provides professional school counselors with a framework for thinking
comprehensively in regards to addressing environmental issues that have contributed to the
achievement gap. The recognition that social justice is a moral imperative is also reflected in
ASCA’s Ethical Standards for School Counselors (2010). In the preamble, professional school
counselors are called on to be advocates, leaders, collaborators, and consultants in creating
an equitable educational environment that promotes access and success for all students.

Each person has the right to be respected, be treated with dignity and have access to a
comprehensive school counseling program that advocates for and affirms all students
from diverse populations including: ethnic/racial identity, age, economic status,
abilities/disabilities, language, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender
identity/expression, family type, religious/spiritual identity and appearance.
(ASCA, 2010, p. 1).

The school counseling profession appears to be in the process of developing evidence-based

approaches that require school counselors to play a significant role in reducing the racial
achievement gap. Therefore, the remainder of this chapter examines models and
interventions available in the literature that concern school counselors’ role in this process.
Research clearly indicates that the racial achievement gap is related to factors that are
embedded within society, communities, and the culture of the school. Thus, school
counselors must have a broad perspective in order to implement interventions that impact
the larger systems, as well as thinking about how to help individual teachers, students, and
parents.
Singh, Urbano, Haston, and McMahon (2010) identified seven overarching strategies
used by sixteen school counselors who identify as social justice change agents. Political
Savvy refers to knowing how to intervene in a manner that strikes an appropriate balance
between being a supportive counselor and an aggressive change agent by delivering
information that can be heard, and knowing when or with whom to intervene. In other
words, the school counselor must understand who has power in particular situations, or
who are the key players, and how to communicate in a way that is likely to influence the
persons with power. Consciousness Raising is defined as the intent of advocacy conducted by
school counselors, meaning that school counselors’ use of advocacy is a tactic for increasing
educational personnel’s understanding of the needs of diverse students. Initiating Difficult
Dialogues refers to the fact that school counselors who are identified as social change agents
typically feel discomfort in discussing topics that they recognize will likely result in other
school personnel feeling defensive. Building Intentional Relationships is indicative of the fact
that nearly all of the school counselors who are identified as change agents indicate that
they intentionally sought to develop allies from various groups, including students, parents,
administrators, teachers, and school support staff (e.g., custodians) in order to create broad
coalitions. Each of the participating school counselors identified the importance of
Teaching Students Self-Advocacy Skills. Examples of this skill include teaching low-income

66
students how to use the Internet to identify college scholarships, how to navigate the
college admissions process, and providing students with the vocabulary and skills necessary
to understand complex situations. Using Data for Marketing refers to all but one of the
school counselors who claimed to be a social justice change agent asserting that they used
data to increase the consciousness of their school-based colleagues. Educating Others About
School Counselors’ Role as Advocate reflects that most of the school counselors identified the
importance of educating others about their specific social justice interventions.

Box 3.7
School counselors who desire to be social justice change agents should be able to:

• demonstrate political savvy

• raise consciousness
• initiate difficult dialogues
• build intentional relationships
• teach students self-advocacy skills
• use data for marketing
• educate others about school counselors’ role as advocate.

Advocacy and School Counselors

Advocacy is one of the four themes within the ASCA National Model® (2012), and
advocating for the academic achievement of all students is considered to be an essential role
of school counselors and a way in which school counselors can assume a leadership position
in promoting school reform. The American Counseling Association’s (ACA) Advocacy
Competencies (2003) were adapted for school counselors by Ratts, DeKruyf, and Chen-
Hayes (2007), and are included in the ASCA National Model® (2012). The advocacy
competencies include strategies concerning student empowerment, student advocacy,
school/community collaboration, systems advocacy, public information advocacy, and
social/political advocacy.
Student empowerment is defined as efforts to increase students’ awareness of how
disparate power and privilege impacts their self-concept, worldview, and opportunities, and
to provide students with the self-advocacy skills to address barriers to their access to
educational resources.

Box 3.8
“Student Empowerment – school counselors’ efforts to increase students’ awareness of
how disparate power and privilege impact students’ skills, opportunities, and well-
being”(ASCA, 2012, p. 5).

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 Within the ASCA National Model® (2012), school counselors promote student
empowerment through the school counseling core curriculum, individual student planning,
and responsive services (i.e., counseling and crisis response). At the elementary level, school
counselors can use multicultural children’s literature in small- and large-group instruction
to facilitate students’ understanding of their own culture and those of others (Singer &
Smith, 2003). At the secondary level, small- and large-group instruction can be used to
enhance students’ awareness of their culture by helping them to write about their cultural
biography (Singer & Smith, 2003).
Astramovich and Harris (2007) recommend the use of bibliotherapy to increase
students’ awareness of prejudice and its impact upon victims and society. They recommend
Tatum’s (1997) book, Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other
conversations about race, to help students comprehend the history of oppression in the
school system. Small- and large-group instruction can be used at both levels to teach
students how to talk with members of their family and community about prejudice, and to
promote assertiveness and communication skills. Small group instruction can be also used
with victims of bullying and in peer mediation (Ratts et al., 2007), and to help minority
students network with each other (Singer & Smith, 2003). School counselors may use
individual counseling to help victims of bullying identify strategies for self-protection and
for obtaining assistance from adults (Ratts et al., 2007).
Student advocacy refers to when school counselors directly intervene on the behalf of a
student by identifying allies and implementing a plan. School counselors engage in student
advocacy through the indirect services of referral, consultation, and collaboration, through
the program management activities of creating a school data profile, which provides a
review of the school’s key achievement and behavioral data in a disaggregated fashion, and
through closing-the-gap and small-group action plans, which identify activities intended to
reduce behavioral or academic achievement gaps. Ratts et al. (2007) provide an example of
a school counselor helping a student who wishes to communicate with a teacher or a more
powerful student. In such a case, the school counselor can function like a mediator,
establishing the ground rules for the interaction. School counselors can advocate for
activities or opportunities that may promote the career and college readiness of
impoverished students (Ratts et al., 2007). Such students may not have the career
developmental opportunities typically afforded to the children of middle-class parents.
School counselors may find that they can address this disparity by providing job shadowing
opportunities, mentoring, and providing assistance with applying for colleges and pursuing
financial aid, to name just a few of the potential opportunities for student advocacy.
School counselors can also engage in school/community collaboration to coordinate
resources and strategies with allies within the community, and the program management
activities of the advisory council, program goals, and curriculum action plan are reflective of
collaboration with the community.

Box 3.9

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 “Student Advocacy – school counselors’ attempts to directly intervene on the behalf of a
student by identifying allies and implementing a plan” (ASCA, 2012, p. 5).

Box 3.10
“School/Community Collaboration – school counselors’ coordination of resources and
opportunities between students, allies, and the community” (ASCA, 2012, p. 5).
“Systems Advocacy – school counselors’ identification of a systematic barrier to
achievement that requires intervention at a systems level” (ASCA, 2012, p. 5).

Systems advocacy involves the identification of a systemic barrier to achievement that

requires intervention at a systems level. Systems advocacy may involve indirect services of
consultation and collaboration, and a number of program management activities. These
activities may include data collection and analysis tools, such as needs assessments, school
data profile analysis, results reports analysis, program assessment analysis, program goal
analysis, and program management activities that seek to instill change at a systems level,
which include annual agreements and action plans. Ratts et al. (2007) suggest that school
counselors might be simply able to effect change by highlighting racial disparities revealed
through data analysis, such as a school where 40% of the student population is Latino and
yet the 10% of the students in Advanced Placement calculus are Latino. School counselors
may become aware of systemic issues through simply noting a number of students dealing
with similar issues. For example, if the school counselor notices that he or she has a number
of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) students who are experiencing harassment,
the school counselor may wish to initiate the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA),
conduct classroom lessons on harassment, and collaborate with the administration in
providing in-service training for the staff on identifying and responding to harassment.
The types of advocacy strategies identified within the ASCA National Model® (2012)
heretofore mentioned are referred to as micro-level interventions, as they are aimed at
invoking change within an individual or particular school. In contrast, macro-level
advocacy strategies seek to affect the community external to the particular school.
Public information advocacy involves a school counselor’s efforts to collaborate with the
community to inform the public about issues relevant to social justice. Such advocacy
efforts may be included in such school counseling program management activities as the
belief, vision, and mission statements, results reports, and such indirect services as
collaboration with community groups and service on school committees. Social/political
advocacy seeks to redress student issues through changes to policy or legislation, which may
require the school counselor to participate in district committees, conduct school board
presentations, be involved with state and national professional associations, and engage in
efforts to influence legislation.

Box 3.11

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 “Public Information Advocacy – school counselors’ efforts to collaborate with the
community to inform the public about issues relevant to social justice” (ASCA, 2012, p.
6).
“Social/Political Advocacy – school counselors’ efforts to redress student issues through
changes to policy or legislation through varying levels of civic involvement and
leadership” (ASCA, 2012, p. 6).

For example, two of the authors of this text, Drs. Crothers and Kolbert, have
collaborated with a number of community organizations, including an agency that provides
mental health services to the LGBT community, the local chapters of the Parents and
Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), and the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education
Network (GLSEN), to increase the safety of LGBT students in Allegheny County,
Pennsylvania.
The respective authors surveyed teachers within the county, LGBT students, and LGBT
parents to obtain their perceptions regarding the bullying experiences of LGBT students.
Interestingly, the data revealed that while most teachers perceive that schools and staff
members are supportive of LGBT students, LGBT students and teachers find schools and
school staff as less encouraging toward LGBT students. The respective authors have
presented these results at community forums and state professional associations, for the
purposes of encouraging school districts and the Commonwealth to adopt policies and
procedures that offer increased protection for LGBT students. One school district modified
their anti-bullying policies, naming LBGT students as a specifically protected group, along
with other traditionally marginalized groups (Buzgon et al., 2014).

Collaboration and School Counselors

Historically, school counselors were not included as contributors to major educational
reform initiatives and the services they provided were often seen as ancillary to the mission
of schools. However, with the declining funding available to schools and the increased call
for social justice, school counselors must collaborate with various stakeholders, including
teachers, administrators, parents, and students, in order to achieve systemic change. The
following section provides an overview of Schulz, Hurt, and Lindo’s (2014) model for
school counselors’ use of collaborative strategies to promote cultural responsiveness. We
also discuss other examples found in the literature of school counselors using collaboration
to promote systemic change.
Schulz et al.’s (2014) Collaborative Strategies for Promoting Cultural
Responsiveness. Educators have been urged to adopt culturally responsive teaching (CRT)
strategies as a means to reduce the achievement gap. Gay (2006) asserts that CRT teaches
through the strengths of diverse students by using the strengths of their culture, their prior
experiences, and their performance styles to make learning more relevant and interesting for
them, thereby establishing a bridge between diverse students’ home and school lives.

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 Box 3.12
Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) – teachers utilizing the strengths of diverse
students’ cultures, prior experiences, and performance styles to make learning more
relevant and interesting.

Schultz et al. use this bridge metaphor, asserting that school counselors’ role in cultural
responsiveness is to create a bridge between teachers and students. Table 3.1 presents
Schulz et al.’s model of how school counselors can collaborate with teachers and other
adults in order to promote cultural responsiveness within schools. The examples of
collaboration are divided into three levels of intervention. The first level, Faculty
Development, includes strategies that can be implemented with entire faculties. The next
level, Small Group Development, provides examples of strategies that can be used with small
groups of teachers, administrators, and staff. The third level, Individual Development, is
comprised of strategies that can be used with individual adults within the school system.
Table 3.1 Culturally Responsive Strategies
Level of Examples
Implementation
1. Faculty (a) Workshops focused on building cultural competence and culturally
Development responsive philosophy, teacher characteristics, curriculum,
instructional strategies, and assessments
(b) Guest speakers to address special topics
(c) Vision/mission building sessions
(d) Inventory of current building and classroom practices
2. Small Group (a) Departmental task-focused group to build philosophy, curriculum,
Development instructional practices, and assessments
(b) Interdisciplinary group focused on inter- and intrapersonal skill
building
(c) Focus groups read a book together to promote cultural responsiveness
and discuss relevance to own practice (i.e., Tatum, 1997)
(d) Peer coaching teams to practice and evaluate culturally responsive
approaches
3. Individual (a) Counselor/Teacher collaboration focused on development of teacher’s
Development multicultural awareness
(b) Regular consultation on implementation and practice
(c) Team teaching using standards blending approach
(d) Individual and small group discussion inclusion interventions (see
Clark & Breman, 2009)
Source: Adapted from Schulz, L. L., Hurt, K., & Lindo, N. (2014). My name is not Michael: Strategies for promoting
cultural responsiveness in schools. Journal of School Counseling, 12, 1–35. Reprinted with permission from Mark Nelson
and the Journal of School Counseling.

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 Faculty development. School counselors can assume a leadership role by collaborating
with teachers in planning in-service and professional development opportunities that are
already required of teachers by nearly all states. Schulz et al. (2014) recommend that school
counselors use such workshops to help teachers identify their own cultural backgrounds and
how these backgrounds influence their perspectives of diverse students. Ford (2010) asserts
that teacher training programs typically do not require future teachers to examine their
cultural biases and assumptions, nor do they teach future teachers how to tailor teaching
strategies to meet the needs of diverse students.
The multicultural competencies for counselors, which are divided into personal
awareness, knowledge of diverse groups, and the acquisition of skills for working with
diverse groups, can serve as a framework for training teachers in diversity (Schulz et al.,
2014). School counselors can use the preparation they received in multiculturalism in
training teachers to become aware of their cultural assumptions and biases, and increase
teachers’ understanding of the strengths and worldview of specific diverse groups.
School counselors could teach DuPraw and Axner’s (1997) six fundamental ways in
which cultures tend to differ from each other, which include communication style,
attitudes toward conflict, approaches to task completion, decision-making styles, attitudes
toward disclosure, and approaches to knowing. Such information can help teachers in
empathizing and developing rapport with students from diverse backgrounds,
consulting/conferencing with parents of diverse backgrounds, and using different ways of
knowing in their teaching. For example, Gay (2006) asserts that most teachers use
deductive reasoning in the classroom, by focusing on specific details which are then
generalized to identify the whole. However, many African American, Latino, and Asian
American students tend to prefer a more constructivist style of learning in which
information is related to existing cognitive structures. Teaching methods that are
considered to be more compatible with a constructivist approach have been given such titles
as inquiry learning, discovery learning, and project-based learning. There is also some
research suggesting that while White students tend to prefer independent and competitive
forms of learning, in which individual achievement is highlighted, Asian American, African
American, and Latino students perform better in educational environments that use
cooperative and collaborative approaches to learning (e.g., Chizhik, 2001). Training in
diversity for teachers can also be enhanced through multimedia exposure utilizing videos,
contemporary films for starting conversations about unfamiliar social contexts, and
experiences promoting a more personal connection with poverty and diversity have been
shown to be effective in developing cultural competence (Cholewa & West-Olatunji,
2008). Also, teachers can be asked to participate in cultural events, community meetings,
and a variety of religious experiences, which may be helpful in increasing connections with
their students.
One form of resistance to cultural proficiency that some teachers will display is overt or
covert challenges to the school counselor’s expertise regarding pedagogy, given that many
school counselors do not possess teacher certification, or are no longer in the role of teacher
and thus cannot truly understand what it is like to “be in the trenches” (Stephens &

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Lindsey, 2011). In such situations, school counselors are encouraged to align themselves
with influential teachers who can take the lead in helping their colleagues to understand
how to incorporate the strengths and worldviews of diverse groups into the classroom, and
learn to incorporate more constructivist style teaching strategies. By teaming with
influential teachers to increase the cultural responsiveness of the staff in this manner, the
school counselor is using some of the strategies that Singh et al. (2010) found to be used by
school counselors who identify as change agents. The school counselor is being Politically
Savvy by recognizing who has power within the school and is Intentionally Building
Relationships with those who have power in order to Initiate Difficult Dialogues and Raise
Consciousness.
Small group development. Schulz et al. (2014) assert that small group development is
sometimes preferable to large-group learning experiences in that small group development
can provide greater depth of exploration. The school counselor can assist subject
departments (e.g., Social Studies, Science) in generating vision and mission statements that
incorporate cultural responsiveness. School counselors can also help departments identify
professional development needs that are specific to their department. Schulz et al. (2014)
provide the example of assisting a mathematics department in revising their assessments to
be more culturally fair/responsive. Schulz et al. (2014) established voluntary reading groups
to discuss a chapter of Tatum’s (1997) Why are all the black kids sitting together in the
cafeteria? And other conversations about race, and had teachers discuss their personal
reactions to the book, followed by an exploration of how their new understandings
influenced their approach to teaching diverse students.
Individual development. School counselors can also use consultation to increase
teachers’ cultural proficiency as, unfortunately, didactic training is not always sufficient to
address the barriers to cultural proficiency. Rather, many people also learn cultural
proficiency through experience in interacting with people who are different from
themselves. School counselors often have access to information from various stakeholders,
such as students and parents, who approach them with concerns about teachers or
administrators and may confide in the school counselor about issues with teachers. It is not
unusual for teachers to mistrust school counselors because of teachers’ awareness that school
counselors receive such information. Singh et al. (2010) found that school counselors who
identify as change agents are very purposeful in how they approach teachers about their
potential lack of cultural proficiency in order to increase the likelihood that teachers can
hear such messages. This is also related to Singh et al.’s (2010) counselor competency of
Initiating Difficult Dialogues.
The school counselor may want to first consult with the teacher alone, sharing with
them that a number of students and/or parents have expressed concern about the teacher’s
responsiveness. The school counselor should allow the teacher to defend him- or herself and
use active listening skills to indicate that they hear the teacher’s perspective. The use of
active listening skills typically decreases the teacher’s emotional intensity, whereupon the
school counselor can ask questions to increase the teacher’s understanding of diverse
groups. For example, the school counselor can ask the teacher about what he or she thinks

73
the student’s and/or parent’s perspective may be.
A common complaint of less culturally proficient teachers is that minority students and
their parents do not value education. As such, teachers can misread the behaviors of
minority students. By using questions, the school counselor can assist such a teacher in
understanding that the student and parents indeed do value education, but that they
display this value in a different manner, or they can help the teacher to realize that the
parent and child value different kinds of learning experiences. This can begin to help such a
teacher understand that the student’s/parent’s behaviors of concern may reflect a healthy
mistrust of the educational system which historically has been unresponsive to their needs.
Through such a manner, the school counselor is attempting to “normalize” the student’s
mistrust. The school counselor can then ask the teacher how he or she might approach the
student in a different manner, or ask the teacher about times when he or she has related
more effectively to the student in question, or when he or she has related effectively to
other minority students. By asking such questions, the school counselor is “framing” the
issue as being about how the teacher relates to minority students. The use of data also serves
to help teachers develop a more objective perspective about how they are impacting
students from diverse groups.
It is not uncommon for minority students to claim that a teacher is prejudiced, which
many teachers vociferously deny. However, school counselors can help teachers in
consultation and training realize their prejudices and stereotypes as products of a prejudiced
society. Only by increasing awareness of one’s prejudices in a non-defensive manner can a
person learn how to not act upon them.
Schulz et al. (2014) provide an example of a school counselor who, upon noticing that
64% of the freshmen earned either a “D” or “F” grade in their science class, approached
two science teachers separately, offering the teachers her support in her role as counselor.
Through multiple discussions focusing upon the teachers’ personal world and their
classroom management and teaching philosophy, the school counselor assisted the teachers
in developing more effective ways of both relating to and teaching students, which resulted
in a significant decrease in the number of students who earned a “D” or “F” in the next
academic year.
Dowden’s example of collaboration and action research. Dowden (2010) discusses her
experience of using collaboration, consultation, and counseling to promote social justice as
a high school counselor in a southeastern college town. She utilized Kolb’s (1984) Action
Research model, which involves identifying a problem, collecting and analyzing data to
develop a plan, implementing a plan, observing the results of the plan by gathering and
interpreting outcome data, and reflecting upon the results. The problem she identified was
the apparent existence of a school within a school, where the advanced curriculum courses
were comprised mostly of White, middle- and upper middle-class students, while the
African American students were mostly enrolled in “regular” level courses, and the Latino
students were mostly enrolled in English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. Dowden
(2010) reports that the administrators and other school counselors were indifferent to this
disparity.

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 The first part of Dowden’s plan was to inform parents, students, and school staff about
these inequities and how they resulted in unequal educational opportunities. She used
individual and group counseling to encourage minority students to challenge themselves by
taking more advanced courses, encouraged minority students to assume leadership roles
within the school, and prompted these students to join academic organizations such as the
math club. Dowden used the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) Potential program
(College Board, 2010), which is a web-based tool that identifies students who have
potential to succeed in an AP course based upon Practice Scholastic Assessment Test
(PSAT) scores. She supported students who accepted the challenge by assuring them that
she would advocate for them if necessary, providing them with a mentor, and exposing
them to the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, which offers
curriculum instruction and foundational academic skills, such as note-taking. Dowden
collaborated with a nearby university to recruit African American male students who
exposed their mentees to the college through joint participation in campus events. Dowden
also established an after-school program in which student discussion forums were created to
enable students who had been successful in overcoming social barriers to share their
experiences with their peers. Dowden recruited motivational speakers from the local
churches to come and speak to the students in the after-school program about self-
determination, motivation, and persistence. Parent meetings were also held to inform
parents of their options. Dowden (2010) also directly challenged school personnel whom
she believed were serving as barriers to equity. She suggested to an art and band teacher
who appeared to discourage minority students from enrolling in their courses through the
use of high financial fees for associated activities that the required fees could be raised by a
booster club.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts on minority student engagement
and achievement, Dowden first approached the school’s principal about conducting a
survey of students’ perceptions of the school’s level of inequities. Despite all the support
Dowden had gained through the implementation of the discussed programs and changes,
her request to conduct the survey was denied by the principal. Instead, she collected and
disseminated disaggregated data on student test scores, course enrollment, and attendance
and suspension rates, and the data revealed that there was a gradual improvement in the
academic achievement of minority students during her three-year tenure at the school.

Leadership and School Counselors

Advocacy, collaboration, and systemic change all require leadership, and thus leadership can
be regarded as the foundation of the skills required for implementing a school counseling
program (Mason & McMahon, 2009). While there are various models of leadership for
educational systems, the ASCA National Model® (2012) references the research of Bolman
and Deal (2008), who identified four types of leadership: structural, human resources,
political, and symbolic. Structural leadership refers to efforts made to develop an
organization, which for school counselors involves the creation and implementation of a

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comprehensive school counseling program. According to Dollarhide (2003), who adapted
Bolman and Deal’s forms of leadership for the school counseling profession, school
counselors must establish the foundation of the school counseling program through
mastery of the various tools delineated in the ASCA National Model® (2012), including
development of the program’s beliefs, vision, mission, etc., and the various tools for
collecting and analyzing data.
Human resource leadership concerns empowering and inspiring others. School counselors
embody human leadership in conveying the expectation that all students can achieve at a
high level, and by removing barriers to student achievement, including enhancing
colleagues’ awareness of how their negative view of the capabilities of minority students
tends to be filtered through a White privileged perspective.

Box 3.13
Structural Leadership – school counselors’ efforts to develop and implement a
comprehensive school counseling program (ASCA, 2012).
Human Resource Leadership – school counselors’ efforts to empower and inspire others
(ASCA, 2012).

The visibility of the school counseling program can be enhanced by increasing

stakeholders’ awareness of the program’s vision and mission statements, and publicizing the
activities of the school counseling program through annual and weekly calendars and
newsletters.
Political leadership involves the use of interpersonal and organizational power. School
counselors demonstrate political leadership in leading the school counseling program’s
advisory council and building relationships with stakeholders and administrators. Research
reveals that the support of the school principal regarding the maintenance of a school
counseling program is essential (e.g., Lambie & Williamson, 2004). School counselors must
make principals aware of the ASCA National Model® (2012) and the evidence supporting its
contribution to student success.
Symbolic leadership refers to the exhibition of a commitment to change and
development. School counselors demonstrate such a commitment in developing a school
counseling program that addresses the needs of students and the community, as indicated
by data providing direct services that address such needs, regularly evaluating and revising
the school counseling program, and exhibiting a high degree of integrity by following
ASCA’s Ethical Standards for School Counselors (2010; Dollarhide, 2003).

Box 3.14
Political Leadership – school counselors’ use of interpersonal and organizational power
(ASCA, 2012).
Symbolic Leadership – school counselors’ exhibition of a commitment to change and

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 development (ASCA, 2012).

Militello, Schweid, and Carey (2008) provide an example of the distributive leadership
model in promoting college readiness through advising in an urban high school situated in
a low socioeconomic status neighborhood. The high school established a new graduation
requirement of having to submit two college applications to the principal. Obtaining
approval of the school’s parent-teacher association (PTA), school counselors and math
teachers required students to submit their parents’ financial data in completing the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The language arts teachers assisted students
in writing their personal statements for college applications. The school counselor, the
PTA, and the assistant principal collaborated in obtaining funding for the college
application for students in need. In this example, the school counselors demonstrated
leadership through collaborative practices, while transforming the school by enhancing the
college-going culture.
Young, Millard, and Kneale (2013) recommend the formation of school counseling
collaborative teams (SCCT) to serve as a structure through which school counselors may
collaborate and provide instructional leadership. Members of the SCCT share a goal or
vision, and are committed to the use of collective inquiry and a results orientation, meaning
that there is a continuous cycle of questioning the status, strategy experimentation, and use
of data. The initial meetings seek to achieve a consensus regarding the team’s goals, which
can use the SMART goal practice, meaning that the goals are specific, measurable,
attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound. Once consensus is achieved regarding the
goals, members can construct an action plan for each goal.

Box 3.15
SMART Goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Results-oriented
• Time-bound

The team engages in inquiry and data collection to determine why students are not
achieving the respective goal, and this may involve the formation of a focus group of
students, and implementation of needs assessments or surveys on students, parents, and/or
teachers. Team members should review the professional literature to identify evidence-
based interventions. The concluding step in the process is the evaluation of various types of
data to determine whether students have achieved the identified learning outcome.
Young et al. (2013) provide an example of the use of an SCCT to address an

77
achievement gap. After two years of implementation, a middle-school based SCCT had
been successful in decreasing the number of students receiving “Ds” and “Fs” and
increasing the proficiency rates in math and reading. In the third year, the SCCT identified
a racial achievement gap in honors courses. The percentage of African American and Latino
students in honors classes represented the school’s composition of minority students, but
they were not passing the reading and math state assessment tests at the same rate as White
and Asian American students, and they had an average grade of “C” in the honors courses.
The SCCT members collaborated with teachers in delivering a Success Prep curriculum,
which included fostering healthy relationships, improving organization and study skills,
identification of learning styles, self-advocacy, using formative and summative assessment
strategies, and setting SMART goals. The intervention resulted in 90% of students passing
state assessment tests and the average grade for African American and Latino students
increased to a “B.”

Standards Blending to Promote Social Justice

Standards blending, which involves the integration of specific core academic standards with
the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (ASCA, 2014) in a culturally competent
manner, has received considerable attention within the school counseling literature as a
practice to promote social justice (Schellenberg, 2008). Standards blending uses a student-
centered approach in that it draws upon students’ previous knowledge and encourages
them to personalize the material. Students are provided opportunities to socially interact
with their peers and teachers in small learning communities, where the respective material
is examined and resolved. Schellenberg recommends that language arts and mathematics
standards should be the focus in standards blending, versus other core academic standards,
because these academic areas serve as the foundation for the other core academic areas.
Examples of standards blending are provided in the following paragraphs.

Box 3.16
Standards Blending – the integration of specific core academic standards with school
counseling mindsets in a culturally competent manner.

Schellenberg (2008) provides an example of the use of standards blending in eighth

grade school counseling classroom lessons to address career development standards from the
school counseling program’s curriculum, the language arts curriculum’s standard of
interviewing techniques to acquire information, and the math standards of estimating, data
analysis and conjectures, and determining means. The school counseling curriculum
standard regarded learning how to research different careers by gaining and interpreting
information. Students also learned how to conduct informational interviews, and explored
how this form of information gathering compared to techniques they had used in the past
to obtain information.

78
 In order to demonstrate their knowledge, students conducted an informational
interview (language arts competency) to engage in career exploration (school counseling
competency). Each student constructed ten questions for their interview (language arts
competency), and at least five of the questions had to include proportions such as scaling
questions (math competency). Students role-played the interview with the school counselor
and other students, recording the responses (language arts competency). Students had to
use a table or graph to present the results of the scaled responses, and identify patterns and
similarities within their results and compare their results to their classmates’ (math
competency). The entire class discussed the inferences of their findings (math competency),
and the effectiveness of the interviews (language arts competency) for career exploration
(school counseling competency), and the usefulness of interviews for their personal,
academic, and professional lives.
Schellenberg and Grothaus (2011) used standards blending while conducting a large-
group intervention with four classes of diverse public high school students. Analysis of the
school’s outcome data revealed that a disproportionate number of students of color and
students receiving special education services were not achieving success in language arts and
were also not meeting positive behavioral expectations in career and technical education
(CTE) classes. The CTE faculty and school counselor decided to implement a Tier 2
response. The lead author conducted four one-hour, large-group lessons that sought to
promote the students’ employability skills as well as selected language arts and school
counseling curriculum standards. Use of paired sample t-tests revealed that the post-test
scores were significantly higher than the scores for both the language and school counseling
content areas. African American and Latino students made statistically significant gains in
both content areas while the students receiving special education services exhibited
statistically significant gains for the school counseling curriculum items.
Schellenberg and Grothaus (2009) applied standards blending to a school-based
counseling group for six low-achieving third grade African American males in an urban
public elementary school. The “Me I Wanna Be” group sought to promote participants’ self-
esteem and identification of cultural strengths to empower the participants and thus
facilitate their academic achievement. The group was comprised of four 30-minute sessions.
Session 1 involved assigning students into pairs who interviewed each other, and then
presented a brief biography of their partner following a discussion of the characteristics of
biographies and autobiographies (language arts competency). There was also discussion
regarding the importance of friendship and positive relations. The objectives of session 2
were to promote participants’ sense of individualism while in connection with others.
Participants spent 5–10 minutes talking to each other to acquire information regarding
how each student is different and alike. Following the information gathering, students
reflected upon the information obtained, comparing and contrasting themselves in relation
to the other student, and reported their findings to the group. The goals of session 3 were
to increase students’ problem-solving skills. They were instructed to select one of three
goals listed on the board to accomplish during the session. The goals were to: (1) say
something positive to a group member, (2) say something positive to the school counselor,

79
and (3) ask someone for help during the session.
Students were asked to select from a deck of cards, each of which had a goal on one side
and the corresponding steps on the other side. They then took turns in sharing the goal and
asking group members to identify possible steps to achieve the goal. The cards were pre-
selected by the group leader to illustrate the mathematical concept of inverse operations
(math competency). The goals of the final session were to teach students how to modify
their internal dialogue to enhance their self-efficacy. This internal dialogue, or self-talk, was
defined and modeled. The impact of positive vs. negative self-talk was discussed and
examples were indicated on 20 individual strips of paper. The strips of paper were described
as consisting of a whole and then divided in order to illustrate fractions (math
competency).The results indicated that all six students exhibited knowledge development
related to both the academic curriculum and school counseling content, and the self-
reported self-esteem of the participants increased by 72% from the beginning to the
completion of the group.
Schellenberg (2008) argues that standards blending enables school counselors to develop
and implement programming which leads them to be viewed by educational personnel as
valuable partners in closing the achievement gap and promoting academic achievement,
while simultaneously maintaining their unique role of an educational specialist who is also
committed to promoting students’ personal/social and career development. Schellenberg
and Grothaus (2009) suggest that school counselors can train teachers to use standards
blending by incorporating students’ cultural knowledge and strengths.

Small- and Large-Group Interventions to Promote Social Justice

Many of the responsive interventions conducted by school counselors to reduce the racial
achievement gap that can be found in the research literature have involved large-group or
group counseling interventions seeking to promote the study skills of minority students.
Bruce, Getch, and Ziomek-Daigle (2009) found that eight sessions of a study-skill
counseling group with 15 African American eleventh grade students resulted in a reduction
in the gap in the pass rate between White students and African American students as well as
an overall increase in the pass rate for African American students on the Georgia High
School Graduation Tests. The researchers suggest that a group counseling format may be
culturally responsive for African American students as it is consistent with the African
American community’s shared value of connectedness. A group setting may also provide
African American students with an opportunity to bond and discuss personal issues while
also working toward a shared goal.
Leon, Villares, Brigman, Webb, and Peluso (2011) evaluated the impact of the Spanish
Cultural Translation of Student Success Skills (SCT-SSS). Student Success Skills (SSS) is a
study skills program that seeks to provide students with cognitive, social, and self-
management skills that the research literature indicates are associated with increased student
achievement (Carey, Dimmitt, Hatch, Lapan, & Whiston, 2008). Studies suggest that SSS
promotes students’ academic achievement, as measured by state achievement tests, but

80
there are questions as to whether students retain the skills promoted within SSS. Five
Spanish-speaking school counselors from different countries in Latin America adapted the
SSS to match both the language and culture of different Latin American nations. Two
bilingual school counselors implemented the SCT-SSS intervention with 62 fourth and
fifth grade Latino students in two schools, conducting five SCT-SSS 45-minute classroom
lessons once per week for five consecutive weeks, followed by three 45-minute booster
sessions in three consecutive months. The results revealed that the students who received
the treatment had significantly greater increases in math and reading, as measured by
Florida’s state achievement test, than a comparison group of fourth and fifth grade Latino
students who did not receive the intervention. The effect size for both the math and
reading gains was 0.37, which is generally considered to be a small to moderate
intervention impact.
Dowden (2009) used a five-session psychoeducational group to teach self-advocacy skills
to six African American adolescents attending a large suburban high school in the
Southeast, in order to enhance their self-concept and academic motivation. One of the
group sessions sought to enhance students’ understanding of cultural power and privilege.
Students discussed their reactions to portrayals from the media which depicted minority
populations in a negative fashion, shared personal experiences of discrimination, and
received feedback from group members regarding how they managed the discrimination. In
the third group session, the group discussed the components of self-determination,
including effective and ineffective ways students could demonstrate self-determination. In
the fourth group session, members identified examples of social injustice within their
school, and developed plans for addressing the inequity they identified. Follow-up
evaluation of the group members revealed that five of the six students exhibited decreases in
truancy and behavior problems, and four of the six students passed all of their semester
academic classes.

Summary
The school counseling profession has made a clear commitment to advocating for social
justice. The examples of social justice interventions involving school counselors provided in
this chapter indicate that school counselors contribute to systemic change by collaborating
with various stakeholders. It is important for school counselors to recognize that their
training in human relations, multiculturalism, group work, etc. possibly situates them as
the educational professional best prepared to invoke such systemic interventions. A
consistent theme indicated in the professional school counseling literature is that school
counselors need to recognize that some people will be resistant to such a challenge to the
status quo. School counselors must understand that social justice advocacy requires a long-
term commitment.

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and reading. Available online at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/main2013/2014451.aspx#section3
(accessed December 18, 2014).
No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107–110 (2002).
Ratts, M. J., DeKruyf, L., & Chen-Hayes, S. F. (2007). The ACA advocacy competencies: A social justice advocacy
framework for professional school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 11, 90–97.
Rowley, R. L., & Wright, D. W. (2011). No “White” child left behind: The academic achievement gap between Black
and White students. The Journal of Negro Education, 80, 93–107.
Schellenberg, R. (2008). The new school counselor: Strategies for universal academic achievement. New York: Rowman &
Littlefield Education.
Schellenberg, R., & Grothaus, T. (2009). Promoting cultural responsiveness and closing the academic achievement gap
with standards blending. Professional School Counseling, 12, 440–449.
Schellenberg, R., & Grothaus, T. (2011). Using culturally competent responsive services to improve student
achievement and behavior. Professional School Counseling, 14, 222–230.
Schulz, L. L., Hurt, K., & Lindo, N. (2014). My name is not Michael: Strategies for promoting cultural responsiveness
in schools. Journal of School Counseling, 12, 1–35. Available online at http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1034778 (accessed
November 18, 2015).
Singer, J. Y., & Smith, S. A. (2003). The potential of multicultural literature: Changing understanding of self and
others. Multicultural Perspectives, 5, 17–23.
Singh, A. A., Urbano, A., Haston, M., & McMahon, E. (2010). School counselors’ strategies for social justice change:
A grounded theory of what works in the real world. Professional School Counseling, 13, 135–145.
Stephens, D. L., & Lindsey, R. B. (2011). Culturally proficient collaboration: Use and misuse of school counselors.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Tatum, B. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race: A
psychologist explains the development of racial identity. New York: Basic Books.
US Department of Education (2014). The condition of education 2013. Available online at
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013037.pdf (accessed July 9, 2015).
US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2011). The condition of education 2011 (NCES
2011–033), Indicator 21.
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collaborative teaming: Implications for principals. National Association of Secondary School Principals, 97, 253–269.

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 Chapter Four
Management and Accountability

Box 4.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
1.d Models of school-based collaboration and consultation
1.e Assessment specific to P-12 education
2.a School counselor roles as leaders, advocates, and systems change agents in P-12
schools
2.d School counselor roles in school leadership and multidisciplinary teams
3.b Design and evaluation of school counseling programs
3.n Use of accountability data to inform decision-making
3.o Use of data to advocate for programs and students

Accountability has become a major emphasis within primary education over the past
several decades. Although the No Child Left Behind (NCLB; 2002) Act has been replaced
by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; US Department of Education, n.d.), the
increased emphasis of accountability through assessment instituted by NCLB remains
within ESSA and will likely continue. State departments of education are still required to
develop “challenging” standards of learning and standardized measurements to assess
students’ achievement of the standards. Schools must publically report achievement results.
There are sanctions for schools that do not meet achievement targets. Schools must
continue to evaluate and implement evidence-based interventions for academically
underperforming subgroups of students, such as minority or special education students.
Many states require that students pass a test to graduate from high school, and a few states
even require passing a test in order to be promoted to the next grade level.
The school counseling profession has been significantly impacted by this emphasis on
accountability, as the profession seeks to play a more significant role in educational reform
and to demonstrate the impact of school counseling-related activities and
programs.Whereas in the past, school counselors’ use of data was often limited to
documenting the number of students or stakeholders who participated in school counseling
related activities, the ASCA and the Education Trust’s Transforming the School
Counseling Initiative (TSCI) encourage school counselors to collect data that helps to
answer the question, “How are students different as a result of the school counseling
program?” The use of data is an integral component of all four components of the ASCA

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National Model® (2012), and even more so for the management and accountability
components of the Model.

Scientific Based Research

The expectations of accountability for educators can be divided into two primary types: (1)
use of Scientific Based Research (SBR) practices, and (2) the use of evaluation. Obviously,
there is overlap between these accountability emphases, but there are some important
differences as well. NCLB (2002) requires that schools use SBR methods. Although
consensus has not yet been reached regarding the procedure for determining what is
considered an SBR method, there appears to be general agreement that the process of
identifying an educational intervention as SBR involves the use of either randomized
experiments or quasi-experiments (Beghetto, 2003). True experimental designs within an
educational context involves randomly assigning students, schools, or districts to a group
that receives a particular intervention and to a group that either receives a different
intervention (comparison group), or no intervention (control group).

The term “principles of scientific research” means the use of rigorous, systematic, and
objective methodologies to obtain reliable and valid knowledge. Specifically, such
research requires:
A. development of a logical, evidence-based chain of reasoning;
B. methods appropriate to the questions posed;
C. observational or experimental designs and instruments that provide reliable and
generalizable findings;
D. data and analysis adequate to support findings;
E. explication of procedures and results clearly and in detail, including specification of
the population to which the findings can be generalized;
F. adherence to professional norms of peer review;
G. dissemination of findings to contribute to scientific knowledge; and
H. access to data for reanalysis, replication, and the opportunity to build on findings.
The examination of causal questions requires experimental designs using random
assignment or quasi-experimental or other designs that substantially reduce plausible
competing explanations for the obtained results. These include, but are not limited to,
longitudinal designs, case control methods, statistical matching, or time series analyses.
This standard applies especially to studies evaluating the impacts of policies and
programs on educational outcomes.
The term “scientifically based research” includes basic research, applied research, and
evaluation research in which the rationale, design, and interpretation are developed in
accordance with the scientific principles laid out above. The term applies to all
mechanisms of federal research support, whether field-initiated or directed.

Figure 4.1 Alternative Definition of Scientifically Based Research (SBR) Supported by AERA Council, July 11, 2008.

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 Copyright 2008 by the American Educational Research Association; reproduced with permission of the
publisher (AERA, 2015).

Furthermore, to be considered an SBR method, the practice must be replicated in other

settings (Beghetto, 2003). NCLB has been criticized as using a narrow definition of SBR, as
several forms of qualitative research are not recognized as SBR, including case studies,
ethnographies, and action research. Qualitative research methods may be used to develop
hypotheses regarding what components of programs are contributing to a program’s
effectiveness or why a program is working or not working, but they are not considered
sufficient for determining whether a program is effective. Other organizations, such as the
American Educational Research Association (AERA), have also published descriptions of
SBR, which may assist in interpreting the definition of the term (see Figure 4.1).

Box 4.2
Opportunistic Experiment
Did you know?
An opportunistic experiment is a kind of randomized controlled trial that allows the
researcher to study the effects of an intervention or policy change with little additional
disruption and cost (Resch, Berk, & Akers, 2014).

Experimental research within an educational context seeks to identify a causal

relationship, meaning that an intervention was alone responsible for an increase in student
achievement (Carey, Dimmitt, Hatch, Lapan, & Whiston, 2008). This involves ruling out
plausible explanations as to why the increase occurred, and thus requires “controlling” or
keeping constant other variables. There are considerable challenges to conducting
experimental research within school settings, as random assignment of subjects to
conditions is typically not feasible. Comparison schools/groups will always differ in ways
that may potentially impact the outcome measure(s), and also may be reluctant to engage
to participate in a research study. Replication is difficult, as teachers and schools are likely
to vary in their use of the intervention. It is also cumbersome to use blind conditions given
that use of parent and teacher ratings introduces the potential for subjectivity. Finally, the
school counseling profession is increasingly emphasizing the use of systemic and
comprehensive interventions that seek to impact the school environment as a whole, but it
is difficult to control for the variables involved in such all-encompassing interventions.

SBR and School Counseling Interventions

Although much of the research in school counseling does not meet NCLB’s definition of
research, the profession is making progress in developing evidence-based practices. As
discussed in Chapter 1, the Center for School Counseling Outcome Research and
Evaluation (CSCORE) formed the National Panel for School Counseling Evidence-Based

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Practice to increase the research base in the school counseling profession through the
establishment of a method for evaluating and identifying practices that are consistent with
the NCLB standards for evidence-based practice (Carey et al., 2008). The National Panel
concluded that there is strong empirical support for the Second Step Violence Prevention
Curriculum (Committee for Children, 2004), which is designed to decrease violence
through enhanced empathy and social skills and through decreases in aggressive behaviors.
Furthermore, the Panel deemed the evidence to be promising for Student Success Skills
(Brigman & Webb, 2004), which is a group and school counseling lesson approach to
promoting metacognitive, social, and self-management skills (Carey et al., 2008).
There is empirical support for common school counselor-led interventions. Whiston,
Tai, Rahardja, and Eder (2011) conducted a meta-analytic study of the school counseling
intervention literature. Meta-analysis involves aggregating the results of various previous
studies by estimating and combining the magnitude of the effect of the intervention, which
is referred to as the effect size, in order to identify patterns among study results. The results
revealed that, on average, school counseling interventions produced an effect size of 0.30,
which is considered to be small to moderate. School counseling lessons, responsive services,
small group counseling, and individual planning also yielded small to moderate effect sizes.
Parent workshops were found to yield a high effect size, while individual counseling only
had a small effect size, but the authors cautioned that there were not enough studies in the
literature to reach a firm conclusion regarding the empirical support for these types of
school counseling interventions. School counseling interventions appeared to increase
students’ problem-solving, attendance, and social skills, and resulted in reduced discipline
problems and physical aggression, but only had a small impact upon self-esteem. Finally,
school counseling interventions yielded a small but significant impact on grade point
average and achievement tests, and the authors noted that school counseling interventions
are not likely to have a large impact on academic achievement given the large caseloads of
school counselors.
A major challenge of the school counseling profession is the need to evaluate the
effectiveness of broader, systemic interventions such as the ASCA National Model® (2012).
Most likely, the school counseling profession will never be able to achieve NCLB’s
definition of SBR given the near impossibility of using random assignment for school-wide
initiatives. However, several studies have used research design methods other than random
assignment to control for extraneous variables. Wilkerson, Pérusse, and Hughes (2013)
compared schools that had a Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) vs. a randomly
selected control group of non-RAMP schools over a four-year period. They found that
RAMP schools at the elementary level outperformed the control group on state proficiency
scores for math and language arts, but there were no statistically significant differences
between RAMP and non-RAMP schools at the middle and high school levels.
Furthermore, the longitudinal analysis revealed that the school-wide proficiency scores did
not significantly increase or decrease in both RAMP and control schools.
Sink and Stroh (2003) compared elementary school counseling that had comprehensive
school counseling programs to a randomly selected control group of elementary schools

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that lacked comprehensive school counseling programs. These authors found that while the
elementary school counselors without comprehensive school counseling had significantly
higher achievement test scores than the schools with comprehensive school counseling
programs at pre-test, the achievement gap between these groups significantly declined over
a period of two to three years. Sink and Stroh (2003) noted that while the magnitude of the
impact of comprehensive school counseling programs at the elementary level was not large,
the results suggest that comprehensive school programs can significantly increase
achievement test scores.

Evaluation
Accountability is not only demonstrated through the use of SBR methods, but is also
demonstrated through the use of evaluation. Evaluation has been defined as “the purposeful
and systemic collection and analysis of data or information for the purpose of documenting
the effectiveness, impact, and outcomes of programs, establishing accountability, and
identifying areas needing change and improvement” (Dimmitt, 2009, p. 396). Evaluation
and research are similar in that both use the scientific method by establishing a question,
developing a hypothesis, analyzing data related to the hypothesis, and forming conclusions
from the data. However, evaluation and research differ in terms of the scope of the question
being explored, and the sophistication of the methods used to answer the question.
Research seeks to establish a universal rule; that an intervention would yield similar results
if applied to similar children and settings.

Box 4.3
Evaluations Tell You Whether the Program or Intervention Worked
Questions Answered by an Impact Evaluation

• Did the program accomplish its goals?

• What are the results?
• Is the program or intervention effective in addressing the problem as intended?
• How did the problem improve?
• How did the program or intervention bring about this improvement?
(Paulsen & Dailey, 2002, pp. 2–3)

An example of a research question might be “Is individual planning using Super’s

Theory of Career Development effective at increasing career decision self-efficacy?” In
contrast, evaluation seeks to assess the impact of a program or intervention on students in a
particular setting and is not intended to generalize the findings beyond that setting or
group of students. An example of a question used in evaluation might be “Is an anger
management group conducted by the school counselor in Liberty Middle School effective
for a group of six students with externalizing behaviors (e.g., physical and verbal aggression,

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defiance)?” Because there is no attempt to extend the findings of evaluation beyond the
particular setting, evaluation typically does not use some of the design methods associated
with research, such as random assignment, follow-up testing, numerous measurements of
outcomes, and use of valid and reliable measurements. As well-stated by Dimmitt (2009),
evaluation seeks to answer “Did this program or intervention make a difference for these
kids in this setting?” (p. 398).

Data-Driven Decision-Making
Data-driven decision-making is related to the concept of evaluation but also has some
important differences. Evaluation, for example, can help determine the impact of an
intervention, which is sometimes referred to as summative or outcome evaluation (e.g.,
Dimmitt, 2009). In contrast, data-driven decision-making encompasses this function of
evaluation but also involves the use of data to identify the current and future needs of
students, assess the differential impact of interventions on different types of students, and
offer possible reasons for the causes of problems. Whereas evaluation provides data
regarding the effectiveness of an intervention, data-driven decision-making can be used in
the planning stage to make more informed decisions about what types of activities to
implement, with whom, and how, and also can be used during the process of
implementation to make mid-course corrections. Using data to design and modify an
intervention during the process of implementing the intervention is commonly referred to
as formative evaluation.

The ASCA National Model® (2012) and Evaluation

It can be argued that one of the most significant changes in the school counseling
profession in the most recent decades is the increased emphasis on using data. All four
components of the ASCA National Model® (2012) emphasize the use of data. While school
counselor educators have been collaborating with school counseling practitioners in
evaluating the empirical support for school counseling-related activities and the ASCA
National Model® (2012), the type of data required of school counseling practitioners
following the ASCA National Model® (2012) involves the use of evaluation and data-driven
decision making. While the effort to conduct SBR involves the use of complex research
designs and inferential statistics, such as Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), required for
generalization, data-driven decision-making and evaluation conducted by school counseling
practitioners is primarily comprised of descriptive data analysis, such as computing
averages, frequencies, percentages, etc.

Use of Data
Within the ASCA National Model® (2012), the use of data is listed as a management tool.
School counselors use data for a variety of purposes, including: tracking student progress,
identifying students who are having academic or behavior difficulties, evaluating the

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effectiveness of the components of the school counseling program, changing or modifying
the services provided to students, informing stakeholders about the effectiveness and
potential of the school counseling program, and providing guidance and justification for
additional resources.
Following NCLB’s (2002) mandate, school counselors examine disaggregated data to
identify potential barriers to learning, including access and equity issues, and to decrease
achievement and opportunity gaps. Disaggregated data involves comparing groups of
students on a data indicator. For example, a school counselor might compare the
percentages of students by race, gender, or socioeconomic (SES) status that are enrolled in
Advanced Placement courses to determine if there are inequities in opportunities. School
counselors may examine state achievement test data to determine if there are achievement
gaps by gender, race, SES status, or language spoken at home. School counselors may also
analyze behavioral data to explore whether there are differences between groups in rates of
attendance, suspension, discipline, substance use violations, homework completion, and
extracurricular participation.

School Data Profile

The School Data Profile is a tool within the Management component of the ASCA
National Model® (2012). The School Data Profile template identifies for school counselors
the important categories of data to collect, as schools may not report in an organized
fashion a wide array of data that is most relevant for the school counseling program. For
achievement indicators, school counselors are encouraged to collect disaggregated data on
rates of graduation, promotion and retention, and dropouts. Standardized test data often
includes the proficiency levels for the state achievement tests by subject area (e.g., reading,
math, science, etc.), the number of students at or above grade level for achievement tests
(e.g., Iowa Test of Basic Skills), and SAT/ACT and Advanced Placement (AP) exam scores.
Other academic indicators could be grade point average and enrollment in advanced
courses (e.g., AP, honors, International Baccalaureate, college preparation).
The School Data Profile also includes behavioral data for indicators that research has
identified as being related to academic achievement, which include the rates of discipline
referrals, suspension, substance use violations, attendance, course enrollment, postsecondary
education, homework completion, etc. Analysis of behavioral data may identity possible
reasons for low academic achievement or gaps in academic achievement. For example, a
high number of discipline referrals may indicate poor teacher-student relations, or gaps
between racial groups in terms of the number of discipline referrals may indicate a need for
enhanced training of staff. Low attendance or gaps between groups in attendance could be
due to various reasons, including difficulties in transportation, students’ difficulty in seeing
the importance of school for their future, etc. In summary, analysis of behavioral data can
help school counselors develop hypotheses regarding the reasons for low academic
achievement.
Collection of additional data can help further explore the likelihood of hypotheses.

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School counselors can collect and analyze data concerning the types of issues for which
students were referred for discipline. School counselors may conduct focus groups with
teachers, students, and additional stakeholders to obtain their perceptions and suggestions
for enhancing the functioning of the school. Whereas in past decades school counselors
would often conduct needs assessments, which involved surveying students, teachers,
parents, and other stakeholders regarding the focus of the school counseling program and
the services provided, today, the development of a school counseling program also includes
academic and behavioral data. The School Data Profile can identify potential areas for
intervention, and analysis of the data collected for the profile over time can be used to
identify the impact of the school counseling program.

Types of Data Within the ASCA National Model ® (2012)

The ASCA National Model® (2012) requires school counselors to collect three types of data:
process, perception, and outcome data, to evaluate the impact of the school counseling
program (see Figure 4.2). Process data involves a description of the types of activities
provided to whom. Examples of process data include:

• all the sixth grade students received four 45-minute classroom lessons on anger
management;
• twenty parents of eleventh grade students attended an hour-long presentation regarding
financial aid options;
• fifteen ninth grade students who failed two or more academic subjects in the preceding
marking period participated in a study skills group comprised of six 45-minute sessions.

Process data is generally considered a necessary but insufficient form of data because it does
not indicate how such activities impacted the participants.
Perception data refers to identifying how participants believe they have been impacted
by a school counseling activity. Perception data may take various forms. School counselors
may conduct pre- and post-tests of students receiving school counseling classroom lessons
and small group counseling sessions to assess changes in participants’ competencies,
attitudes or beliefs, or knowledge. Assessing changes in students’ perceived competence may
include comparing the average number of strategies student participants identified prior to
the start of a small group or series of school counseling classroom lessons on such topics as
study skills, conflict resolution, anger management, and bullying to the average number of
strategies identified by participating students upon completion of the school counseling
activity.

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Figure 4.2 Review of ASCA Model’s Types of Data. Reprinted with permission from ASCA. ASCA Working Group
(2012). ASCA model and creating pre-post surveys to measure perception data (ASK). Available online at
www.slideshare.net/shashley14/asca-perception-data-surveys.

Other variables that may be assessed in this fashion include the average number of
variables considered in exploring a college/university, opportunities for financial aid, the
number of careers within a career cluster, etc. An example of how the school counselor
could report such a finding would be: “Before the implementation of the classroom lessons
concerning selecting a college, students on average identified 1.4 variables they were
considering, whereas at post-test, the average number of variables identified by participating
students was 3.4.” Student competency may also be assessed in terms of self-efficacy, which
refers to students’ degree of confidence in completing a respective task/issue. Bandura
(2006), who created the term “self-efficacy,” identified a variety of self-efficacy beliefs
related to adolescents’ confidence in using social resources (e.g., “Get teachers to help me
when I get stuck on schoolwork”), engaging in self-regulated learning (e.g., “Get myself to
study when there are other interesting things to do”), relating to peers (e.g., “Work well in
a group”), and self-assertion (e.g., “Stand up for myself when I feel I am being treated
unfairly”). His assessment involves asking students to rate their confidence on a 100-point
scale in engaging in such tasks. Bandura’s self-efficacy scale could be used as both a screener
to identify students in need of more intensive services, and as an indicator of
change/progress.
School counselors can also measure students’ actual competencies, as opposed to

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students’ perceived competencies. For example, a school counselor might instruct eleventh
grade students in job interviewing skills in small group counseling sessions. The school
counselor could have the participating students conduct a simulated role-play of a job
interview, and could assess the students’ use of the job interview skills either by observing
the simulation or even analyzing a video of the simulation. The results could be reported as,
“80% of the eleventh grade students effectively used at least four of the job interview skills
taught at least at a standard level of performance within the mock job interview.” This
example implies that the school counselor developed a rubric that provided an explicit
description of performance at the standard and below the standard level (a rubric for a
mock job interview is provided in the below section on Authentic/performance assessment).
Other examples of what is referred to as performance-based assessments include assessing
students’ mastery of conflict resolution skills, using a college search tool such as the College
Board, use of a particular study skills method, and so forth.
Gains in knowledge can either include a pre-post assessment comparison or an
assessment at the completion of a school counseling activity. An example of a change in
knowledge using a pre- and post-assessment is: “Prior to the beginning of the three
classroom lessons on conflict resolution, 42% of the seventh grade students were able to
identify at least two strategies for effectively managing conflict, whereas at the completion
of the lessons, 81% of the participating students were able to identify at least two strategies
for effectively managing conflict.” An example of just using a post-assessment of knowledge
is: “At the completion of the six-session study skills group, 75% of students were able to
correctly identify the terms of the SQ3R reading method.”
Outcome data may be considered a more valid form of assessment by stakeholders
because it indicates how students’ participation in school counseling-related activities
(process data), and changes in attitudes, competencies, and knowledge (perception data),
impact performance on standardized achievement tests and behavioral indicators. The
ASCA National Model® (2012) distinguishes between outcome data related to achievement,
attendance, and behaviors; all three types of outcome data can be reported in various forms.
For example, Cook and Kaffenberger (2003) analyzed the impact of a counseling group
that used solution-focused theory with academically at-risk students by indicating the
percentage of participating students whose grade point average (GPA) decreased, remained
the same, or improved following the implementation of the group. Changes in the
graduation rate for an entire grade may be reported, or the graduation rate of students
participating in a school counseling-related activity, such as a group, can be compared to
the graduation rate for the rest of the grade.
The impact of school counseling activities on standardized tests, such as respective state
assessment tests or other standardized achievement tests, can be reported in terms of
changes in the average score or the percentage of students who achieved a rating at the
proficient or advanced levels. Some school counselors will track the progress of students for
whom they provided individual and group counseling, and compare their scores on
standardized achievement tests with those of students who did not receive school
counseling-related services. For example, a school counselor could compare the changes in

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the percentile rank (the percentage of scores in its frequency distribution that are the same
or lower) for students participating in a school counseling-led study skills group versus the
rest of the students in the grade. Such a comparison could be reported in the following
manner:

The average percentile rank for the reading scale of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS)
for the 16 students who participated in the eight-session study skills group increased
from the 38th percentile rank to the 44th percentile rank between grades 7 and 8,
whereas the rest of the grade decreased one percentile rank between grades 7 and 8.

Rates of attendance and discipline referrals can also be evaluated in terms of the changes in
their percentages for the entire grade, or changes in students who participated in a school
counseling-related program. Such changes can then be compared to the rest of the grade.
While the collection of data may at first appear to be time-consuming, much of the
standardized data is available to school counselors in the school’s student information
system.
In summary, while process and perception data may prove to be useful to school
counselors in assessing the impact of school counseling-related activities, stakeholders are
more likely to evaluate the school counseling program as a whole in terms of its ability to
impact outcome data. School counselors should use process and perception data to modify
school counseling activities, but should be mindful of the greater importance of
implementing activities that are likely to impact the outcome data.

Accountability Identification and Reporting

The ASCA National Model® (2012) has three types of results reports: curriculum, small-
group, and closing-the-gap. The ASCA National Model® (2012) identifies guiding questions
that assist school counselors in analyzing the results of these three types of action plans. The
next step in the accountability process is to share the results of the data analysis to
stakeholders in a manner that enables them to understand the impact of the school
counseling program. There are a number of different evaluation programs available to
school counselors for sharing results with stakeholders. MEASURE is one of the most
common approaches used by school counselors to analyze and disseminate the results of
school counseling activities (Stone & Dahir, 2010). This six-step process stands for:
Mission, Elements, Analyze, Stakeholders-Unite, Results, and Educate. One of the
examples we will use to elucidate the MEASURE process is an intervention to improve
students’ scores on a state’s academic achievement tests.
Step 1 – Mission. The goals and activities of the school counseling program should
readily relate to the academic mission of the school (Stone & Dahir, 2010). Academic
outcome indicators may include the following:

• scores on standardized tests such as the state achievement tests, SAT, or ACT;
• grades for a marking period or number of subjects passed; enrollment patterns in

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 Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and/or honors classes;
• rates regarding graduation, retention, promotion/dropout; acceptance to postsecondary
institutions; number of visits to postsecondary institutions;
• the number of variables identified in exploring a career/college.

School counseling activities/interventions that are not necessarily concerned with

promoting an academic behavior, such as in the case of a social skills group or series of
lessons on bullying prevention, should still use academic outcome indicators, in addition to
indicators that are more directly linked to the objectives of the activity. Outcome indicators
that may be relevant for school counseling-related interventions that concern
social/emotional development include:

• discipline referrals
• suspension rates
• attendance patterns
• participation rates in mediation
• extracurricular activity participation
• standardized measurements assessing a psychological construct, such as self-esteem, self-
efficacy, emotional intelligence, attitudes toward the use of violence, depression, anxiety,
happiness, etc.

Career-oriented activities could include such outcome indicators as:

• the number of variables students consider in selecting a career

• the ability to identify career clusters
• patterns in the use of a school’s career resource center, and standardized measures of
career maturity.

Step 2 – Elements. School improvement plan committees identify data elements that
can be analyzed to indicate areas for improvement, and one way school counselors can
demonstrate leadership is through participation in the school’s improvement plan (Stone &
Dahir, 2010). Important data elements can often be found on the district’s or school’s
report card, which are coordinated by the state as part of the requirements of the NCLB
(2002). Furthermore, school systems also collect and house academic and demographic
data, and often school counselors have ready access to such data as attendance/tardies,
discipline referrals, etc. Analysis of the data must include disaggregation of a variety of
categories that are required by NCLB (2002), which include, among other variables, race,
gender, economic disadvantage, special education, English as a Second Language (ESL)
learners, etc.
Step 3 – Analyze. This step involves analyzing the data elements to identify which areas
are in need of redress. A review of the disaggregated data may reveal gaps between
respective groups, thus indicating which group may require targeting in order to increase
the respective indicator. Table 4.1 provides the percentage of students at a fictitious school

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who scored either at the advanced or proficiency level of a state’s achievement test in math
and reading.
Table 4.1 Percentage of Students Scoring at the Proficient and Advanced Levels for Math
and Reading on the State Achievement Test at Jane Doe Elementary School
Grade Group Number of % Advanced & Proficient % Advanced or
Students in Math Proficient
in Reading
3 All students 70 71.4 68.6
3 Economically 58 70.0 67.1
disadvantaged
3 Male 36 80.5 69.4
3 Female 34 61.8 67.7
3 White 22 86.4 86.4
3 Black 40 67.5 75.0
4 All students 72 75.0 58.3
4 Economically 57 71.9 54.4
disadvantaged
4 Male 35 71.4 57.2
4 Female 37 78.3 59.4
4 White 19 84.2 68.4
4 Black 46 67.3 47.9
5 All students 71 63.4 71.8
5 Economically 53 60.3 66.0
disadvantaged
5 Male 37 67.5 70.3
5 Female 34 58.8 73.5
5 White 28 67.8 71.4
5 Black 36 52.8 72.2
In Table 4.1, there are achievement gaps between White and Black students, and
between grade levels. Data only provides a picture of what is occurring, but does not
explain the why, meaning the variables that may contribute to the achievement gap. Often,
contextual variables are important in helping to identify potential causes for such gaps. In
other words, the school counselor can ask herself or himself, what is it about the school
environment that may contribute to the existence of such disparities? For example, helpful
questions may include: Is there a lack of understanding of multiculturalism among the
staff? Are there differences in how staff relate to White vs. Black students? Are there
differences between the level of parental involvement between White and Black parents?
The identification of gaps often reveals that additional information may need to be
collected and analyzed. For example, the school counselor could attempt to determine if
there are differential patterns in discipline referrals between White and Black students, or in
the involvement of White vs. Black parents, etc.

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 While much of the statistical analysis conducted by school counselors can be done
through Microsoft Excel, there are a number of commercially available statistical programs
designed for school counselors. EZAnalyze enhances the capabilities of Microsoft Excel
through “point and click” functionality to determine percentage change and percentile
rank, and to disaggregate data. The Time Elapsed Analysis & Reporting System (TEARS) is a
Microsoft Excel add-in that automatically calculates the total amount of time school
counselors devote to particular activities, and the School Counselor Use of Time Analysis
(SCUTA) is a smartphone app that provides the same purpose.
Step 4 – Stakeholders-Unite. This step involves identifying stakeholders with whom to
collaborate in addressing the critical data elements, including both internal community
members (e.g., administrators, teachers, school board members), and external community
members (e.g., parents, faith-based groups). If possible, an existing school committee
should be used, such as the school improvement team, data team, grade team, etc. In
collaborating with the team of stakeholders, an action plan for improving the selected data
elements should be developed. The plan should include strategies, a timeline, and
responsibilities for achieving a selected target. A targeted goal of the data presented in Table
4.2 could be to increase by four percentile points the number of Black students who
achieve proficiency or advanced levels for the state’s math and reading achievement tests.
Table 4.2 Stakeholders-Unite Plan to Develop Strategies to Increase the State
Achievement Test Scores of All Students and Reduce the Achievement Gap between Black
and White Students
Start Date: September
End Date: June
Stakeholders Strategies
School – Implemented the Student Success Skills curriculum (Brigman & Webb,
Counselors 2004) in group counseling sessions to all fourth and fifth grade students
who did not achieve advanced or proficient levels in either math or
reading the previous year
– Arranged for presentations by community members, including African
American members, regarding how education assists them in their
postsecondary training and their current occupation
– Coordinated college pride week in which teachers and community
volunteers wore the t-shirts and baseball caps of their college in order to
help students understand the relationship between academic
achievement and college readiness
– Provided training for teachers in using solution-focused strategies in
consulting parents, including discussion of how to develop rapport with
African American parents, during in-service day
– Coordinated a mentoring/tutoring program with local colleges and
universities, training the mentors in active listening and tutoring skills
Teachers – Used standards-based instructional practices to improve skill attainment,

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 including inquiry and problem-solving, collaborative learning, continual
assessment embedded in instruction, and higher order questioning
(March, 2003)
– Used improvement-focused teacher evaluation systems, including
measuring effective teaching (setting expectations, using multiple
measures, and giving 33 to 50% of decision-making weight to student
achievement measures), ensuring high-quality data (monitoring validity,
ensuring reliability, and assuring accuracy), and investing in
improvement (making meaningful decisions, prioritizing support and
feedback, and using data for decisions at all levels; Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, 2013)
Administrators – Provided funding for training for the mentoring/tutoring program
– Reorganized several consultation rooms to provide space for the
mentoring/tutoring activities
Clerical Staff – Assisted in the scheduling of the mentoring/tutoring program
Business – Served as speakers regarding the importance of education for
Partners postsecondary training and occupations
Colleges and – Hosted “College for a Day” programs for fifth grade students– Provide
Universities mentors for African American students
Step 5 – Results. This step involves refining the action plan and strategies developed to
achieve the goal. The stakeholders must reconvene to identify what aspects of the plan they
believe were effective, based on analysis of the data, which interventions appear to be
effective, which require modification, and which should be discarded.
Step 6 – Educate. It is crucial that schools educate both internal and external
stakeholders about the results of school counseling-related activities in order to demonstrate
that school counselors and the school counseling program are vital contributors to the
school’s educational mission and to exhibit accountability. School counselors should use
visual depictions of data in the form of graphs and charts to clearly indicate the impact of
initiatives. For example, Figure 4.3 illustrates how the school counselor in the scenario
depicted in Tables 4.4 and 4.5 could use a bar graph to inform stakeholders of the results of
one of the school counseling activities identified in the Stakeholders-Unite Plan.

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Figure 4.3 Graph Showing the Change in the Percentile Rank on the Math and Reading State Achievement Tests for
the Fourth and Fifth Grade Students Who Received the Student Success Skills (SSS) Curriculum (Brigman
& Webb, 2004).

As Figure 4.3 reveals, the hypothetical application of the Student Success Skills (SSS)
curriculum to the fourth and fifth grade students who did not achieve a passing score on
either of the state’s math or reading achievement tests during the previous year appeared to
have a positive impact on the students’ scores. The school counselor in this hypothetical
situation could have also elected to report the mean of the student scores or the total
percentage of the grade who achieved a passing score. The results of such programs should
be listed on the school counseling program’s webpage, and may also be disseminated at
public forums such as school board and parent-teacher association (PTA) meetings and
newsletters.

Measuring the Impact of School Counseling Activities

As previously mentioned, the ASCA National Model® (2012) recommends that school
counselors use three types of data to measure the impact of school counseling activities:
process, perception, and outcome. With the advent of NCLB (2002), there are many forms
of outcome data that are available in schools, including standardized test scores, attendance
and graduation rates, and behavioral data, such as office discipline referrals and suspensions.
Outcome data is considered to be the most valid form of data and is thus the most likely to
influence stakeholders. School counselors should always attempt to use outcome data as
indicators for school counseling-related activities.
Outcome data can be regarded as summative data in that it is an indicator of the overall

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impact of a school counseling-related activity. However, educators also may wish to have
more immediate feedback to determine the effectiveness of a single lesson or a group
counseling session. Perception data, which in the ASCA National Model® (2012) is defined
as people’s perceptions regarding what they know or can do, can be seen as a type of
formative data in that it provides school counselors with information immediately
following a school counseling activity. School counselors can use perception data as an
indicator of the effectiveness of a school counseling activity, and can also use the data to
make mid-course adjustments. For example, if a school counselor is conducting three
lessons on career development with ninth grade students and after the first lesson
determines that only 32% of the students can name more than one career cluster, the
school counselor can cover the material in greater depth and use different and more
effective instructional activities for the next lesson. If a school counselor is conducting a
group on social skills, analysis of questions regarding the content knowledge students
received is likely to be more helpful in modifying the intervention.

Establishing Objectives
The first step of assessment is determining the objectives. Dimmitt, Carey, and Hatch
(2007) outline a series of questions that guide the development of objectives. The first
question is: What do we want students to know or be able to do following the school
counseling activity? The learning outcomes should be connected to ASCA’s Mindsets &
Behaviors for Student Success (2014) and state curriculum standards for academic content
areas. Students should be informed of the learning outcomes. The second question
determines how students’ learning can be measured. What do students currently know? Is
there data in the system that helps us determine what students know? What method(s) of
assessment should be used to indicate learning?

Common Methods of Assessment used by School Counselors

There are many methods that can be used to measure student learning. This section
explores some of the more common methods used by school counselors.
Existing assessment tools. Increasingly, commercially available curricula include
assessments, but they are not necessarily well developed and may need to be revised to
match the developmental level and/or language capabilities of the students (Dimmitt et al.,
2007). Although many school counselors do not currently use standardized measurements,
other than the academic and behavioral measurements that are used by schools, the
increased emphasis on accountability suggests that at some point, standard practice will
involve the more frequent use of objective measurements for school counseling-specific
activities. For example, school counselors may regularly use a standardized measurement of
career development, such as the Career Decision-Making System-Revised (O’Shea &
Harrington, 2003), or the Young Adult Social Behavior Scale (YASB; Crothers, Schreiber,
Field, & Kolbert, 2009) to measure changes in students’ use of social and relational
aggression.

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 Scales. Likert-type scales, which assess agreement (5 = strongly agree) or disagreement (1
= strongly disagree) on a 4- or 5-point scale, are commonly used.

Box 4.4
Did you know?
The Likert scale is named after its inventor, Rensis Likert, who developed it during his
doctoral research. Likert demonstrated, with empirical comparisons, that his “much
simpler method (asking the respondent to place himself on a scale of favor/disfavor with
a neutral midpoint) gave results very similar to those of the much more cumbersome
(though more theoretically elegant) Thurstone procedure (based on the psychophysical
method of equal-appearing intervals)” (Kish, 1982, p. 124).

Bandura (2006) recommends the measurement of self-efficacy, which refers to people’s

perceptions of their ability to perform a task, as self-efficacy has been found to be a fairly
reliable indicator of performance. Bandura (2006) has developed self-efficacy questions for
a variety of domains, and Likert-scale questions can be used to assess these self-efficacy
domains. One domain is self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, which has such assessments
as, “I feel confident that I can finish my homework assignment by the deadline,” and, “I
feel confident that I can arrange a place to study without distractions.” Example questions
for the domain of social self-efficacy include, “I feel confident that I can work well in a
group,” and, “I feel confident that I can make and keep friends of the opposite sex.”
A different type of scale is response choice, in which the scale items include all of the
possible range of answers. Dimmitt et al. (2007) provide the following example of a
response choice question: “How much time, on average, do you spend on homework every
day?” (p. 122). The choices for this question include: “1: More than 2 hours,” “2: Between
1–2 hours,” “3: Between 30 minutes and 1 hour,” “4: Less than 30 minutes, more than
none,” and “5: none” (p. 122).
Some important guidelines should be used when developing surveys that employ scales.
In order to maintain students’ attention and increase the likelihood that they will complete
the survey and future surveys, surveys should use the least number of questions to obtain
the information that is sought. The questions must be age-appropriate. Surveys for
kindergarten through second grade students should use a two- or three-point scale
involving visuals for the response choices: a frowning face for no, a smiling face for yes, and
a confused face for not sure. Surveys should use parallel language and response choices as
much as possible. Other common problems in survey construction involve questions that
include more than two issues, which are referred to as “double-barreled questions.” The
following is an example of a double-barreled question: Identify if you agree or disagree with
the following statement: “My friends and I have an equal amount of control in our
relationships. I sometimes talk about other people when I’m angry with them but that
doesn’t happen often.” This question should be separated to make two questions. Survey
designers should have colleagues and students of the age group who will receive the survey

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review it to assess the reading level and clarity of the questions.
Authentic/performance assessment. Authentic or performance-based assessments
involve having students apply acquired knowledge, often referred to as skill development
(Dimmitt et al., 2007). It can be argued that having students apply knowledge is a more
valid form of assessment than assessments that merely ask students to identify a correct
answer or assess students’ ability in using newly acquired knowledge. Dimmitt et al. (2007)
provide the following examples of skill-based assessment that may be relevant for school
counseling activities: completing a job application, financial aid form, or a four-year plan of
study; calculating grade point average, portfolios, PowerPoint or audiovisual presentations
of information students have learned in their career exploration; and using their
assignment/agenda planner. Other authentic assessments include various types of role-
playing (e.g., job interview, using communication skills for negotiating conflict) and uses of
technology (e.g., using at least three variables in a search engine to learn about colleges,
etc.). The difficulty with authentic assessments is that student performance must be rated,
typically through the use of a rubric, and the rating process and the development of the
rubric require a significant time investment. Table 4.3 provides an example of a rubric for a
performance assessment of responding to job interview questions.
Table 4.3 Rubric for Job Interview Performance
Question/Indicator Below the Approaching the Meets the standard Exceeds the standard
standard standard
Talks about Does not Mentions several Mentions at leastMentions at least
strengths and mention any strengths/interests two two
interests strengths/interests but they are not strengths/interests
strengths/interests
directly related to and they are related
that are related to
the job/duty to the job/duty the job/duty and
provides examples of
strengths/interests
Explains how they Fails to answer Identifies a Identifies at least Identifies at least
would deal with the question strategy/ two two relevant
customers approach but strategies/approaches strategies/approaches
they are not that are appropriate and provides an
appropriate to the to the job/duty example of how they
job/duty would apply
Gives an example Fails to answer Example Provides at least two Provides at least two
of a time they the question provided is not relevant examples relevant examples
worked well with highly related to and relates the
others/ “team job/duty examples to
player” strengths/interests
Communication Failed to use oral Used effective Used effective Used effective
skills communication communication communication communication
skills (e.g., clear skills (e.g., clear skills (e.g., clear skills (e.g., clear

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 speech) or speech) or speech) and effective speech) or effective
effective body effective body body language (e.g., body language (e.g.,
language (e.g., language (e.g., intermittent eye intermittent eye
intermittent eye intermittent eye contact, faced contact, faced
contact, faced contact, faced interviewer, interviewer,
interviewer, interviewer, appropriate posture) appropriate posture)
appropriate appropriate and also
posture) posture) demonstrated active
listening skills (e.g.,
paraphrased
interview, asked
open-ended
questions)
Multiple-choice questions. The advantages of using multiple-choice questions are that
they are easy to score and they allow for ready pre-post-test comparisons. However, one of
the challenges with constructing multiple-choice questions that are to be used for
measuring change between the pre- and post-test is achieving an appropriate level of
difficulty. The questions should not be so obvious as to enable most students to answer the
question correctly prior to the lesson. The questions must also be directly connected to the
instruction. Multiple-choice questions can be designed to assess factual knowledge or the
ability to apply knowledge. An example of a factual-based multiple-choice question would
be asking students to identify how many credits they need to graduate from high school,
the different types of financial aid available for postsecondary education, or the definition
of what constitutes a college preparatory course (Dimmitt et al., 2007). While
performance-authentic based assessment may be a more valid way to measure students’
mastery of a skill, multiple-choice questions can also attempt to assess students’ ability to
recognize the accurate application of concepts, skills, etc. Examples of application-based
multiple-choice questions include identifying an example of the use of a particular study
skill or anger management technique. Application-based multiple-choice questions do not
ensure that the student will use the skill or method but at least they assess students’ ability
to identify accurate examples of the application of the skill or method. In Table 4.4, sample
learning goals, the related Behavior Standards from ASCA’s Mindsets & Behaviors (2014),
and corresponding pre- and post-test questions are provided.
Table 4.4 Sample Learning Goals and Related Pre- and Post-questions
1. Learning Goal Students will understand the strategies of effective communication in
(sixth working as a group member.
grade)ASCA Uses effective oral and written communication skills and listening
Behavior skills. (SS-1)
StandardQuestion Which of the following is the correct definition of paraphrasing?
a. Apologizing

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 b. Telling a person how to think/feel about something
c. Stating back to another person in your own words what you believe
another person has said*
2. Learning Goal Students will learn the SSCD method of learning new vocabulary
(eighth grade) while reading.
ASCA Behavior Use time-management, organization, and study skills (LS-3)
Standard
Question When encountering a new word, Jennifer attempts to understand the
meaning of the word by looking for clues in the surrounding passages.
In the Sound, Structure, Context, and Dictionary (SSCD) method of
learning new vocabulary while reading, this is an example of which of
the following?
a. Sound
b. Structure
c. Context*
d. Dictionary
3. Learning Goal Students will learn to use the SMART goal format in setting goals.
(sixth grade)
ASCA Behavior Identify long- and short-term academic, career and social/emotional
Standard goals (LS-7)
Question Which of the following is an example of a goal that is specific,
measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART)?
a. I will increase my grade in Language Arts from an “C” to a “B” for
the next marking period.*
b. I will get better grades.
c. All my grades will increase from “Ds” to “As” for the next marking
period.
4. Learning Goal Students will know how to think rationally to manage their anger.
(ninth grade)
ASCA Behavior Demonstrate self-discipline and self-control (SMS-2)
Standard
Question Which of the following is an example of replacing self-talk with more
rational self-talk?
a. I cannot believe my sister, she always takes my clothes, and never
thinks of what I want.
b. My mother needs to solve this problem for us.
c. I am angry at my sister. I wish she did not borrow my shirt when I
planned to wear it today. I wonder if she is mad about me borrowing
her shirt last week?*
d. My sister needs to never come in my room again.
5. Learning Goal Students will learn cognitive and behavioral self-motivation strategies.
(ninth grade)

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ASCA Behavior Demonstrate ability to delay immediate gratification for long-term
Standard rewards
Question Which of the following is an example of the use of a self-reinforcement
strategy?
a. Miguel helps Jennifer with her homework.
b. Miguel always completes his homework at the library.
c. Miguel starts his homework after watching television for several
hours.
d. After Miguel completes his math homework, he responds to texts
for 15 minutes before starting his foreign language homework.*

The School Counselor’s Role in Accountability within School-wide Positive

Behavioral Intervention and Support (SWPBIS)
As discussed in Chapter 1: History and Trends in the School Counseling Profession and
Chapter 12: Helping Students with Exceptionalities, schools are increasingly implementing
Response to Intervention (RtI) to identify and remediate academic and behavioral deficits.
While the role of school counselors in addressing academic deficits in the RtI model is
unclear, it is evident that school counselors can play a vital role in the behavioral domain of
RtI. The behavioral component of RtI is referred to as SWPBIS. In order to be viewed as
valuable members of the school behavior team, school counselors must use data to
contribute to the data-driven decision-making process in RtI and SWPBIS (Gruman &
Hoelzen, 2011). This section examines some of the different approaches for school
counselors in collecting student behavioral data.

Universal Screens
In SWPBIS, data must be collected at the universal level in order to determine the
effectiveness of the school’s approach to ensuring that students meet behavioral
expectations, and to identify students who may be in need of additional services. Some
commonly used assessment methods at the universal level include office discipline referrals
(ODRs) and multiple-gate screening systems (Kalberg, Lane, & Menzies, 2010).
Office discipline referrals (ODRs). An ODR is a checklist of behavioral concerns that
school personnel use to refer a student for violation of a school’s code of conduct. Many
schools input ODR information into the student information system, which a school
counselor can access to determine which students have been receiving a large number of
infractions (Gruman & Hoelzen, 2011). The data can be useful for developing a list for the
school behavioral team and identifying systems-wide trends. However, ODRs are not used
to monitor individual student progress for several reasons. First, ODRs generally do not
have a high degree of reliability, as teachers often have different expectations for student
behavior, refer students inconsistently, and their referrals may be influenced by cultural bias
(Shores, 2009). Second, while ODRs have been found to be a reliable indicator of
externalizing problem behaviors (McIntosh, Campbell, Carter, Russell, & Zumbo, 2009),

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defined as disruptive, aggressive, and defiant behaviors, they are not effective in identifying
students who may be experiencing internalizing behaviors, which include extreme shyness,
anxiety, withdrawal, and depressive symptoms.
Multiple-gate universal screening. Multiple-gate universal screening involves several
steps of assessments. The first step in the assessment process is the use of a broad screener to
identify at-risk students, whether it be for academic, behavioral, or emotional difficulties.
Those students who are identified as being at risk then receive a more intensive, reliable
assessment. There are a number of commercially available multiple-gate universal screening
programs that are considered psychometrically sound. At the elementary and middle/junior
high school levels, screening programs are typically used to identify students who exhibit
internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Kalberg et al., 2010). At the high school level,
screening procedures such as Signs of Suicide (Aseltine & DeMartino, 2004) have been used
to identify suicide risk.
Maloney’s (2015) use of a multiple-gate screening procedure in the four elementary
schools in Hempfield Area School District (Pennsylvania) will be described as an example
of the multiple-gate assessment process and the role of school counselors in providing
services to students who are identified through this process. In the first stage of the
assessment process, teachers use the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD;
Walker & Severson, 1992) to rank all students for internalizing and externalizing behaviors.
The behavior of the three students who receive the highest ratings for internalizing and
externalizing behaviors are then measured using the Walker Assessment Scale/Walker Survey
Instrument (WAS/WSI; Walker & McConnell, 1988). The third gate in the Hempfield
Area School District involves a review of data in the following areas over a nine-week
period: office disciplinary referrals (two or more), non-emergency visits to the nurse (four
or more), attendance (six or more absences), and behavior grades on the most recent report
card (25% of scores indicate “needs improvement”). Students who receive the threshold
score on the WAS/WSI, and who meet at least one other of the criteria listed above, are
then referred to Tier 2 intervention.
If the parent provided consent, students in the Tier 2 intervention participated in the
Behavior Education Program (BEP), which is also known as Check-In/Check-Out (CICO).
In CICO, students receive daily monitoring and feedback through the use of a daily
behavior report card (DBRC) to assess students’ progress in meeting the school-wide
expectations for Tier 1. Each morning, the student “checks-in” with his or her assigned
adult facilitator, then takes the DBRC to each class and receives feedback and
reinforcement from the teacher using a point system. At the conclusion of the school day,
the student “checks-out” with his or her adult facilitator and takes the form home to be
reviewed by a parent/guardian (Crone, Hawken, & Horner, 2010). In the Hempfield Area
School District elementary schools, the school counselor is the students’ assigned CICO
adult facilitator.
Maloney (2015) conducted a study comparing the effectiveness of BEP/CICO to small
group social skills training, which is another commonly used Tier 2 intervention for
students exhibiting behavioral deficits. Students who were identified through the multiple-

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gate screening procedure were randomly assigned to either the BEP/CICO program or a
social skills training group that used the Strong Kids Curriculum (Merrell, Carrizales,
Feuerborn, Gueldner, & Tran, 2007). The Strong Kids Curriculum is designed to promote
students’ social and emotional competence, and the topics of the curriculum include:
understanding feelings, managing anger and stress, understanding others’ feelings, clear and
positive thinking, problem-solving. The students assigned to the Strong Kids Curriculum
met once a week with their school counselor for thirty-minute sessions over an eight-week
period. In each session, previous skills were reviewed, after which the students role-played
new skills.
Students in both the BEP/CICO group and the Strong Kids Curriculum social skills
training group showed significant behavioral improvements upon completion of the
program (Maloney, 2015). At a four-month follow-up, students who received the social
skills training showed continued improvement from the post-test, and outperformed the
students who received the BEP/CICO, whose behavioral gains were maintained but did not
increase from the initial post-test. Students who were identified as those with externalizing
behavior problems exhibited greater behavioral gains than those with internalizing behavior
problems at the four-month follow-up point. The school counselors reported that they
perceived the BEP/CICO and Strong Kids Curriculum social skills training group to be
programs that could be feasibly implemented within the school setting and were within the
scope of their role as school counselors. For the BEP/CICO, the four school counselors
achieved an average fidelity rating of 84.5%, with 80% being considered an acceptable
rating (Horner et al., 2004). For the Strong Kids Curriculum, the school counselors averaged
a 95.4% satisfaction rating, again compared to an 80% target.

Observation Methods
Gruman and Hoelzen (2011) encourage school counselors to use behavioral observations to
determine the effectiveness of services provided within SWPBIS. Anecdotal and interval
observations can be used to identify the severity of a child’s problem; communicate with
school personnel, parents, and any external professionals assisting the child; and assess
changes following the implementation of an intervention.
Anecdotal observations. In anecdotal observations of behavior, an observer records all
the behaviors and interactions that occur during a specified period of time. A “time-stamp”
is used to note behavioral changes by the student or environment changes.

Box 4.5
Anecdotal observations
8:45 Listening attentively to other students as they presented their book reports.
9:20 Talked out (“This sucks”) while doing morning seat work in which there was no
clear purpose to the seat work. John’s friend Tom laughed. John was verbally
redirected by the teacher, and then received a warning that he would receive a

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 time out if he continued the behavior.
9:55 Shouted out to his classmate Mike while lining up for the next class, which got
Mike’s attention. He was verbally redirected by the teacher.
10:10 Fell out of his chair while doing seat work. Mike looked over at him. He was
verbally redirected by the teacher and the teacher stood by him for five minutes
reading with him and going over the directions.
10:20 The class started a reading assignment, but he refused. His peers and the teacher
ignored him.
10:30 He dumped his books on the floor and swore. Tom looked over at John. He
received a time out for five minutes.
10:45 Paying attention while teacher showed a video on dinosaurs.

Anecdotal observations are used in Functional Behavioral Analysis (FBA) to identify the
Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) links associated with a child’s behavior, which
may indicate environmental contributions of peers or a teacher to a child’s problematic
behavior. Limitations of anecdotal observations include difficulty in quantifying and
sharing the data with others, and time-intensiveness.
Interval observations. Interval observations assess the frequency of specific student
behaviors associated with academic achievement (e.g., inattention, disorganization,
attention-seeking). Interval observations are objective and more readily understood by
parents, teachers, etc. In order to conduct an interval observation, the observer chooses
times when the class will be involved in individual or small group tasks. The observer tallies
behavior for the target student and a same-gender peer on an established interval schedule.
At each time point, the observer selects behaviors from an established list of behaviors (e.g.,
on-task, off-task, out-of-seat, talk out). Usually, several observations are conducted and data
are analyzed to determine the behavioral “average.” For example, if an observer uses a
twenty-second interval and records data for ten minutes for four different observations, the
data set would yield 120 data points for both the target and comparison students. The data
points are then graphed and percentages can be shared with team members (see Figure 4.4).

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 Figure 4.4 Interval Observation Data Comparing John’s On-Task Behavior to a Composite of Selected Peers’ On-
Task Behavior Measured at Different Points in the Intervention Process. Each Data Point Represents 120
Intervals Collected in 20 Minutes of Classroom Observations. Intervention = Behavioural Modification
Point Card Implemented; S/H Report = School-Home Report Intervention.

Summary
The use of data-driven decision-making to demonstrate accountability has irrevocably
modified education. Historically, school counselors have avoided measuring the impact of
their activities and programs, often due to a belief that the multifaceted and ambiguous role
of the school counselor did not lend itself to program evaluation. However, as politicians
and the public challenge educators to demonstrate the impact of their efforts, school
counselors no longer have the luxury of standing along the sidelines. School counselors
must understand and meet these new expectations head on.
Recently, a school counselor explained to one of the authors his belief that the ASCA
National Model® (2012) was unrealistic. This school counselor stated that his job is to have
an open door policy, in which he is always available for any student’s immediate need. He
proudly recounted how he had helped a boy find his retainer, which he had accidentally
discarded. He also appeared to be proud of the fact that he did not collect or analyze data.
While the school counselor’s retelling of helping the boy find his retainer may appear
compelling, school counselors must understand that such stories are not likely to have
much impact if the school board is seeking to reduce the district budget by trimming
school personnel who do not have a clear record of effectiveness.

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 Chapter Five
School Counseling Core
Curriculum

Box 5.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
3.b Design and evaluation of school counseling programs
3.c Core curriculum design, lesson plan development, classroom management
strategies, and differentiated instructional strategies
3.d Interventions to promote academic development
3.l Techniques to foster collaboration within schools
3.n Use of accountability data to inform decision-making

The ASCA National Model® (2012) encourages school counselors to utilize the classroom
as an effective and time-efficient method of delivery for a comprehensive, developmental
school-counseling curriculum. A school counselor who teaches school counseling
curriculum lessons assists the teacher in classroom management, helps to enhance social
skills in students, delivers information to promote students’ career and college readiness,
and encourages the use of learning strategies to improve students’ academic achievement
(Akos, Cockman, & Strickland, 2007).
Obtaining proficiency in conducting school counseling lessons is a difficult,
developmental process, as there are many layers of competence, from curriculum
development to classroom management, which are necessary for successful teaching of these
skills. In this chapter, a review of the literature regarding school counseling curricula and
the value of this type of curriculum delivery will be provided. The creation of a
developmentally appropriate school counseling curriculum will be discussed with
consideration to the scope and sequence of lessons, the vertical and horizontal articulation
of the curriculum, and differentiated classroom strategies. Teaching skills and strategies for
planning and developing goals and objectives for lesson plans will be offered along with
classroom management techniques, methods for collaboration with teachers, and examples
of a developmental curriculum. Marzano’s (2007) high-yield instructional strategies will
also be explored.
Referring to Chapter 1, in which we discussed the history of school counseling, it is
clear that the roots of school counseling developed from the teaching profession. The

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establishment of the school counseling profession owes much to the teachers who were
asked to expand their classroom services to deliver vocational and career guidance to their
students. However, it soon became apparent that removing teachers from the classroom to
deliver vocational and career information was neither effective for the students nor an
appropriate use of teachers’ time in light of the competing tasks required for completion.
Furthermore, the need for more intensive professional training beyond vocational
knowledge for school counseling became more evident as the value of this position was
realized.
Despite the beginnings of school counseling, which relied on teachers for service
delivery, the profession has moved away from requiring a teaching certification as a
prerequisite to the Master’s-level training in school counseling. Currently, only seven states
continue to mandate prior teaching experience as a condition for school counseling
certification (ASCA, 2014a).

Box 5.2
Did you know?
As of 2015, the states that still require teacher certification are Kansas, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, and Texas.

Much of the research on prior teaching experience as a necessity for a school counseling
certification suggests that having teaching experience neither helps nor hinders the
effectiveness of a professional school counselor (Peterson, Goodman, Keller, & McCauley,
2004; Stein & DeBerard, 2010). Interestingly, Baker (1994) found that teaching
experience may actually be a detriment to becoming an effective school counselor because
of the potential preconceived and entrenched mindsets of those with teaching experience.
Despite the fact that prior teaching experience does not appear to be associated with
performance as a school counselor, all school counselors need to be adept in delivering the
school counseling curriculum, developing effective curricula, and evaluating the results of
prevention or intervention approaches. “It is widely accepted that school counseling
classroom lessons remains critical for a developmental, sequential and systemic school
counseling program. An implicit assumption of school counseling classroom lessons has
been that it is an effective way to impact student development” (Akos et al., 2007, p. 445).

Benefits of School Counseling Core Curriculum

Currently, the amount of empirical research regarding the effectiveness of the school
counseling core curriculum is relatively small, but the obligation to effectively and
efficiently meet the needs of students in the academic, career, and social/emotional domains
persists. Therefore, despite the paucity of empirical endorsement for the effectiveness of the
school counseling core curriculum, school counselors must be able to deliver such lessons.
Whiston, Tai, Rahardja, and Eder’s (2011) meta-analysis of school counseling outcome

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research revealed that school counseling curriculum lessons had a statistically significant
and small to moderate impact on students, and that there was some evidence that school
counseling lessons yielded a larger effect than did responsive services, which includes
individual and group counseling and crisis response.
Lapan, Gysbers, Hughey, and Arni (1993) found that schools with a fully implemented
school counseling program, including school counseling lessons, demonstrated higher
grades, a more positive school climate, and better preparation of its students for the future.
Sink (2005) asserts that school counseling lessons provide students with a number of
opportunities for social development, as students hear others’ opinions and learn to
problem-solve and experiment with new behaviors. “Large group guidance is one way to
provide opportunities for students to participate meaningfully in discussion about
important life skills and for counselors to model caring relationships and to demonstrate
that they expect students to achieve and succeed” (Sink, 2005, p. 194).
With the many documented positive influences from school counseling lessons, it may
be hard to imagine why more school counselors do not take advantage of this efficient way
of delivering prevention and intervention curricula. Reportedly, one of the major
impediments to delivering a school counseling curriculum is the prodigious focus upon
teacher accountability from the state and nationally required assessments. Instructional time
has become increasingly precious; the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2002) and other
state and national assessments contribute to teachers’ reluctance to lose any of their
instructional time with their students. However, with the inception of the Common Core
Student Standards (National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School
Officers, 2010), school counselors have a renewed opportunity to become active members
in this curriculum integration as the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (2014b)
is aligned with the Common Core standards.
This “crosswalking” of standards may aid in the collaboration efforts between classroom
teachers and school counselors. An example of such integration could include a
collaborative activity with the English teacher who uses Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in
his or her curriculum. The classroom teacher might explain the content of the literature,
while the school counselor teaches conflict mediation between the two warring families of
this story. Another collaborative endeavor with the English department might include a
school counseling curriculum lesson about peer pressure when reading the novel, Lord of the
Flies. Yet another example is when the social studies teacher discusses Thomas Jefferson, the
school counselor can introduce the university system and how postsecondary choices apply
to the students. While there are multiple examples of teaching/counseling collaboration,
school counselors must actively cultivate such relationships with teachers. Teachers are
much less likely to refuse a school counseling curriculum lesson by the school counselors if
the information can be tied to their academic standards.

Marzano’s (2007) Evidence-based Teaching Strategies

A major initiative of the educational reform movement of the past several decades has been

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the identification and proliferation of evidence-based strategies in teaching. Although many
school counselors do not receive intensive training in providing instruction given that they
do not provide subject-based instruction, we urge school counselors to be familiar with the
research literature regarding evidence-based instructional strategies to be better prepared to
collaborate with educators and provide sound instruction. Through meta-analytic
procedures (an aggregation of multiple studies to identify an average effect size, quantifying
the magnitude of impact), Marzano (2007) identified high impact teaching strategies. In
the section that follows, Marzano’s (2007) high-yield instructional strategies are listed in
order from the strongest to the weakest in terms of their impact on students’ academic
achievement. School counselors are not likely to use all of these instructional strategies in a
single lesson, but will likely find that effective incorporation of at least several of the
strategies will enhance their instructional effectiveness.
Identifying similarities and differences. This strategy includes comparing, classifying,
creating metaphors, and creating analogies. Providing students with the opportunity to
divide a concept into its similar and dissimilar characteristics enables them to analyze and
solve complex problems by approaching them in a simpler way. An example of the way in
which a school counselor could incorporate this instructional strategy in delivering the
school counseling core curriculum is providing students with examples and non-examples
of the characteristics of effective goal setting while having the students develop hypotheses
about what principles are unique to the examples presented.
Summarizing and note-taking. This strategy involves teaching students how to engage
in effective summarization/note-taking, which involves eliminating unnecessary
information, replacing some information, rewriting, and analyzing information (please see
Chapter 9: Academic Development for further discussion regarding this topic).
Summarization and note-taking have been shown to increase student recall and are believed
to contribute to students’ deeper understanding of concepts. While school counselors
typically do not emphasize the use of note-taking given that they do not provide subject
instruction, they may utilize this strategy in asking students to consider what they learned
from the school counseling curriculum lesson, or asking them to name one thing they are
likely to use or do within the next week.
Reinforcing effort and providing recognition. Reinforcing effort refers to enhancing
students’ awareness that learning is difficult and requires sustained and active effort on the
part of the learner. Surprisingly, many younger students, who are more likely to have an
external locus of control, do not attribute learning to their own efforts. Instead, they see the
instructor as the person responsible for their learning. School counselors can help students
explore times that they have been successful and help them identify the various thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors they had that were associated with their success. Providing
recognition for these successes involves giving students symbolic or tangible rewards for
achievement. School counselors may provide students with tangible rewards for completing
activities associated with a lesson. For example, the school counselor could provide students
with a reward for completing a journal worksheet identifying how they replaced irrational
beliefs with more positive or rational beliefs. Also, school counselors can integrate both of

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these instructional strategies by teaching students to recognize and praise themselves for
their effort and achievements, which promotes students’ intrinsic motivation.
Homework and practice. Homework and practice provide students with the
opportunity to apply their learning, which is associated with deeper understanding. An
example of how a school counselor might utilize homework is provided in the discussion of
the previous instructional strategy. School counselors should always seek to provide
opportunities for practice when conducting school counseling lessons. For example, for a
lesson on communication skills, the school counselor could model the use of assertive
talking and listening, and then have students pair up and practice the specific assertiveness
skills taught. One student could be asked to think of a time when he or she was really angry
with someone, and practice communicating his or her anger in a respectful and assertive
manner. Correspondingly, the listener might play the person with whom the student is
angry, and focus on using paraphrasing to identify the student’s anger in a non-defensive
manner.
Nonlinguistic presentations. This includes the use of graphic presentations, mental
pictures, drawings, pictography, and kinesthetic activities. The use of nonlinguistic
presentations has been associated with increased brain activity. School counselors can
incorporate nonlinguistic activities in school counseling lessons by incorporating visuals in
PowerPoint presentations, having students create a picture or symbol of their
understanding of the material, and through the use of applied activities in the form of role-
playing, group problem-solving, etc.
Cooperative learning. The school counseling profession acknowledges the importance
of social interactions through the profession’s emphasis on social/emotional development.
School counselors can include cooperative learning in a variety of ways. They can divide the
class into small groups to work on scenario-based issues. For example, for a lesson in which
the school counselor seeks to promote rational thinking, students can be assigned to small
groups to identify the likely irrational thoughts of a depiction of a similar-aged student and
construct relevant positive or rational replacement thoughts. Students could be assigned to
role-play a job interview in which one student functions as the interviewer, one the
interviewee, and another student serves as an observer who evaluates the interviewees’
ability to use specified interview skills. Importantly, the extant research suggests that when
creating groups, it is important to instruct students regarding the expected roles of group
members and the expectations of the group work.
Setting objectives and providing feedback. Student achievement is enhanced when
students understand the objectives of the lesson, and school counselors should also explain
how the objectives are relevant for students’ development. Feedback from school counselors
varies somewhat from teacher feedback in that school counselors do not typically provide
formal grades. Rather, school counselor feedback is more likely to be connected to a specific
learning activity, and in such cases, the focus of feedback should be on the student’s
mastery of a task, such as communication skills, the use of the career search engine to locate
relevant information, etc. One school counselor developed a comprehensive way in which
to provide feedback through a Likert-scale rubric to assess students’ videotaped role-play of

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a job interview. As is the case with all kinds of feedback, such information should be
provided to students in a timely and constructive manner.
Generating and testing hypotheses. The generation and testing of hypotheses involves
the use of inductive and deductive reasoning through problem-solving. An example of a
school counselor’s use of this instructional strategy is helping students identify a social
problem, research the various causes of the social problem, and implement an applied
project to address one of the causes of the identified social problem. Given the long-term
nature of this instructional strategy, it may not be as applicable for school counselors, who
are not likely to conduct a long series of lessons.
Cues, questions, and advanced organizers. Cues may include identifying the objectives
for the lesson, emphasizing the most essential information, questions that help students
identify what they already know about the topic, and advanced organizers that help
students relate new information to what they already know. School counselors can
incorporate these strategies by asking students early in a lesson about their understanding
and experiences of a topic. For example, when teaching a lesson on assertive
communication, a school counselor may ask students about their experiences in receiving or
eliciting poor communication skills and what strategies they have developed for
maintaining good relationships with peers and family members.

Curriculum Development
Needs assessments. The curriculum for a school counseling program can be developed
through a number of ways, but the first step is to gear the lessons toward an identified
target based on the needs of the students. Asking for access to teachers’ classrooms should
be supported with data from a needs assessment. Gysbers and Henderson (2000)
recommend the delivery of a formalized needs assessment at the start of a comprehensive
program implementation. Not only will the needs assessment inform the school counselor
about what may be most helpful from the perception of the students, but it can also
effectively incorporate the perceptions of the parents and teachers. Alternative methods of
assessing needs in developing the school counseling core curriculum include examining
easily accessible data such as discipline referrals, attendance, and any type of archival data
(Sink, 2005). Additionally, Goodnough, Pérusse, and Erford (2007) suggest that the school
counseling core curriculum should be aligned with the school counseling program’s vision
and goals and should receive “the active commitment and involvement of administrators
and teachers” (p. 151).
The initial needs assessment should be comprehensive so that the school counseling core
curriculum may seek to address the needs of the entire student population. However,
ongoing, albeit less formal, assessments should also be conducted. Although the needs of
the parents, students, and faculty are of the upmost importance in program development,
the national, state, and local directives must also be considered in the implementation
process. For example, many states require that schools include bullying prevention
programming, and in many schools, the school counselor(s) coordinate this programming.

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The needs assessment provides the baseline information as the school counseling program is
developed, but the next consideration concerns the continuity and articulation of the
program from one grade to the next.
Scope and sequence articulation. School counselors must also attend to the content of
this curriculum. Although there are many types of commercial curricula available, school
administrators increasingly expect school counselors to show that the curriculum they
implement has empirical support. It is also important to implement a curriculum that
matches the school’s culture. Issues such as the cost of the curriculum, materials needed,
necessary training for delivery, effectiveness for the largest number of students, and
evaluation are additional considerations for a curriculum selection process. Conversely,
there are advantages to designing your own curriculum. Developing a curriculum may
more effectively match the needs of the particular classroom and teachers’ styles. It is
particularly important for self-designed curricula to be evaluated given their lack of
empirical support.
The breadth and depth of a curriculum is called the scope or horizontal articulation
(Goodnough et al., 2007; Sink, 2005). “Horizontal articulation establishes the connection
between the content of the counseling curriculum and content in other subject areas”
(Goodnough et al., 2007, p. 154). The sequence, or vertical articulation, is described as the
connection of information from one grade level to the next, so that all standards are
addressed at various and developmentally appropriate grade levels without redundancy or
gaps in the curriculum (Goodnough et al., 2007). When developing curricula,
consideration must be given to the learning profiles of the students, differentiation
techniques for effective learning, types of grouping, cultural awareness and sensitivity, and
methods of evaluation (Akos et al., 2007; Tomlinson, 2005).
The school counseling core curriculum should also be based in developmental theories,
such as Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Kohlberg’s theory of moral development,
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, and Super’s career developmental theory, to
name only a few. Developmental theories identify the likely developmental challenges and
issues confronting students at a particular age. As stated by Havighurst (1972):

A developmental task is a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of
the individual, successful achievement of which leads to his or her happiness and to
success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness in the individual,
disapproval by the society and difficulty with later tasks.
(Sink, 2005, p. 192)

For example, in terms of career development, elementary-age students are just learning
about the world of work that exists outside of their family and school life, and school
counselors promote elementary students’ awareness of the various careers that exist in
society. In contrast, in early adolescence, many students are developing the capacity for
formal operational thinking, and can begin to think more abstractly about who they are
and their interests and abilities. School counselors assist early adolescents with career
development by encouraging them to learn more about themselves and relate their growing

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self-awareness to possible careers, which is referred to as career exploration. High school
students are confronted with the task of developing a program of study that corresponds
with their career goals. This is referred to as career planning, which school counselors
facilitate by helping high school students learn about their postsecondary career and
educational options, creating a program of study that supports their future goals, and
identifying resources, such as financial aid, that will assist them in achieving their career
goals.
Another developmental issue that may be identified as the result of conducting a needs
assessment is the issue of sexual harassment. If the school counselor is using a
developmental approach, it would not be appropriate to present the issues of sexual assault
and dating violence to sixth graders. Rather, it would be age-appropriate to teach sixth
grade students the definition of sexual harassment, which includes the use of derogatory
slurs toward other students such as “gay,” “fag,” “slut,” and “ho.” For seventh graders,
school counseling lessons about the difference between flirting and hurting would be age-
appropriate, while eighth grade students would benefit from a lesson on dating violence
and the dating bill of rights (Williams & Riedo, 2008).
Curriculum development also includes how the school counseling lessons will be
delivered (Akos et al., 2007). The level of effectiveness of a school counseling curriculum
lesson is only as good as the method of delivery of the information to the students.
Goodnough et al. (2007) identify three basic methods of delivery and their advantages and
disadvantages (see Box 5.3).

Box 5.3
Goodnough et al.’s (2007) Three Basic Methods of Delivery and their Advantages and
Disadvantages
1. School counselor delivery
(a) Disadvantages: time-consuming for school counselor; school counselor may
lack confidence in teaching skills.
(b) Advantages: research and information are conveyed with passion and
knowledge of the subject matter by the school counselor; assessment and
delivery of information is standardized for each class; students get to know the
school counselor.
2. Classroom teacher delivery
(a) Disadvantages: consumes precious classroom time; may not be delivered with
the passion and urgency that would be provided by the school counselor; may
not be a priority for the teacher.
(b) Advantages: saves the counselor time; information is provided by someone the
students know.
3. Collaboration between both counseling and teacher delivery
(a) Disadvantages: both education professionals are tied up at the same time.
(b) Advantages: students see collaboration being modeled; students understand the

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 importance of the message.

Differentiation
Differentiation is the intentional planning for effective school counseling lessons that
incorporate students’ cognitive strengths and challenges (Goodnough et al., 2007;
Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2012). Learning styles, cultural diversity, English proficiency,
economic backgrounds, and individual students’ learning challenges must all be factored
into an effective classroom presentation; thus, there is a need for differentiated instruction
(Akos et al., 2007; Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2012). Differentiation is a pedagogical
philosophy that promotes a focus on the educational needs of the individual student.
Incorporating the strengths of students’ learning profiles, and using those strengths to
engage and inspire students to learn new materials can accomplish this.

Differentiation is an instructional approach and does not dictate curricula…The

primary goal of differentiation…is to help teachers develop and use multiple pathways
for students to learn whatever they teach, including content standards.
(Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2012, p. 2)

Akos et al. (2007) suggest that the basic tenants of differentiation are to focus on
addressing the learning needs of all students using a variety of learning strategies. These
tenants of differentiation are remarkably similar to the core beliefs of the school counseling
profession. Differentiated school counseling lessons operate within the belief that the
variety of interests, learning profiles, and readiness levels of the learners must be addressed
for a more equitable and effective delivery of the information. When developing school
counseling curriculum lessons, one strategy for the school counselor to employ is classroom
observation prior to the lesson, in order to assess the learning readiness and needs of the
students. The differentiated strategies for school counseling lessons are factored into the
lesson planning.
Assessment and evaluation. School counselors must evaluate the impact of lessons or
the series of lessons, which is commonly referred to as the unit, and such data should be
used for program improvement (Sink, 2005). Such evaluation has unfortunately been met
with resistance by many school counselors, as some argue that the type of soft skills
frequently focused upon in school counseling lessons are difficult to assess. However,
Goodnough et al. (2007) proclaim that this is an errant belief and arguably one of the
causes for professional school counselors often being excluded from important educational
decisions.
The assessment of classroom school counseling lessons should be driven by the following
principles:

• Tied to your stance on education: What importance does this lesson have for students’
behavior or performance?
• Driven by learning goals: Is what you are teaching consistent with what the students

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 learned?
• Systematic: Are you gathering data in a way that is accurate, fair, logical, and equitable?
• Tied to instruction: Work should begin at the planning stage as objectives are developed
and standards are addressed.
• Inclusive of the learner: This should be done with students not to students in an effort to
reflect on their own learning.
• Integrated into a manageable system: A method of collection should be implemented
that allows you to focus on student learning.(Guillaume, 2008)

Types of assessments for a school counseling curriculum lesson or unit may include the
following: a web-based assessment tool such as Poll Everywhere; a round, asking each
student to respond to a particular question or asking each student to say something new
that he or she learned; a brief written response to a question as an exit ticket from the
classroom; a board blitz, in which students come to the board and write the answers to the
questions; a gallery tour, where all the work done by the students is presented around the
room; role plays demonstrating the skills learned; journaling; and classroom students’
presentations (Guillaume, 2008; Williams, Lantz, & Noorulamin, 2008).

School Counseling Curriculum Lesson Planning and Strategies

Planning. Thorough lesson planning should be based on the data collected from the needs
assessment. If the data indicate a need for a prevention or intervention strategy that would
best be delivered through the school counseling core curriculum, the school counselor
should first review the literature to determine if there exists an evidence-based program for
the topic. The Center for School Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation
(CSCORE), What Works Clearinghouse, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMSHA) list on their websites the school-based programs that
they have identified as having empirical support. The ASCA website has a resource center
with a multitude of ideas and information. CSCORE concluded that there is strong
empirical support for the Second Step Violence Prevention Curriculum (Committee for
Children, 1997), which is designed to decrease violence through enhanced empathy and
social skills and through decreases in aggressive behaviors. The Panel deemed the evidence
to be promising for the Student Success Skills (SSS) curriculum (Brigman & Webb, 2005),
which is a group and school counseling curriculum approach to promoting metacognitive
social skills, and self-management skills. While there are many other resources that can
provide excellent school counseling lessons and curricula, the most important component
of any selection made by the school counselor is the evidence supporting the curriculum. If
there is not a lot of evidence, then develop an assessment tool and collect your own data. It
is important that school counselors can validate the impact of the school counseling core
curriculum.

Box 5.4

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 Suggested Proposal Planning Format
1. Identify the local and national data that indicate the need for the intervention.
2. Review and document the research literature that identifies effective interventions.
3. Crosswalk and align the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors (2014) with the educational
course in which this intervention might be presented.
4. Develop overarching unit goals and objectives.
5. Identify the baseline data that will be used to assess the lesson’s/unit’s effectiveness.
6. Present the proposal to the necessary stakeholders, advisory council, administrators,
and teachers for approval.

Developing goals and objectives for each lesson. Upon approval of the proposal for
the lessons, the school counselor will develop the specific goals and objectives for each
lesson. When the school counselor enters the classroom, it is of the upmost importance that
he or she has a plan for what students should know when they leave the classroom. These
are known as goals and objectives. Involving the classroom teacher in the development of
the goals and objectives can provide school counselors with valuable insights into this
process. The overarching goal for the entire unit, developed in the proposal, will be based
on what the school counselors want the students to know, to be able to do, and the
behaviors that will be demonstrated following the implementation of the unit. The goal
development is framed around the data from which the proposal was derived, and drives
the long-term planning of the lesson. Moreover, goals are typically divided into three
domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor (Guillaume, 2008).

Based on Bloom’s taxonomy, each domain has developmental levels:

Cognitive Domain
Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation

Affective Domain
Receiving, responding, valuing, organization, characterization

Psychomotor Domain
Imitation, manipulation, precision, articulation, naturalization

Goals are intended to be broad and general. These lofty aspirations which drive the long-
term planning, unlike objectives, are not intended to be measurable (Guillaume, 2008). A
suggestion for goal development from K-12 Classroom Guidance: A Primer for New
Professionals (Guillaume, 2008) includes:

Think about the broader contexts and issues; analyze what is already known by the
students; what are the hopes you have for the students; review standards in
consideration of the students; check vertical articulations and what is being currently
taught; examine materials.
(Guillaume, 2008, p. 84)

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An example of a goal: Students will value the importance of preventing sexual harassment.
The next level of lesson planning involves the development of the objectives or the
“doing” part of the goals. Mager (1997) explains that learning objectives help with the
selection of activities and procedures, achieving results, and in using time effectively. The
objectives state the outcome of the lessons, or as Mager (1997) puts it, “where you want the
students to end up.” An ABCD model of writing objectives has been developed by Erford
and McKechnie (2004). These authors integrated several different models of objective
writing in this ABCD model, which includes:

A) Audience; most objectives for school counselors will be directed toward the students,
so the objective will begin: “Students will…”
B) Behavior; what one expects the student to engage in or be able to think, solve, or do.
C) Conditions; explains when and how the behavior will be measured. For example,
“After watching a series of role plays, the students will be able to…”
D) Description of expected performance; the criterion for expected performance, or the
level of acceptable performance.
(Erford & McKechnie, 2004, p. 276)

When writing objectives, Guillaume (2008) suggests that the author should remain
focused on the intended outcomes and stay attuned to the skill or concept the students
should achieve, not the technique used to teach it. Additionally, Guillaume (2008)
encourages that “only the criteria and conditions that you will actually use” (p. 101) be
included in the writing of the objective. An example of an objective for the above-
mentioned goal on sexual harassment might be: After participating in a Hurting vs. Flirting
activity, students will be able to name two reasons a behavior might be considered sexual
harassment.
Selection of curriculum or activities. The selection of the curriculum and activities
should be connected to the strengths and learning readiness of the students. Lesson
materials are based on “understanding the learners’ interests, abilities, and needs, and based
on high expectations you place upon students to master the content – search out the
resources that will push all of your students forward” (Guillaume, 2008, p. 85). Using a
variety of differentiated learning strategies allows for all students to be able to learn in a way
that fits their learning style and helps keep them engaged. One way to differentiate
instructional activities is to incorporate various learning styles. A meta-analysis of
interventions using the Dunn and Dunn (1999) Learning Style Model, which is the most
researched learning style model, found that matching students’ learning style preferences
results in a moderate to large effect upon academic achievement and student attitudes
toward learning (Lovelace, 2005). See Box 5.5 for a description of Dunn and Dunn’s
Learning Style Model. The Learning Style Inventory has been found to be a reliable and
valid instrument for assessing students’ learning styles (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 2003).

Box 5.5

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 Dunn and Dunn’s (1999) Learning Style Model
1. Environmental characteristics (preferences for sounds vs. quiet, warm vs. low
temperatures, low vs. bright light, and formal vs. informal seating).
2. Emotional characteristics (need for breaks vs. persistence, high vs. low academic
motivation, conformity vs. non-conformity, internal vs. external need for structure).
3. Sociological preferences (working alone vs. in pairs or part of a team, with either an
authoritative or collegial adult).
4. Physiological characteristics (perceptual strengths [auditory, visual, tactual and
kinesthetic], time-of-day energy levels, and the need for nutrition and mobility).
5. Processing preferences (global/analytic, right/left, impulsive/reflective).

Dahir and Stone (2012) provide an example of a school counselor who, in collaboration
with a teacher, used activities to match several learning styles in conducting a lesson on
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad during Black History Month. For
students with a visual learning style, diagrams of the various paths for the Underground
Railroad were provided. To match students with a kinesthetic learning style, students
worked together in creating a skit of slaves escaping to the north. The school counselor
used a familiar example of the slaves’ wish to move to the north for a better life to the
situation faced by the many of the families from the Caribbean nations that comprise the
primary demographics of the respective school. The school counselor shared the results of
his administration of the Learning Style Inventory (Dunn et al., 2003) to a group of sixth
grade students with the students’ parents and teachers who collaborated in developing
teaching strategies to match the students’ learning styles. Most of the teachers and parents
agreed to develop a personalized student plan, and the teachers reported improved
academic achievement within several weeks.
School counselors should be thoughtful about planning instruction to accommodate the
strengths and needs of students with learning, emotional, or behavioral disabilities in the
classroom. Intervention practices that are associated with positive effects upon learning
include direct instruction, learning strategy instruction, and the use of a sequential,
simultaneous structured multi-sensory approach (Learning Disabilities Association of
America, n.d.). In using such interventions, some strategies that school counselors may find
to be useful in developing classroom lessons include repetition of information; chunking
information into smaller amounts; frequent probes to assess learning; timely, meaningful
feedback; the use of pictorial representations of information (e.g., graphics and diagrams);
well-designed intensive independent practice; modeling and prompting; and the use of
process questions such as, “Is this strategy helpful? Where else might you be able to use it?”
(Learning Disabilities Association of America, n.d.).
An overall approach that seems to be effective with diverse learners is the use of
scaffolding. The school counselor can begin a lesson using explicit instruction, in which he
or she is extensively directing the course and pace of instruction, and gradually encouraging
students to acquire the skill, increasingly approaching the goal of student-mediated
instruction (Learning Disabilities Association of America, n.d.). As students become more

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comfortable with the learning concepts, the school counselor can urge them to become
more independent and self-directed in their learning. An example of this may be in
teaching students to use study skills to improve their performance in assessments of their
learning. The school counselor can begin by explicitly teaching mnemonic strategies in
memorizing, for example, the cranial nerves, giving the students a sentence that represents
each nerve’s first initial (e.g., “OOOTTAFVGVAH” is “Oh, oh, oh, to touch and feel very
good velvet…ah, heaven” (Wang, Mukhtar, & Saenz, 2005). After the students have
understood the principle being used, they can be encouraged to develop mnemonics for
other hard-to-remember facts, such as the capital of each of the 50 states or the periodic
table of elements.
Lesson materials. Materials necessary for the delivery of the curriculum must be cost-
efficient and readily available for the lesson. These necessary materials should be assembled
prior to the lesson and not left to chance. For example, it is not a good use of educational
time to cut paper or manipulate some type of preparation for the lesson that could have
been done in advance. It is also not a wise practice to expect the teacher to have the
materials for the lesson, unless this was prearranged.
Lesson development. Before beginning the first lesson, the school counselor needs to
know the students’ current knowledge about the respective subject. This information can
be gleaned from a formalized pre-test, or it can be done through a classroom observation
prior to the lessons being taught, or teacher report. A pre-assessment can be done
informally by asking students questions or it can be done in a fun and inviting way by
using technology such as Poll Everywhere (www.polleverywhere.com), clickers, or some
other technology-based information source. Basing the lesson plan on what the students
already know will allow for more effective lesson delivery, will guide the lesson planning,
and will help keep students more engaged.
Walking into the classroom to tell students why they need to know this information will
not promote enthusiasm or engagement from the students. An attention-grabbing
introduction to the lesson or unit will be a valuable part of the first session. Students need
to understand why this information is being presented and how it will be applicable to
them. A creative introduction will help students engage in the lesson and minimize negative
behaviors. Suggestions include using music the students listen to, a story that catches their
attention, or a role-play that will be a model for students’ learning. An introduction to the
sexual harassment unit might be: “Why should students and faculty care about what sexual
harassment is?” After several answers, all of which may be correct, the school counselor can
indicate that the main reason is that sexual harassment is illegal! Statistics and percentages
of girls and boys who are sexually harassed daily will surprise the learners and help them to
gain interest in the topic. This introduction can include a guessing game comparing the
percentage of girls vs. boys of the respective age group who report having been sexually
harassed. The real answers are often surprising and alarming to the students and promotes
their interest in the topic.
After conducting an activity that captures students’ attention, the objectives and agenda
should be shared with them. Listing the objectives of the lesson on the board or reciting

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them to the students reinforces the intent of the lesson and how it will be measured.
Reviewing the agenda for the lesson helps students know what to prepare for and often
reduces their anxiety. As Dollarhide and Saginak (2012) suggest, a description of what the
lesson will entail also demonstrates respect for the learner. This informs the students about
the lesson so they can determine the amount of investment they will commit to it. This is
another reason why an engaging and interesting introduction to the unit or lesson is so
important. “Getting their agreement up front that what you’re presenting is meaningful,
interesting, or important will increase their attention and decrease distracting classroom
behavior” (Dollarhide & Saginak, 2012, p. 152).
The activities for the lesson should be thoroughly developed since students will often
sense an ill-prepared endeavor. Thorough development of the activities also assists more
novice school counselors to manage their understandable anxiety about presenting to a
class. School counselors may develop a script to organize their thinking and approach to the
lesson, but they should avoid reading from a script, as this may suggest to students that the
school counselor is anxious and may result in off-task behaviors. When developing step-by-
step delivery of the lesson, consider the small details. Planning of the simple details can
make or break a lesson, even how the school counselor assigns students to groups should be
considered beforehand. School counselors who have not decided upon how they will group
students may find that the most disruptive students wind up in the same group. Be creative
and unpredictable in the pairing or grouping, introductions, and assessments. An example
of pairing up students might be: Line up according to your birthday in one straight line
and take the first six students into one group, etc. Another aspect of the lesson delivery is
the arrangement of the room. School counselors must consider the type of arrangement
that would work best for the respective activity, the time necessary to arrange the room in
the preferred manner, and should also obtain the approval of the classroom teacher to make
such arrangements.
Activity selection. No matter the age of the students or audience, most learners do not
appreciate long “sit and get” methods of teaching, and this type of instruction is not
associated with student retention of information (Williams & Riedo, 2008). While lecture-
style instruction may be time-efficient and easier for the presenter, it also encourages passive
learning. A more interactive and inductive method of teaching engages the learner and
allows for more self-discovery. People typically learn best by doing (Kovalik & Olsen,
2005), rather than being directly told the information. Experiential learning has a longer
effect on information retention. The developmental skills of the learners are important to
consider in lesson planning. Consider: Are the students developmentally capable of doing
what is asked of them? Are the students capable of success with the selected activity? Time
is another consideration. Is there enough time for the planned activities and for effective
processing of the activities?
Debrief the activity. The point of an activity is not in the doing of the activity but in
the processing of what happened in the activity, the purpose of the activity, and the
application to real life (Williams & Riedo, 2008). Such processing increases the likelihood
that students will engage in transfer of learning, meaning that they will develop the skills,

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attitudes, and/or behaviors that they can apply to real-world contexts. Be sure to carefully
plan the debriefing questions in advance. This will help to alleviate the spontaneous and
distracting on-the-fly questions that may not promote the objective of the activity.
Furthermore, readers are encouraged to follow the debriefing process outlined in
Chapter 7: Group Counseling. There are three main types of debriefing questions. The
WHAT questions ask about the immediate experience: What just happened? Additionally,
the SO WHAT questions ask about the purpose of the activity: Why do you think we did
this activity? Finally, the NOW WHAT questions are about application and tying the
activity to the students’ own lives: How does the learning you just had in this activity apply
to your daily life? (Williams, Lantz, & Noorulamin, 2008). Each question may elicit a
number of responses.
Evaluation and assessment. There are many essential steps in lesson planning but the
core of the lesson is in the evaluation process. “Assessment supports us in our serious
responsibility to help all students learn rigorous content” (Guillaume, 2008, p. 174). This
component of lesson planning is vital for many reasons; not only does it allow for feedback
about the lesson but it also offers information about the effectiveness of the lesson or unit.
The evaluation informs the next steps and necessary accommodations for subsequent
lessons.
Unfortunately, many school counselors are reluctant to evaluate their programs because
of the perception that the lessons taught by school counselors are “soft skills,” such as self-
esteem, motivation, team-building, communication, and success, and are thus too hard to
measure. However, Erford and McKechnie (2004) admonish school counselors who argue
this stance; this conviction only serves to discredit the impact that school counseling
programs have on student success. Erford and McKechnie (2004) suggest that “the answer
to this dilemma, of course, is to teach what can be mastered and write the learning objective
in a way that mastery can be determined” (p. 275). While school counselors may not be
able to measure how students are motivated, they can measure the students’ ability to name
three ways to enhance their motivation.
At the conclusion of the lesson, the school counselor must assess the impact of the
lesson. This evaluation can include all three types of data collection identified in the ASCA
National Model® (2012). The school counselor can utilize process data, by documenting how
many students were involved in the lesson, the grade level, the length of the session, etc.
Perception data can be assessed through a survey either at the end of a single lesson or at the
end of the unit. An example of perception data includes the percentage of students who
report that they understand the definition of sexual harassment. The ASCA National Model®
(2012) identifies three types of outcome data: short-term, intermediate, and long-term. An
example of short-term outcome data for the sexual harassment lesson may be the change in
the percentage of students who successfully identified an example of sexual harassment at
pre- to post-test. The number of sexual harassment cases that have been reported a month
or more after the lessons would be considered intermediate outcome data. Long-term
outcome data could be noted through sexual harassment cases that occurred in the semester
following the implementation of the lessons.

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 There is a tendency for school counselors to experience frustration if data does not
indicate that the lesson/unit resulted in change. However, such a finding may not be a
cause for disappointment. A small adjustment to the lessons may be all that is required to
change the outcomes. The time of day that the lesson was delivered, or the age of the
students it was delivered to, may have an impact on the data. The emphasis is on the use of
data-driven decision-making for improvement of services and the program.
Table 5.1 Lesson Plan Example Format
Grade Level Indicate the grade of the class.
Classroom Delivered Indicate the teacher’s class.
Title of Lesson Indicate the title of the lesson.
Goal What is the overarching intent of the lesson/unit?
Objectives 2–3 items of what you want the students to be able to do at the
end of the lesson.
Standards Identify the standards being addressed and crosswalk the
standards with the subject standards if possible.
Materials What is needed for a successful lesson?
Introduction – Create a novel way in which to introduce this lesson. Get the
students interested.
– Review previous lesson if this is following the first lesson.
– Use some type of check-in procedure with the students,
depending on the time allotted.
Lesson Information Detailed description of what is in the lesson and how it will be
delivered will enhance the learning experience.
Activity/Experiential Learning by doing increases the students’ learning and allows
Component to the for the students to apply the activity to their own lives.
Lesson
Debrief Questions – Well-planned questions will draw the students to their own
conclusions and help them assess their own learning.
– “What?” – immediate questions
– “So what?” – purpose questions
– “Now what?” – application to life questions
Summarization and Review the lesson information and interest the students with
Closure the next lesson.
Differentiation Plan in advance the learning strategies necessary for all students
in the class.
Evaluation What type of evaluation process will address the question of
effectiveness?
Data Collection Indicate the procedures for collecting process, perception, and
outcome data.
Process Data How many students, grade level, etc.
Perception Data Exit ticket survey as students leave.

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Outcome Data How are students different as a result of this information?

Classroom Management
Many school counselors attempt to avoid the difficult dual relationship of disciplinarian
and counselor. As a classroom instructor, it is important that the school counselor has some
training, awareness, and skills in handling disruptions in the classroom. In the school
counseling lesson venue, it is important for the school counselor to support the classroom
teacher’s rules, but equally important is developing an approach for managing students’ off-
task behaviors while preserving their relationship with students.

Professional school counselors need to behave in such a way as to help students

understand that the responsibility for the classroom’s environment belongs to the
students, and the professional school counselors are not police officers present to
enforce oppressive rule.
(Goodnough et al., 2007, p. 150)

Interestingly, the primary difference between successful and unsuccessful behavior

managers is not the manner in which they handle discipline problems, but instead the
number of discipline problems they encounter, with the successful managers creating a
structured environment and managing behavioral antecedents to diminish the likelihood of
behavior problems ever occurring (Elliott, Witt, Kratochwill, & Stoiber, 2002). In an effort
to avoid potential behavior problems, one of the first considerations is developing
procedures, which are essentially a way to accomplish an action. Each time you want to
accomplish something, there should be a procedure or set of procedures to achieve it
(Wong, Wong, Jondahl, & Ferguson, 2014). For elementary school counselors, this could
be something like:

Box 5.6
Getting Ready for our Counseling Corner
1. Put away our books.
2. Get out our counseling folders.
3. Come to the carpet quietly.

Middle and high school counselors may also use procedures, but they should be tailored to
the developmental levels of the students. An example might be a PowerPoint slide that
precedes a counseling session:

Box 5.7
Procedures for Counseling Exercises
1. If you are finished with your work, submit it to your teacher.

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 2. On your laptop, go to the district’s school counseling webpage.
3. Login and answer the warm-up question.

Wong and colleagues (2014) suggest that it is necessary for students to understand that
classroom procedures are used to make their days flow more efficiently and peacefully.
Procedures function as a way of eliminating confusion, establishing a routine, and enabling
the students’ focus to be on the work of the lesson (Wong et al., 2014). Students should
practice these procedures until they demonstrate mastery.
In order to diminish the opportunity for talking and misbehavior that a transition point
may imply, having students complete planned work, such as a warm-up activity, is often
beneficial. The school counselor can post a question to ascertain students’ prior knowledge,
or ask them to respond to a quotation about the topic that will be presented. For
elementary school students, having them draw a picture that shows a particular behavior,
for example, may maintain their interest and bridge the time between the previous
instructional activity and the counseling session scheduled for the day. Similarly, ending the
session with a routine wrap-up activity, such as, “this week, I am going to use
______________ that I learned today” may reduce a tendency to become inattentive or
disruptive as the class returns to their instructional activities (Wong et al., 2014).
Expectations for students should be communicated proactively, with active strategies
used to help maintain student behaviors. These active strategies may include both
nonverbal and verbal interventions. Nonverbal interventions include such techniques as
planned ignoring, proximity control, and signal interference, while verbal interventions
may include verbal redirection, contingent praise, and tension reduction. While these
techniques are helpful in managing unwanted behavior, the most effective method of
encouraging desired behavior is reinforcement. Reinforcement increases the probability that
a behavior will be demonstrated, either through positive reinforcement, in which the
behavior is followed by a preferred stimulus or negative reinforcement, in which an adverse
stimulus is removed after the desired behavior has occurred (Shepherd & Linn, 2015).
The delicate balance between being a disciplinarian in the classroom or allowing an
“anything goes” approach takes time for school counselors to develop. Use of the
authoritarian approach by school counselors often leads students to distance themselves
from the counselor, and gives the student yet another negative experience with an adult.
On the other hand, the passive school counselor, who does not respond to negative
behaviors, sends a message of powerlessness of the adult and undermines the students’
respect, which can ultimately render the lesson ineffective (Goodnough et al., 2007).
Responding to inappropriate behavior during school counseling curriculum lessons or
group activities requires finesse and strategies. Power struggles only tend to escalate
behaviors rather than mitigate them. Modeling self-control is the premier teaching moment
for a school counselor. Yet, some negative behaviors may be attributed to a poorly planned
or ineffectively delivered classroom lesson. This speaks to why it is so important for school
counselors to be intentional in the planning of their presentations. Gordon (1997)
recommends five strategies for connecting with students, which include: understand the

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culture of the students and of the school; validate the students’ experiences; relate your
lesson to the students’ world as in music, videos, movies; be able to name the students and
understand their social connections; and be “real” with the students as deemed appropriate.
Many suggestions have been offered for handling difficult behaviors (e.g., Dollarhide &
Saginak, 2012; Guillaume, 2008; Williams, Lantz, & Noorulamin, 2008). Through the use
of various tools and strategies, the basic rules that may help the school counselor develop a
respectful and productive classroom environment include:
1. Treat all learners with dignity and respect.
Strategies: Utilize listening skills, I-statements, private correction, hints, humor, or
emotional control.
2. Actively prevent misbehavior.
Strategies: Develop a meaningful curriculum, consider developmental age, use
appropriate power, develop clear expectations, anticipate what is the worst that could
happen, approach the situation from the positive, and utilize the power of nonverbal
communication.
3. View discipline as an opportunity to help students gain independence and
responsibility.
Strategies: Use learning moments, establish boundaries, encourage choices, be
consistent, and use natural consequences.
4. Address discipline issues in many ways and on multiple levels.
Strategies: Consider group size using hand motions, lights off and on, and noise signals.
Overlapping, which includes addressing behavior without stopping the lesson, will
diminish time for acting-out behaviors. Consider the intensity of your response and
the motivation of the behavior, as well as how to redirect the students.(Guillaume,
2008, pp. 243–267)
One important component in school counseling curriculum lessons and management that
is often overlooked is the cultural awareness of the students who comprise the class. Not all
students come from the same socioeconomic status or cultural experiences; however,
educators seldom take the time to learn from the students about their individual cultures.
Given that cultural issues are also a part of the students’ experiences and that cultural
awareness is a contributing factor in the achievement gap, it is imperative that school
counselors be more aware of this dynamic.

Summary
The school counseling core curriculum can have a powerful impact on students within the
school system. Research indicates that not only is this type of school counseling
programming an efficient delivery method, but when delivered effectively, it can impact all
three domains of the school counseling program: academic, career, and social/emotional.
Collaborating with the teacher in whose class the school counseling curriculum lesson will
be presented regarding the goals and objectives aids in the educational alliance. It is also
critical to align the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors (2014b) with the Common Core Standards
(National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) of the

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subject of the class.
A thorough proposal for the school counseling curriculum can help teachers understand
the importance of the lessons and the scope and sequence of the unit being developed.
Aside from the curriculum used, one of the keys to effective school counseling lessons is
how well it is delivered. It is important for school counselors to develop effective teaching
strategies as well as being able to deal with classroom management issues that may arise.
With proper and intentional planning of the lessons and the pedagogy, school counseling
lessons can be fun and informational for both the students and the school counselor, while
impacting the school climate in a positive way.

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 Chapter Six
Individual Counseling

Box 6.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
3.d Interventions to promote academic development
3.f Techniques of personal/social counseling in school settings

In the ASCA National Model® (2012), individual counseling, along with group
counseling and crisis response, is categorized as a responsive service, which is defined as
“activities designed to meet students’ immediate needs and concerns” (p. 86). These
services are steeped in the history of schools, where interventions were directed toward
individual children who required support after showing distress. However, as the school
counseling profession has moved away from the student services model, which focused
more upon meeting the needs of at-risk students, and toward models that emphasize
impacting the entire student population through comprehensive programming, school
counselors have been encouraged to spend less time providing individual counseling.
This philosophical shift in the ASCA National Model® (2012) has brought into focus a
long-standing controversy within counselor education programs in which school counselors
often comprise a plurality of the student body and yet the majority of the backgrounds of
most of the faculty are clinical in nature. Such a faculty may fail to demonstrate an
understanding of the educational context where services are delivered. As such, these faculty
members tend to train school counselors to function as mental health therapists who apply
their skills in the school setting. However, the ASCA National Model® (2012) explicitly states
that “School counselors do not provide therapy or long-term counseling in schools to
address psychological disorders” (p. 86). In contrast to therapy, the Model indicates that
counseling is planned, goal-focused, and short-term, and is used to address issues that
hinder achievement. Accordingly, this chapter will identify and describe theories,
techniques, and frameworks that are relevant to school counselors in providing individual,
brief counseling within an educational context.
School counselors must use brief approaches in providing individual counseling. It is
essential to remember the primary mission of the school is promoting academic success –
interventions that remove children from the classroom potentially interfere with this
mission. School counselors should attempt to minimize students’ removal from the
classroom by scheduling individual counseling sessions during less instructionally intensive

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times, such as during homeroom, study halls, elective classes, lunch periods, etc. Individual
counseling conducted within school settings must be time limited. Individual sessions
typically run from 10–30 minutes, and the amount of time is often dictated by the school’s
schedule. For example, when a student seeks to talk with the school counselor, the school
counselor often seeks to attempt to assist the student with his or her issue, helping the
student to construct an approach to the issue, by the end of the period or before the next
important school activity, such as an exam or the start of a lesson. Thus, he or she may only
have 10 minutes to assist the student with the issue. As he or she listens to the student and
gathers information about the issue, he or she must assess the time and number of sessions
it may take to assist the student with his or her issue, or whether the student should be
referred outside of the school. The school counselor seeks to instill a sense of empowerment
in the student, providing the message that the student possesses the resources to address
whatever issue he or she is presenting, and avoids implying that meeting with the school
counselor again is essential for addressing the issue. However, if the student and school
counselor agree to meet again, the school counselor should ask the student to identify times
for future meetings which are less likely to interfere with the student’s academics.
Another reason why school counselors must use brief approaches in individual
counseling is that it may not be an efficient use of time in comparison to the time spent in
group counseling and school counseling classroom lessons. School counselors who
primarily use individual counseling are not likely to impact the entire student population
and thus may not be regarded as valuable members of the school staff. The Model states that
students who require long-term therapy should be referred to relevant community
resources.
Although school counselors are encouraged by the ASCA National Model® (2012) to
provide individual counseling in a brief format, this does not diminish the importance of
this service. Studies comparing brief counseling to long-term therapy have revealed no
difference in effectiveness (e.g., Brown & Minami, 2010). Furthermore, while the ASCA
National Model® (2012) recommends that school counselors refer students who require
long-term therapy to community resources, only a small number of families follow through
on a school counselor’s referral to mental health services outside the school system. Thus,
the brief counseling provided is often the only therapy the child will receive. In recognition
of this, it is imperative that school counselors work to improve their effectiveness in
providing brief counseling.

Effectiveness of Individual Counseling with Children

The research literature regarding positive responses to counseling services shows that
counseling is effective and results in fairly large benefits for both adults (e.g., Wampold,
2010) and children (Kelley, Bickman, & Norwood, 2010). The research also seems to
indicate that a variety of counseling theories/approaches are equally effective, and there are
factors that are common to all counseling approaches, which are responsible for facilitating
positive outcomes; this is referred to as the common factors model. Lambert’s (1992)

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analysis of the research literature indicated that client factors account for 40% of the change
shown in response to the counseling provided. Client factors associated with change include
their strengths, severity of the disturbance, capacity to relate to others, psychological
mindedness, ability to identity particular goals, and motivation. An additional 30% of
client change is predicted by client-counselor relationship factors such as the ability to build
and maintain rapport and effective communications. Fifteen percent of client change is
accounted for by the client’s hopefulness, meaning their expectation that counseling will
benefit him or her. Finally, 15% of client change is attributed to the specific counseling
model or technique. In summary, the research seems to indicate that counselors should
primarily seek to develop a caring and genuine relationship with students as it is the factor
under the control of the counselor which has the strongest relationship to positive
outcomes for students.
It is understood that in most programs students will complete a course of counseling
theories and techniques. The intent of this chapter is to provide a review of several
counseling theories that have particular relevance for conducting brief, individual
counseling in a school setting. Counseling theories that are reviewed include person-
centered, reality, solution-focused, and cognitive-behavioral. Motivational interviewing is
discussed in Chapter 9: Academic Development. Adler’s individual psychology and
narrative theory are two other counseling theories which are commonly used by school
counselors, but due to space limitations, are not reviewed in this chapter.

Person-Centered Theory
Nearly all counseling theories emphasize the need for counselors to establish a positive
relationship with students. However, it can be argued that Rogers’ person-centered theory
(Raskin, Rogers, & Witty, 2011) is the only major theory that claims that the relationship
is in itself necessary and sufficient for producing client growth, and thus speaks most
directly about the nature of the client-counselor relationship. Rogers believed that people
are inherently oriented toward growth but become maladjusted when they deny or distort
aspects of their experience. People often deny experiences in order to maintain an ideal
image of themselves. For example, men and boys are often fearful of appearing weak and
thus may deny or distort negative feelings as sadness, hurt, rejection, etc. that they believe
imply vulnerability and weakness to others. The incongruence enables the male to maintain
the ideal image but at the cost of failing to symbolize or integrate aspects of his experience,
eventually leading to more significant maladjustment.

Box 6.2
Did you know?
Carl Rogers committed the latter part of his life to applying his theories to national
social conflict and political oppression, working in Northern Ireland, South Africa,
Brazil, and the Soviet Union (Raskin, Rogers, & Witty, 2011).

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 The person-centered counselor facilitates a caring, democratic, non-judgmental, non-
directive environment that enables the student to become more fully aware of various
aspects of his or her experience, thus activating the student’s innate tendency toward
growth.

Box 6.3
Person-centered theory – popularized by Carl Rogers and theorizes that the client-
counselor relationship is both necessary and sufficient for producing client growth

Within this theoretical framework, the role of the counselor can be likened to that of a
facilitator who provides the conditions for change, rather than being responsible for
directing the helpee’s change. The conditions that the counselor provides are congruence,
unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding of the helpee’s internal frame of
reference. The counselor himself or herself must be congruent, meaning that he or she can
assimilate and integrate various aspects of his or her own experience. In other words, the
counselor should be psychologically mature, self-aware, and open and accepting of himself
or herself and others.
Also, the counselor must demonstrate an unconditional positive regard for the student,
accepting without judging the student’s thoughts, feelings, motivations, etc. Accepting the
student without judgment is meant to enable the student to identify and integrate aspects
of his or her experience that he or she has been denying or distorting.

Box 6.4
Necessary Aspects of Person-Centered Theory:

• Counselor must be congruent and assimilate various aspects of their own experience.
• Counselor must demonstrate unconditional positive regard toward the student.
• Counselor must demonstrate empathic understanding of the helpee’s internal frame of
reference.

Students often enter counseling through the urging of parents, teachers, and administrators
who want the student to change in some fashion, and at the beginning of the relationship
with the counselor, students often repeatedly defend their views and positions. However,
the non-judgmental position of the counselor often enables students to eventually examine
aspects of themselves that heretofore they have been unwilling to consider. Some school
counselors may struggle to accept aspects of students, parents, or teachers which they
consider abhorrent and problematic. A perspective that is often helpful when viewing
persons counselors are seeking to assist is the view that in the vast majority of situations
people have good intensions and are doing the best that they can. Problematic behaviors
often do make sense from their point of view.

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 The last condition the school counselor is responsible for providing is empathic
understanding of the helpee’s frame of reference. The counselor seeks to enter and
understand the worldview of the student at a deep level, paraphrasing the student’s implied
thoughts, feelings, goals, and values, which is referred to as advanced empathy. By
paraphrasing the student’s implicit communications, the student gains self-awareness as he
or she is presented with his or her thoughts and feelings with which he or she is struggling
to better understand and assimilate. The establishment of these conditions helps students
develop an expanded view of themselves, clarify their goals and values, and enhance
confidence in their decision-making.
The research literature clearly demonstrates the importance of the helper-helpee
relationship, and school counselors may wish to consider using Roger’s person-centered
theory as the foundation for their work with students. Indeed, strengthening positive adult-
child relationships is the hallmark of good work in the school context. However, there are
some myths about why a school counselor may object to using person-centered theory; each
of these is considered below.
As indicated within the ASCA National Model® (2012), school counselors provide
counseling rather than therapy, and as a result, the school counselor’s use of a theoretical
orientation may be regarded as “therapy.” This argument can be rejected on several
grounds. First, the distinction between “counseling” and “therapy” is not clear. For some,
the distinction between the two appears to be in terms of length, but as discussed earlier,
the length of the relationship does not necessarily appear to be a predictor of effectiveness.
Although counseling theories do not appear to be substantially different in terms of their
effectiveness, it can be argued that the failure to base one’s work in a counseling theory
increases the likelihood that the school counselor will impose his or her values, and thus
increase the probability of causing harm. School counselors are particularly vulnerable to
imposing values on others because rules governing a child’s behavior are implied within the
school context; unchecked advice-giving about behavior expectations can devolve into
dogmatic judgments. School counselors often find a balance by avoiding the use of terms
and language with parents and administrators that imply they are providing “therapy.”
Instead, school counselors describe their counseling work as an “approach” or “framework”
in order to capture the benefits of counseling, but also remain less intrusive.
Another common criticism of person-centered theory is its lack of effectiveness with less
abstract and expressive students, but later in this chapter we discuss how school counselors
should select counseling theories that are consistent with the student’s developmental level.
As such, this criticism is not unique to a person-centered approach. A related criticism of
person-centered theory suggests the non-directive stance is not well-suited for the brief time
available within schools. Although the person-centered school counselor assumes a non-
directive stance with students, since he or she believes in the capability of the student to
generate his or her own solutions, this does not mean that the school counselor cannot be
structured in his or her approach. In the following section, we describe how the person-
centered approach, and other counseling theories for that matter, can be integrated with
Ivey, Ivey, and Zalaquett’s (2010) five stages of the well-formed interview to produce an

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approach that fosters students’ own problem-solving, while at the same time providing a
framework that assists the students in progressing through a structured problem-solving
sequence.
Basic Listening Sequence. Ivey et al.’s (2010) stages of the well-formed interview, or
the Basic Listening Sequence, provides school counselors with a logical, sequential
framework where they can use active listening skills to guide students through the process
of problem-solving. It is particularly relevant for early concrete operational and formal
operational students who have, or are at the beginning of acquiring, the capacity for their
own sequential reasoning. School counselors using the well-formed interview stages assist
students in exploring their thoughts and feelings but do so in a focused, purposeful manner
so that the exploration is related to a particular goal or outcome. This structured focus is
particularly relevant to the brief nature of individual counseling conducted within a school
context. The basic listening skills can be integrated with any counseling theory.

Box 6.5
Basic Listening Sequence – a logical, sequential framework that counselors can use to
guide students through the process of problem-solving.

Relationship stage. In the first stage of the Basic Listening Sequence, the primary
functions are to establish a positive relationship and explain the process of counseling (Ivey
et al., 2010). Children vary considerably in the amount of time needed for counselors to
establish trust, which is necessary for students to share thoughts and feelings. Younger
children and children who are not self-referred are often reluctant to self-disclose. School
counselors can increase students’ comfort by explaining the counseling process. Children
often are not familiar with counseling and may require explanation, in language that is at
their level, about the purpose of counseling and what is expected of the school and the
student. The following summary from the counselor may be helpful:

“Students often talk with me when they are having big feelings, such as when they are
angry, upset, or confused, or if they have a goal in mind like getting better grades, or
making more friends. I help students better understand their thoughts and feelings,
their goals, and together we can help you develop a plan to achieve your goals.”

For children who are not self-referred, a somewhat common mistake for beginning school
counselors is to fail to discuss why they are meeting with the child. That is, counselors
sometimes assume the child is aware of the adults’ concerns about the child’s behavior or
academic progress. In situations when a child is meeting with the school counselor at the
urging of an adult, it is best for the school counselor to obtain the permission of the adult
to share, in general terms, why the adult encouraged the child to meet with him or her.
Honest and direct communications are likely to decrease the child’s suspicions and
defensiveness, thus helping to develop the child’s trust. In such a situation, the school
counselor might say, “Your dad called because he was concerned about your grades and he

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thought I might be able to help.”
The school counselor can also increase the child’s comfort by first engaging in safe
activities, or discussing issues that are not emotionally charged. For example, after
explaining the process of counseling, the school counselor might say, “I know we only met
at the beginning of the school year and I was hoping to get to know you a little better.
What do you like to do when you are not here in school?” Other safe activities include
games like Jenga and Connect Four, playing with stress balls, shooting baskets, coloring,
etc. Activities that facilitate child-counselor interactions are especially helpful. That is,
watching the child color is less engaging than coloring together. Counselors can use the
child’s preferences as the basis for selecting safe activities.
Story and strengths stage. In this stage, the primary functions are to gather data by
exploring the student’s perspective, thoughts, feelings, and strengths/resources. During this
stage, the school counselor is particularly non-directive, and should mainly use open-ended
questions, paraphrases, or reflection of feelings as the student shares his or her perspective
on the issue that led him or her to seek counseling, or led an adult to encourage the student
to seek counseling. The counselor seeks to understand the student’s explicit statements, and
implied thoughts, feelings, meanings, motivations, and solutions, which when reflected
back to the student may help him or her develop a deeper understanding of his or her
perspective of the situation. Person-centered theory believes in the student’s ability to
generate his or her own solutions, and often during this stage, the student will imply
solutions for his or her situation depending upon how he or she discusses an issue. For
example, a student who is unhappy with a recent grade in a class may talk about how he or
she does not like the teacher, which some may regard as the student disowning
responsibility. Although that may be the case, it may also imply that he or she views their
relationship with the teacher as part of the problem, and thus possibly as part of the
solution.
Goals stage. In this stage, the school counselor formally clarifies the student’s goal. After
collecting data in the story and strengths stage, the school counselor should summarize the
student’s perspective, and then ask the student: “We’ve been talking for a while, let me ask
you, what do want in this situation?” It is a mistake for the school counselor to assume that
he or she knows the student’s goal, as often the exploration that occurred in the story and
strengths stage has helped to clarify and thus slightly change the student’s goal. The school
counselor can follow up this initial question with an exploration of the student’s vision of
the goal, meaning what the student thinks he or she may gain by accomplishing the
described goal. The school counselor can encourage the student to define the goal in
specific terms, asking, “So what specifically are the types of grades you want to have by the
end of the marking period?”
Restory stage. The primary function of this stage may be seen as developing solutions or
perspectives that may assist with achievement of the student’s goal. The school counselor
can maintain a non-directive stance by exploring the student’s ideas for achieving his or her
goals. For example, the school counselor might say, “You mentioned that you have thought
about talking with your friend about your belief that she spread a rumor about you, but

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you also said that you are not sure if you want to do this.”
This example reflects another function of this interview stage, which is to explore the
student’s incongruities or dilemma. In this example, the student’s dilemma is that on the
one hand she wants to talk with her friend, but on the other hand she is reluctant to do so.
Often, students have generated options, but they are concerned about carrying out an
option, and the active listening provided by the school counselor enables the student to
examine his or her concerns about the various options, which often helps them with
decision-making. For situations that involve the potential of communicating with someone
else, whether it be a peer, teacher, or parent, the school counselor can help the student
examine what he or she believes is the other person’s perspective. This process may help the
student develop insight regarding his or her contribution to the situation, and how to
explore how the other person might respond if the student was to approach him or her.
During this stage, the school counselor can also highlight strengths or resources that the
student mentioned or implied in a previous stage, which may be relevant to the student’s
achievement of his or her goal. Solution-focused theory, which will later be discussed in
greater detail, uses the techniques of exception seeking to explore times when the goal in
question has been realized or when the problem does not exist. For example, the student
might be asked to explore when he or she has been successful at earning good grades,
motivating himself or herself to do something that he or she did not want to do, managing
conflict with a peer or adult, managing his or her emotions, etc., which the school
counselor follows up by exploring how the skills or techniques that enabled him or her to
achieve past success can be modified or used in the current situation.
Action stage. In the last stage, the school counselor helps the student transfer the
information discussed, gained, or clarified in the previous stages by exploring what the
student plans to do with the information. The emphasis is on helping the student develop a
concrete plan of action to implement.

Box 6.6
Stages of the Basic Listening Sequence:

• Relationship stage = building trust and explaining expectations.

• Story and strengths stage = exploring the student’s thoughts, feelings, and
strengths/resources.
• Goal stage = clarification of the student’s goals.
• Restory stage = development of solutions or perspectives that may help the student
achieve their goal.
• Action stage = helping the student transfer previously discussed information or
strategies into concrete action steps.

Given that school counselors are typically limited to anywhere from one to three individual

141
meetings with a student, the school counselor wants the student to leave even a first session
with a specific plan of action. In order to increase the likelihood the student will engage in
transfer of learning, the school counselor should examine with the student the what, who,
when, where, and how of their plan. For example, for a student who has decided that he
wants to increase the amount of time he studies for a subject, the school counselor can help
him consider how much time he will spend studying, what he will focus upon, where he
studies best, and who might assist him in realizing his plan. For situations in which the
student is leaning toward communicating with another person, the school counselor might
suggest that they role-play the potential interaction. The school counselor can end the
individual meeting by summarizing the student’s intended plan, asking the child if he or
she would like to meet again, and if the student would like the school counselor to ask him
or her when they next encounter each other how the plan worked out.

Developmental Approach to Individual Counseling

One of the most challenging aspects of providing counseling to children is that they vary
widely in terms of their socio-emotional and cognitive development. A number of
counseling developmental theorists, such as D’Andrea (1988), assert that counseling
theories vary in their applicability to the developmental stages, and that the task of the
counselor is to identify the child’s developmental level and apply the counseling theory that
is relevant to his or her level of cognitive complexity. These counseling developmental
theories are based on Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, which asserts that there
are specific cognitive tools or “operations” associated with each stage of cognitive
development. According to D’Andrea (1988), counseling theories vary in the degree to
which they match the cognitive complexity of the various stages of development of the
child.
Cognitive developmental stages. At the preoperational level, in which children are
typically between infancy and 7 years of age, children are learning to use symbols such as
words and images to understand how the world operates, and they tend to express
themselves in terms of physiological sensations and actions and often talk in a random and
disorganized fashion (Ivey et al., 2010). At this developmental level, the child lacks control
of his or her thoughts, feelings, and impulses because he or she lacks the ability to reflect
upon the source of the psychological phenomena.
Children usually function within the concrete operational stage between the ages of 7–
11. The advantage of concrete operations is that the child can reason logically – in contrast
to the preoperational child who tends to base their logic on appearance (e.g., concrete,
observable events) and thus fails to consider cause and effect or sequential transformations.
Children within this developmental stage tend to focus upon linear, sequential details
regarding social interactions and events, and they struggle to understand the perspective of
others and how their actions may have contributed to events. In other words, the child is
learning to think in a sequential, logical manner, but is not yet able to do so.
Children may acquire the capacity for formal operational thinking around the age of 11.

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Formal operational thinkers are capable of deductive reasoning, enabling them to examine
various solutions and options, understand abstract concepts such as justice, democracy,
love, etc., and identify behavioral patterns and reflect upon their meaning. They are able to
“think about their thinking.”
Individual counseling with preoperational children. Because of preoperational
children’s limited capacity for self-awareness, school counselors can use behavior theory to
teach the child specific behavioral skills, through the use of modeling, practice/role-playing,
and either tangible or verbal reinforcement. There are a limitless number of behavioral skills
that school counselors may teach children and the child’s specific needs can be determined
through the use of observation and consultation with the children’s teachers and parents.
Commonly taught behavioral skills include anger management, conflict resolution, anxiety
management, social skills, attending, organization, etc. Such behavioral skills can also be
taught within the context of structured play approaches, in which the school counselor acts
out through puppets, stuffed animals, etc. the various components of a behavioral skill.
Counselors help children use games they play during recess for the skills they need in the
classroom. For example, games like red light/green light and Simon Says are particularly
useful in teaching children listening skills, physiological control, and how these skill sets are
coordinated. Both games teach children what to listen for (i.e., green light) and how to act
when you do hear the cue compared to when you do not. Classrooms that use visual
prompts (green, yellow, and red lights) to prompt behavioral expectations and control can
capitalize on the similarities of these games. Teachers that reinforce attentive listening
through games (e.g., staying in your seat, lining up when asked) are especially effective.
Researchers have shown that teaching children behavioral self-regulation also improves
academic readiness skills (Tominey & McClelland, 2011).
Counseling children at this developmental level should also include a psychoeducational
component such that the school counselor can help the child begin to develop the language
to identify and express his or her thoughts, feelings, and physiological sensations. With this
knowledge comes the understanding that such development will, in the future, increase the
child’s capacity to reflect upon and manage these psychological phenomena. It is useful, for
example, to help children begin to differentiate between thoughts, feelings, and behavior. A
counselor could ask the child: “Tell me three happy thoughts.” Here, counselors are
helping children find positive associations. Once mastered, a counselor may ask, “Tell me
three things you did that worked out well,” which helps to promote a focus upon cause and
effect. In developmental order, the counselor wants to help children distinguish between
thoughts and feelings and then move to how the child can affect outcomes through actions.
Counselors may point out, “Because you studied you got a good grade, because you showed
good effort your teacher was happy with your project, because you listened to your
classmate she said you were a good friend.”
However, many children at this age may not understand the extent to which behavioral
outcomes are under their control. Accordingly, the next task is to ask the same questions
about others: “Tell me something that worked out well for someone else” and then “Tell
me what they did to make it work out well.” With these basic questions, the school

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counselor can help children to understand cause and effect and whose actions led to the
outcome. This is a critical skill, because young children often confuse the cause and effect
of their problems (e.g., my parents are divorcing because I didn’t clean my room).

Box 6.7
Development-related Goals of Counseling with Preoperational Children:

• Improve language skills related to thoughts, feelings, and physiological sensations.

• Differentiate between thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
• Help foster cause and effect thinking and understanding of child’s own thoughts and
feelings.
• Help foster cause and effect thinking and understanding of other’s thoughts and
feelings.

Furthermore, we want students to appropriately connect their efforts with their outcomes;
otherwise it is difficult for them to detect how they might be able to influence the outcomes
they desire.
Individual counseling with concrete operational children. Students in the concrete
operational stage are beginning to understand logical sequences, but are not yet ready for
hypothetical thinking or inferences. They do understand an object can be round and green
and small but will miss more complex logic; if the bird is bigger than the cat and the cat is
bigger than the dog, then the dog, by definition, is also smaller than the bird. Concrete
operational children are most likely to benefit from counseling that assists such children in
expanding their thinking in a logical, sequential manner, which includes reality therapy,
solution-focused theory, certain techniques of behavioral theory, and structured cognitive
theory approaches such as those developed by Kendall (2011).
Reality therapy. Choice theory, a major tenant of reality therapy, asserts that the brain
functions like a thermostat, in that it regulates behavior in order to change the environment
to meet our five basic needs, which are belonging, power, freedom, fun, and survival
(Wubbolding, 2010). Reality therapy includes a psychoeducational aspect, in that students
can be taught about these basic needs and be helped in determining which of their needs
are currently satisfied and which of their needs they wish to pursue.

Box 6.8
Reality therapy – counseling technique that teaches students how to recognize which of
their basic needs are currently met and which should be pursued.

Students are taught the WDEP system in which W stands for Wants, D is concerned with
Direction and Doing, E regards Evaluation, and P is for Planning. The WDEP system is
essentially a method of problem-solving and students can be taught these steps using

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WDEP as a mnemonic device.

Box 6.9
Did you know?
William Glasser, the founder of reality therapy and choice theory, was a psychiatrist.
However, many psychiatrists considered Dr. Glasser’s theories to be controversial as Dr.
Glasser was very critical of modern psychiatry and what he considered to be an excessive
emphasis on diagnosis and use of psychotropic medications (Wubbolding, 2010).

First, the school counselor helps a student identify their Wants by accessing their
“Quality World,” which consists of the student’s ideals. A counselor helps the student
generate or describe his or her Quality World through guided imagery, exploring an ideal
day, or a situation in which the student would feel a sense of pride. Helpful questions
include “If you could wave a magic wand and get whatever you want, what it would be,” or
“When have you gotten part of what you wanted?” Upon identifying the student’s desires
or wants, the school counselor can help the student identify what he or she believes would
be the advantages of achieving his or her goal, which often leads to further exploration of
their priorities. The school counselor can use a scaling question to have the student rate his
or her level of commitment to achieving the goal, posing the following type of question:
“On a scale of 1–10, with 10 being the thing you want the most and 1 being not that
important, how important is it for you to increase your grades to at least all ‘Cs?’”
Assessing the student’s level of commitment enhances his or her self-awareness and helps
the school counselor understand the degree to which a topic should be focused upon in the
counseling session. Next, the school counselor has the student identify his or her Direction
or Doings, meaning the various thoughts and behaviors related to the issue. The school
counselor can use an element of brainstorming during this phase, in which he or she can
have the student write down his or her thoughts and behaviors about his or her
goals/wants, or have the student generate a list of his or her daily activities that will
ultimately be compared to how he or she relates to a desired goal.
In the next phase, the school counselor has the student Evaluate the degree to which he
or she thinks the various behaviors and thoughts he or she identified are either “helping” or
“hindering” the process of achieving his or her goal, which enables the student to identify
which behaviors and thoughts he or she wants to increase or decrease or eliminate
altogether. The school counselor should refrain from providing advice, regardless of the
immaturity of the student’s ideas, but should perceive his or her role as facilitating the
student’s problem-solving.
For example, it is not uncommon for male students to first identify violence as an
option for achieving their goal, and the school counselor should refrain from immediately
rejecting this option, but should instead assist them in exploring the potential consequences
of using aggression. In this manner, the school counselor hopes to help the student learn to
“think through the consequences of his or her actions.” It is tempting to tell the child what

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to do; however, people are more likely to engage in options which they have generated, and
the objective of this process is to help the child learn the process of problem-solving rather
than solving a particular problem/issue in a manner preferred by the adult. Usually students
have thought about various aspects of the problem/goal, and if the school counselor is
patient, often the student will share the variety of options he or she has generated, and his
or her preferences for various perspectives about the problem/goal. The task of the school
counselor then becomes one of helping the student sort through the potential positive and
negative consequences of his or her various ideas.
During the Planning phase, the school counselor assists the student in organizing his or
her goals and ideas identified through brainstorming to develop a plan for achieving the
goal. The school counselor can teach the student about the characteristics of effective
planning through the SAMIC acronym: (S)imple, (a)ttainable, (m)easurable, (i)mmediate,
(c)ontrolled, (c)ommitted, and (c)onsistent. Subsequent meetings involve reviewing the
student’s implementation of his or her plan or lack thereof. Lack of progress may be due to
lack of commitment on the student’s part to which the school counselor can respond by
exploring the student’s ambivalence, identifying other goals that he or she would be more
interested in pursuing, or exploring the potential consequence of not making progress.
For example, if the student is receiving pressure from teachers or parents to improve his
or her performance, the school counselor may help the student guess how his or her parents
or teachers might respond to his or her lack of progress, and then the student can consider
his or her willingness to accept the consequences. Lack of progress may also indicate that
the student’s goal is unrealistic. For example, some students, without explicitly saying so,
want to be popular but that student’s level of status may be very resistant to change; the
school counselor may lead the student to redefine the goal of popularity as developing a
friend, or making the effort to connect with others while focusing less on whether others
actually respond.

Box 6.10
Phases of Reality Therapy:
(W)ants
(D)irection and Doing
(E)valuation
(P)lanning

Finally, a common reason for lack of progress is related to an inadequate or underdeveloped

plan; in this case the school counselor use the same WDEP phases to help the child revise
his or her plan.
Reality therapy case study. Reality therapy was used with Brandy, an African American,
seventh grade student, who sought out the school counselor after receiving detention from
her math teacher, Mr. Johnson, for what he identified as her “poor attitude.” Brandy was

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angry with Mr. Johnson, explaining that she did not think that he was an effective teacher
as it was her perception that he used a lot of worksheets, did not respond adequately to
students’ questions, and seemed to favor certain students in the class. Previously, the school
counselor had developed a good relationship with Brandy as he had helped her resolve a
conflict through mediation with one of her cousins who was also in seventh grade. The
school counselor’s perspective was that Brandy had a number of strong leadership
characteristics in that she could be very assertive and compassionate, but some of the
seventh grade teachers, including Mr. Johnson, appeared to regard Brandy as verbally
aggressive.
After using active listening skills to identify Brandy’s thoughts and feelings, the school
counselor asked Brandy what she was hoping to get out the situation. Brandy indicated that
she wanted to be removed from Mr. Johnson’s class, but the school counselor explained
that the administration did not permit such schedule changes two months into the school
year. Brandy expressed anger that she could not change her math teacher, but eventually
she identified her goal of improving her math grade, as she knew her mother would be
unhappy if she received another “C” in math for the next marking period.
Next, the school counselor assisted Brandy in identifying her various thoughts and
behaviors related to her performance in her math class and evaluating whether they were
helping or hindering her in achieving her goal. Through this exploration, Brandy indicated
that she was engaging in a number of behaviors that were not helping her, including
choosing to sit in the back of the math class with a friend with whom she often talked while
she was supposed to be working on worksheets, and not asking Mr. Johnson for help
because she did not like him. The school counselor and Brandy also identified her
strengths/assets for achieving her goal, which included her independence and
outspokenness. The school counselor provided two reframes, stating that maybe Brandy’s
challenge was to learn to use her strength of outspokenness in a way that Mr. Johnson
could hear, and learn to work with someone she did not like, which unfortunately is part of
getting older, and these reframes appeared to resonate with Brandy.
With Brandy’s consent, the school counselor and Brandy proceeded to role-play how to
approach Mr. Johnson for help, with Brandy playing herself, and the school counselor
playing Mr. Johnson. Following the role-play, the school counselor asked Brandy to
evaluate her performance, and the school counselor provided his feedback as well,
commending her on the polite way she approached the pretend Mr. Johnson. Several weeks
later, when questioned in the hallway by the school counselor, Brandy indicated that she
had developed a better relationship with Mr. Johnson and that her scores on recent quizzes
had improved.
Solution-focused theory. Solution-focused theory can be effectively applied with both
concrete and formal operational children. Solution-focused theory is widely used by school
counselors for both counseling and consultation, as it is designed to be brief, and it
emphasizes students’ strengths. Solution-focused theory is similar to person-centered theory
in that it assumes that people are growth-oriented and proactive self-healers (Murphy,
2008). A basic tenet of solution-focused theory is that people have their own resources to

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achieve their goals and these resources lie within their personal histories.

Box 6.11
Solution-focused theory – a commonly used tactic for counseling and consultation that
focuses on students’ strengths and resources that can be used to achieve goals, and on
refocusing students toward solutions rather than problems.

Solution-focused theory is influenced by the theory of social constructivism, which asserts

that people actively construct their reality through the use of language, as opposed to there
being an objective reality. The primary task of the school counselor is to expand a student’s
perception of a problem or issue, which the school counselor accomplishes by encouraging
the student to change the way he or she talks about the problem or him or herself.

Box 6.12
Did you know?
Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer, two of the leading pioneers of solution-focused
theory, were married, and died within two years of each other. Berg was from Korea and
was originally a pharmacist while de Shazer originally trained as a classical musician
(Taylor, 2005).

Students often enter counseling with what solution-focused theorists refer to as a

“problem-saturated perspective.” According to Taylor (2005), people often begin a
counseling relationship with a focus on what they do not want, when things go wrong,
aspects of the situation they cannot change, when they have not been successful in
addressing the issue, and are pessimistic about the future. The task of the counselor is to
shift the conversation and the student’s language to discuss what the student wants, explore
times when he or she has been successful, or at least partially successful, and aspects of the
situation that the student can change.
Similar to person-centered theory, the school counselor initially seeks to understand the
student’s worldview, listening intently to the student, looking to emphasize or reinforce the
student’s communications that imply positive possibilities. The counselor eventually uses a
number of questions or techniques that are designed to help shift the student’s perspective
(Murphy, 2008). Exception-seeking questions involve asking the student to identify times
when he or she has been successful in dealing with the respective issue. For example, the
school counselor may ask the student to describe a time when he or she believed he or she
had effectively managed anger, resolved a conflict with a peer or adult, was assertive,
completed homework, performed well on a test, etc. Exception-seeking questions are
followed up with “not-knowing questions,” in which the school counselor helps the student
to minutely analyze the things he or she did to be successful, exploring the specific
thoughts, behaviors, steps, motivations, etc., he or she used.

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 Scaling questions involve having the student rate his or her success regarding an issue.
For example, the school counselor might ask, “On a scale of 1–10, with 10 being managing
your anger extremely well, and 1 being not handling your anger well at all, what number
would you currently give yourself in managing your anger?” Students typically respond
with a rating of anywhere from 3–7, and regardless of the number the student identifies,
the school counselor explores with the student what he or she did positively to get to a 3,
once again minutely analyzing the various thoughts and behaviors that helped him or her
achieve that positive number. This is followed by asking the student what he or she would
be doing when he or she is at the next number or half-numbered step. This question helps
the student to see the small things he or she needs to do in order to make progress, rather
than overly focusing on the large, often unrealistic goal of fully achieving the goal. Scaling
questions can also be used to explore times when the student believes he or she had a higher
rate of success.
In the miracle question, the school counselor instructs the student to imagine that the
problem has been resolved overnight, and then has the student explore as concretely as
possible how things would be different, asking the student to identify how he or she would
feel, think, behave, what he or she would do during that day, what would he or she do
next, and what would friends, parents, and teachers notice about him or her.

Box 6.13
Types of Questions Used During Solution-Focused Theory Sessions:

• Exception seeking – student identifies a time when a problem was handled effectively.
• Scaling – student labels his or her level of skill or distress on a scale of 1–10 which can
lead to discussions of how to move higher along the scale.
• Miracle – student describes how his or her life would be different if the problem were
to vanish overnight.

The miracle question helps the student move beyond a problem-saturated perspective
which may help the student see himself or herself and the situation in a different light, and
may generate new thoughts, feelings, and ideas that are helpful for making progress.
Cognitive-behavioral theory. The structured cognitive-behavioral approach used by
Kendall (2011) highlights the connections between the body’s responses to anxiety-
provoking situations and how the student’s thinking about those feelings can increase or
decrease his or her ability to cope.

Box 6.14
Cognitive-behavioral theory – focuses on the relationship between thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors and promotes skills acquisition through modeling and practice sessions.

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Kendall’s approach has two primary segments; the first is a focus on skills training, and the
second focuses on skills practice. During skills training, a counselor reviews the body’s
anxiety reactions (e.g., heart racing, quick breathing, sweating, skin turning red and feeling
hot, feeling sick to your stomach, tightness around your ribcage, fearfulness, etc.), including
those experienced by most people, those the student reports, and those the counselor has
had. The message here is that it is normal for the body to respond to anxiety-provoking
situations and it is important to notice your own patterns. The counselor should highlight
that physical feelings are cues from the body to let us know that we need to help our body
relax. Catching on to the cues early can help us manage our feelings before they spiral out
of control.
In the skills practice section, counselors begin by helping students to identify their own
fears and expectations about a specific situation. Identifying the student’s self-talk (e.g.,
what he or she says to himself or herself) about the situation and his or her own reactions
allows the student to modify his or her expectations. Next, the counselor helps the student
to problem-solve about which attitudes or actions would be more effective. Finally, the
student should evaluate if his or her efforts have been effective in helping them cope and
feel better. If so, he or she should reward his or her own success.
The FEAR plan is used to counsel students exhibiting anxiety. F stands for “Feeling
Frightened?” and reminds students to be aware of their physical feelings of anxiety. E stands
for “Expecting bad things to happen?” and asks students to recognize their own self-talk. A
stands for “Attitudes and Actions?” and reminds students to use previously identified
behaviors and self-talk that will manage or decrease feelings of anxiety. R stands for “Results
and Rewards?” and reminds students to consider the usefulness of their response to anxious
feelings and to reward themselves for success.
Kendall and his colleagues are credited with establishing the effectiveness of manualized
treatment – a treatment plan used in a predetermined order – for children and adolescents
reporting feelings of anxiety. His work, the Coping Cat Program, is widely used and
routinely updated (Kendall, 2011). Students reporting relatively minor disruptions, as well
as those identified with clinical disturbances, have shown improvement after participating
in the Coping Cat Program. Counselors are on safe ground identifying this program as an
evidence-based practice when required to do so in their school districts.
Individual counseling with formal operational children. During formal operational
thought, students can make decisions based on prior experiences and think logically about
abstract concepts. Not only can students recognize patterns in their own behaviors, but
they can also identify causality between their emotions and behaviors. As reviewed above,
there can be some crossover in working with concrete operational and formal operational
students. However, once formal operations are well established, person-centered and
structured cognitive-behavioral approaches that are frequently used with adults are useful.
Primarily, the difference between those approaches when used with students who are now
in the formal operational stage is the degree of emphasis on individual choice and insight.
That is, as students age, free choice and responsibility are highlighted, whereas
psychoeducational information sharing is emphasized for students in the concrete

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operational stages. As students age, it is expected that the sources of their distress (e.g.,
insight) become more apparent to them and thus are available for student-driven efforts.
Person-centered theory. Person-centered theory can be considered to be the preferred
approach in working with formal operational adolescents, as such youths have the capacity
for problem-solving and developing complex understandings of their self-concept, values,
and patterns regarding how they relate to others. The role of the school counselor using this
approach is that of a facilitator, who helps the student enhance their meaning-making by
providing them with a safe environment in which to explore their various thoughts and
feelings, and to enhance the clarity of their perspective.
Person-centered theory case study. Jodi, a 15-year-old, ninth grade student, sought
assistance from the school counselor, reporting that she was experiencing difficulty
“controlling my emotions.” Jodi explained that she often would “tear up” in class, meaning
that she would begin to cry for no apparent reason.
Jodi moved back to the school district in the middle of her eighth grade year. She had
attended elementary school in the district, but moved in fifth grade to another state when
her parents separated and her mother remarried a man whom Jodi believes her mother had
been having an affair with for several years. Jodi reported that her mother’s new husband
sexually abused her on several occasions. Jodi reported that when she informed her mother
of the abuse her mother became “depressed” and felt betrayed. Jodi’s mother initiated steps
to separate from Jodi’s stepfather, but her mother ultimately decided that it would be best
for Jodi to return to live with her father. Jodi reported that she had not seen her mother or
her older sister for over a year, and that her mother did not seem very interested when they
talked sporadically on the phone. Jodi’s mother sought counseling for Jodi, but Jodi
stopped attending when she resisted the counselor’s suggestion that she attempt to re-
experience the sexual abuse in order to reduce her emotional intensity connected to the
event.
Jodi reported being fearful and angry with her father. Her dad allegedly had been quite
physically punitive with her when she was younger, and he had been investigated by Child
Protective Services. She had not wanted to return to live with her father, and tried to keep
her distance from him. Jodi also had “crying spells” at home to which her father would
become agitated, telling her that she needed to get over it. She also saw her father as
dictatorial and controlling, and said that much of their interactions involved him telling her
that she needed to assume more responsibility for cleaning the home, doing dishes, etc.
Jodi had frequent altercations with other girls, often leading to her being referred to the
school counselors for mediation or to the principal’s office. During such a mediation, the
school counselor observed that Jodi would be quite verbally aggressive, telling other girls
that they had better shut up or she would make them.
Jodi began dating a boy named Mike, who was a junior at the school she attended,
shortly after she returned to live with her father. She described their relationship as chaotic
in that they frequently verbally argued and she worried that either he or she would
eventually escalate the argument to physical aggression. She saw Mike as controlling in that
he did not want her to spend time with her group of friends. She considered breaking up

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with Mike, and did for a short time when he confirmed that he had slept with another girl,
as she feared losing her independence.
Jodi was unsure about her goals for the future. In eighth grade she received an overall
score of 110 on a group intelligence test. She received mostly “B’s” and “C’s” in her
academic subjects and was not taking any advanced academic classes. She had not given
much thought to a career or post-high school plans.
The school counselor used a non-directive approach in counseling Jodi, meeting with
her once a week for 6 weeks. By reflecting Jodi’s implicit thoughts and feelings, the school
counselor helped her to identify important themes in her worldview and patterns in her life.
The school counselor affirmed Jodi’s ambivalent feelings about her mother and stepfather,
as well as her anger regarding her mother’s apparent decision to choose Jodi’s stepfather by
sending Jodi to live with her father. The school counselor helped Jodi to recognize how her
relationships with her parents influenced her current relationships. For example, Jodi
offered the view that her tendency to become angry quickly with both female and male
peers was related to her high level of anger over the past years of her life, and the school
counselor and Jodi explored what she regarded as positive mechanisms for managing her
feelings. Jodi gradually expressed ambivalence about her relationship with her boyfriend
and men in general in that she longed for closeness, and yet was terrified by it as well.
The school counselor helped Jodi recognize that her current conflicted feelings were
normal, and were also related to her past. Eventually, the school counselor helped Jodi to
explore her anxiety about relating to her father in a more mature way, and Jodi reported
some success in developing a closer relationship with her father. The school counselor
assumed a slightly more directive approach by asking Jodi about her goals for the future.
The school counselor helped Jodi to identify her personal strengths and how they could
apply to the world of work. Jodi appeared to engage in more serious explorations of who
she was and what she wanted for herself.
Cognitive-behavioral theory. As cognition becomes well developed in the formal
operational stage, cognitive-behavioral counseling emphasizes the freedom of the individual
to accept or reject his or her problematic thinking. The assumption is that problematic
thinking precedes and results in problematic emotions or behaviors; by changing one’s
thinking – or one’s perceptions of the problematic thinking – a person will change his or
her feelings and/or behaviors. Some counselors following the work of Beck (Beck &
Weishaar, 2014) and his colleagues have applied his cognitive approach to working with
youths (e.g., Friedberg, McClure, & Garcia, 2009), and emphasize how an individual’s
distorted thinking (e.g., because you made one error means you will never be successful) is
the primary target area. Others following the work of Ellis (Ellis & Ellis, 2014) point out
irrational thinking/beliefs (e.g., one must be perfect to be loved) as the primary target area.
These traditions almost exclusively assert that cognitions are the focus of counseling
sessions. Other counselors are known to emphasize behavioral practices in cognitive
therapy, such as stress inoculation (e.g., exposure to a perceived stressful event and re-
conceptualizing the stress response) pioneered by Meichenbaum (1977). Visual imagery,
rather than real life practice, may be used to “prepare” for stressful situations.

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 Box. 6.15 Did you know?
Aaron Beck (Beck & Weishaar, 2014) and Albert Ellis (Ellis & Ellis, 2014), whom some
consider to be co-founders of cognitive-behavioral theory, were both originally trained as
psychoanalysts.

In practice, counselors often use a variety of techniques to best match the needs of the
individual. Further, individual responsibility is emphasized via homework assignments, in
which cognitive or behavioral skills are practiced outside of the counseling sessions. Indeed,
as children age into adulthood, there are specific generational assumptions and family roles
that counselors will take into account in addressing problematic cognitions. Cognitive-
behavioral counseling is a highly engaging process whereby both the counselor and
individual participate actively to set goals, evaluate successes, modify approaches, and
reward successes. Demonstrating its usefulness is often very compelling to students across
the life span.
In addition to the counseling approaches described, school counselors are also
encouraged to use the school’s curriculum to support student cognitive development, which
ultimately supports children’s overall skill set. Regardless of the student’s level of skill
development, counselors can reference curricular experiences in which students are engaged
to help their thinking about their current behaviors. For example, the counselor may
reference a persuasive writing assignment an eighth grader is completing in language arts,
where he is assigned the prompt: “Write for 15 minutes about something you wish
someone had told you earlier!” The counselor may ask about his point of view to the
question: “Write for 15 minutes about something you wish someone had told you earlier
about feelings of anxiety!” That is, by using a similar prompt to the classroom activity, the
student can capitalize on a practiced skill set to answer a question that can help change his
thinking, and thus his behavior. Counselors in school are advantaged by the opportunity to
coordinate readings and reflections already occurring within the curriculum to maximize a
particular student’s perspective on the life events with which he or she is struggling.
Counselors who are aware of the planned curriculum can place well-timed experiences to
help each student in his or her development. Working with parents around school activities
is very helpful in encouraging family support as well.

Summary
School counselors are not likely to provide long-term individual counseling to students.
Students and families requiring long-term clinical care are likely to receive those services
through other professionals in the building (e.g., social workers or school psychologists), or
they will be referred to community-based facilities. However, school counselors do need to
have clinical skills. Counselors will be called upon to help school teams understand and
promote behavioral change so that students may benefit from their educational
environment and advance in their academic skills. Short-term counseling is routinely

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required for students in crisis, acute distress (e.g., peer rejection), and to promote stalled or
uneven social-emotional development. Understanding the usefulness of specific therapies
and being able to apply those therapies with appropriate age groups to facilitate academic
and social-emotional development is a critical skill for school counselors.

References
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psychotherapies (10th ed.; pp. 231–264). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
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psychotherapies (10th ed.; pp. 151–189). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Friedberg, R. D., McClure, J. M., & Garcia, J. H. (2009). Cognitive therapy techniques for children and adolescents: Tools
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Ivey, A. E., Ivey, M. B., & Zalaquett, C. P. (2010). Intentional interviewing and counseling: Facilitating client
development in a multicultural society (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
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Kendall, P. C. (Ed.) (2011). Child and adolescent therapy: Cognitive-behavioral procedures (4th ed.). New York: Guilford
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Goldfried (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy integration (pp. 94–129). New York: Basic Books.
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Taylor, L. (2005). A thumbnail map for solution-focused brief therapy. Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 16, 27–33.
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 Chapter Seven
Group Counseling

Box 7.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
3.c Core curriculum design, lesson plan development, classroom management
strategies, and differentiated instructional strategies
3.d Interventions to promote academic development
3.f Techniques of personal/social counseling in school settings
3.l Techniques to foster collaboration within schools
3.m Strategies for implementing and coordinating peer intervention programs

Meeting the needs of students drives school counselors’ work and vision. School
counselors use group counseling interventions to promote students’ academic, career, and
personal/social development through the application of developmentally based approaches.
This chapter will explore the school counselor’s role of group facilitator, and discuss some
of the relevant issues for conducting group counseling in the school setting. The availability
of groups for students in schools is crucial to their overall development, and has been an
integral part of ASCA School Counselor Competencies (ASCA, 2012). Providing students
with the opportunity to come together and learn about themselves and others allows space
to address the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors (ASCA, 2014) as well.
According to Erford (2011), school counselors are called to bridge the achievement gap
through culturally competent interventions aimed at improving students’ personal, social
and emotional, and career concerns. Pérusse, Goodnough, and Lee (2009) posited that
group work is an effective way of providing opportunities for students to develop social
skills and foster peer acceptance. Through group work, students may experience a stable
environment in which it is deemed safe to express difficult feelings (Veach & Gladding,
2007). Research indicates that group counseling interventions can increase students’
achievement and effectively address students’ emotional and behavioral issues (Bemak,
Chung, & Siroskey-Sabdo, 2005; Corey & Corey, 2006; Steen & Kaffenberger, 2007), and
increase school attendance and work habits (Paisley & Milsom, 2007). Bailey and
Bradbury-Bailey (2007) also reported that group participation allows members to bond and
feel safe in sharing their experience, while working toward a shared goal. This also helps to
satisfy the needs of adolescents to be socially accepted and belong to a group as well as to
find their place in the world.

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 Figure 7.1 Group Counseling Session. Copyright: www.istockphoto.com.

Professional school counselors are called to perform many group tasks throughout the
course of an average day. Those groups will vary in length and level of intensity, from
Response to Intervention (RtI) groups, to grief and loss groups with students, to meeting
with groups of teachers for professional development training. Professional school
counselors wear many group facilitator hats as part of their role in delivering a
comprehensive, developmental, equitable, school counseling program. Irvin Yalom has
been instrumental in influencing the group work processes of counselors for over 40 years.

Box 7.2
Did you know?
Irvin Yalom is a psychiatrist and is considered one of the foremost authorities in group
counseling and existential psychotherapy.

He believed that to be an effective group facilitator, one needed to consistently demonstrate

care and concern for the members of the group, while being present and emotionally
available to them (Lieberman, Yalom, & Miles, 1973). Others agreed, and decades of
research and practice provide support for group counseling in schools. Researchers and
school counselors determined that group counseling is effective for many reasons,
including:

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• school counselors can see many students at one time;
• from a developmental and pedagogical perspective, students often learn best from each
other (due to shared feelings and experiences);
• groups provide an excellent forum for students to experience this student-to-student
learning process (mentoring, supporting, understanding, empathizing);
• groups are a microcosm of society and as such provide real-life settings in which students
can work out issues and problems.
(Bruce, Getch, & Ziomek-Diagle, 2009; Gladding, 2008; Pérusse et al., 2009)

Within the ASCA National Model® (2012), group counseling is categorized as a direct
student service that may be used to deliver the school counseling core curriculum, provide
individual student planning, or for responsive services. Professional school counselors are
expected to provide group counseling interventions to all students in the school
community. This task can be challenging, especially in schools where large student-to-
counselor ratios exist and space to conduct groups is limited. However, even in the toughest
of circumstances, school counselors offer an array of group topics for students to explore,
learn, and grow. While developing an equitable program serving all students, school
counselors must be purposeful in their planning and preparation. Being aware of the details
for each and every group will allow the counselor to facilitate each group with confidence.

Box 7.3
Important Questions in Creating School-based Counseling Groups
Answering these questions might prove helpful in establishing an effective group
program.

• Why is this group relevant to students?

• Who is this group meant to serve (ages, grade level, issues addressed, and number of
students)?
• Will this be a homogeneous or heterogeneous group, based on what criteria?
• How will you recruit members?
• How will you screen for appropriate fit of members for the group?
• How often will the group meet and for what period of time (six weeks, twelve weeks,
etc.)?
• What will be the location of the group?
• What will be the structure of the group meetings?
• How will you evaluate the group’s effectiveness?

Ethical Considerations Regarding Groups

One of the most time-efficient and effective counseling program components is offering
small group counseling (ASCA, 2012). However, there are several ethical concerns to be

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considered when establishing small group counseling into the program. These ethical
concerns encompass group participant screening, informed consent for students and
parents, confidentiality, school counselor group facilitation competency, and cultural
awareness in the group setting. All of these topics are explicitly addressed in ASCA’s Ethical
Standards for School Counselors (2010).

Group Screening
Section A.6 of ASCA’s Ethical Standards for School Counselors (2010) directly discusses
group work in the school setting, which is markedly different from group work conducted
in a clinical venue. The first ethical concern addressed in the A.6.a subsection is the
selection and screening process of student participants. As stated, “The school counselor
takes reasonable precautions to protect members from physical and psychological harm
resulting from interaction within the group” (ASCA Ethical Standards, 2010, A.6.a). This
necessary precaution considers students in conflict or students with severe behavioral
problems. While these issues may interfere with the progression of the group, the biggest
ethical concern is that they may also cause damage to individual group members. Questions
to consider in the screening process might include: Does this student work well in groups?
Are they capable of understanding the material covered? Do the direction, intention, and
goals of this group work for this student? Not all students necessarily benefit from small
group processes, as their social skills may not be up for the challenges of group dynamics.
This screening is also an opportunity to evaluate whether the individual student’s needs
may be effectively addressed through the group process. The success and effectiveness of the
group can be sabotaged by lack of screening.

Informed Consent
At the time of the screening process the informed consent can be obtained from the
potential participants. A.2 of the ASCA Ethical Standards (2010) suggests that in both
individual and small group counseling, it is important for the practitioner to inform
participants of the purpose, goals, and techniques that will be used in the sessions. This
informed consent should be provided in a developmentally appropriate and meaningful
manner, inclusive of a check for understanding. Additional information that should be
presented to students in a developmentally appropriate manner includes how they were
selected for the group, what they will get out of the group, techniques and theoretical
approaches, and what they can expect regarding confidentiality.

Confidentiality
Confidentiality is the cornerstone of school counseling (Kaplan, 1995); however, in
working with minors and groups there are some intrinsic limits to confidentiality. The
informed consent process educates participants about the limitations to confidentiality
within the group (ASCA Ethical Standards 2010, A.2.a). Although the importance of
confidentiality must be presented in the early stages of the group’s development, it is

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equally important to reinforce the importance of confidentiality and its limitations
throughout the group process. The school counselor should explain to students that he or
she is required to violate confidentiality in situations in which a student is a threat to
him/herself or another, and if the school counselor suspects that a student is being harmed.
As stated by Stone (2013), “School counselors must establish clear expectations in the
group setting and clearly state that confidentiality in group counseling cannot be
guaranteed” (p. 248). Despite the limitations of confidentiality, the school counselor can
reiterate the value and respect that confidentiality offers for effective group work. However,
parents must also understand the role of confidentiality.

Parental Permission
Best ethical practice seeks parental/guardian permission for their child’s participation in
group sessions. While the school counselor’s primary obligation is to the student as stated
in A.1.a, it is important to seek parents’ support. A.2.d of the ASCA Ethical Standards
(2010) recognizes that parents/guardians should be regarded as the voice of their children.
The practitioner is encouraged to develop a collaborative relationship with the parents and
should respect their rights to help their child make value-laden decisions (ASCA Ethical
Standards, Section B, 2010). Likewise, parents have the right to family privacy, which may
be counterintuitive in a group setting. Utilizing a parent permission form is, on the other
hand, a good opportunity to build parent relations with the school counselor. This is
especially true when initiative is taken to help parents understand the group process and
how it could help their children develop social intelligence and strengthen academic success
(Malekoff, 2004). Appendices A and B are parental consent letters, one in English, one in
Spanish.

Group Facilitation Competency of the School Counselor

Professional school counselors may be compelled to offer groups based on data from a
needs assessment or requests from teachers, administrators, or parents. However, when
implementing a group, the professional competency of the group facilitator is an ethical
consideration. In a recent professional survey by Kozlowski and Stone (2013), 79% of the
respondents said they felt confident or very confident in implementing counseling strategies
such as leading small groups. Although this survey supports the fact that the majority of
school counselors feel competent in their group facilitation skills, Section E of the ASCA
Ethical Standards (2010) is directive regarding professional competency. It stresses that the
school counselor must function within the boundaries of their competence and must take
responsibility to seek professional development for skills necessary to maintain that
competency, including group facilitation skills.
Not only is competency for group facilitation a professional skill necessary for the school
counselor, but also knowledge and competency of some intense topics are crucial. Serious
topics such as incest, eating disorders, trauma, self-mutilation, to name a few, are topics
that require specialized training. These subjects of such a grave nature may best be

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implemented in a clinical setting rather than an academic venue. Because it is important to
have specific training in some of these difficult topics, and because the ethical standards of
both ASCA and ACA caution us to do no harm, it is incumbent upon the school counselor
to be trained in the areas in which they are practicing. It may be more practical, not to
mention ethical, for school counselors to implement more generic groups, such as
leadership groups (Stone, 2013). While difficult subjects may arise in leadership groups, the
life skills taught in such groups is relevant to the growth, productivity, and academic
success of all students. Additionally, leadership skill development is more palatable to
parents when parental permission is sought for students’ participation.

Cultural Awareness in Groups

An additional ethical layer for effective group counseling encourages the cultural awareness
of the school counselor.

In any group, the unique experiences, personalities and backgrounds of individuals

and their interactions affect the way the group will work. Understanding that these
differences and similarities exist and knowing how this can affect the group is crucial
to being a successful group leader.
(Williams, Lantz, & Noorulamin, 2008, p. 14)

The culturally sensitive school counselor will promote social justice and equity within the
group as well as within the school. As small groups are developed, the school counselor
considers the cultural implications within the group. Section E.2 encourages the
professional school counselor to “monitor and expand personal multicultural and social
justice advocacy awareness, knowledge and skills. School counselors strive for exemplary
cultural competence by ensuring personal beliefs or values are not imposed on students or
other stakeholders” (ASCA, 2010, p. 5). The conscious cultural awareness within a group
may impact the entire school if done well. When diverse groups come together, contact
hypothesis predicts that prejudice is reduced and respect for everyone is valued (Williams et
al., 2008).
The ethical issues of small group counseling in an educational setting are very different
from the clinical setting. However, the value and effectiveness of the group learning and
group process far outweigh any concerns, so long as the school counselor remains vigilant
about the ethical implications of group counseling.

Ages and Stages of Groups

Groups may vary in size, depending on the purpose and scope. Counseling groups, such as
those which help students with personal struggles to belong at school, may include between
two and ten members, while psychoeducational groups performed in a classroom setting
(also known as school counseling classroom lessons) may include an entire class of 25 to 30
students. The school counselor’s preparedness to facilitate the group may have a significant
impact on the group’s outcome (Hess, Magnuson, & Beeler, 2011). It is important that the

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school counselor follows developmental cues when providing group guidance to students,
paying special attention as the group is created.

Box 7.4
Important Aspects of Group Planning
Needs: the concerns and issues specific to the group and individual participants.
Purpose: the focus and intentions of the group function.
Composition: the members participating in the group and the group facilitator.
Structure: inclusive of not only the logistics of time and place for the group, but
also considering the physical and emotional safety of the group.
Content and Curriculum: the means to achieve the purpose.
Screening Process: the preliminary evaluation and invitation of potential
participants.
Context: the culture and climate within the group.

The manner in which a group is conducted may be as important as the participants

themselves. The facilitator must take great care in designing an appropriate group
counseling program plan, but also develop the skills, knowledge, and awareness to conduct
the groups effectively. When a group facilitator does not allow for participants to solve their
own problems, the group may struggle to stay connected, and eventually the members will
lose interest (Steen & Bemak, 2008).
Throughout the group process, members become fluid in their development, and the
group takes on characteristics that resemble unique stages that are achieved as the members
collectively process information and demonstrate characteristics that Corey (2015)
described as Formation, Orientation, Transition, Working, and Consolidation. Within each
stage of group development, members maintain growth from the previous stage and build
on the knowledge and coping skills from the stage achieved. Corey described the stages as:
Formation – identifies the initial process members go through at the onset of the group,
and is characterized by group members’ anxiety, curiosity, and feeling of hope as they learn
about the purpose and objectives of the group process. The facilitator takes care of the
logistical aspect of the group formation, by setting up the meeting times and location,
inviting and screening potential members, obtaining consent for participation if working
with students, and planning each session (as needed, depending on the type of group) so
members are aware of any curriculum plan for the group meetings.
Orientation – involves the members moving into a deeper level of understanding
regarding the group process, as feelings of distrust, anxiety, and skepticism surface. The
facilitator is responsible for creating a safe and welcoming environment in which the
members will work. An effective facilitator will allow for members to introduce themselves
in a way that connects one to another, and will make the group goals known to the group
(either through collaborative development or sharing of predetermined goals). This is also a

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time for members and facilitators to voice concerns and expectations for group
participation. The facilitator will also address specific needs and concerns of the group
members, in order to cultivate trust and support open communication.
Transition – is the phase where members become less willing to share emotional burdens
with the group, for fear of over-disclosing or retribution by the facilitator or other
members. The group begins to experience conflict among members that prompts members
to resort to a “fight or flight” stance on issues they deem uncomfortable to discuss openly.
The facilitator’s role in this stage is to validate and provide support for members’ feelings of
anxiety. Normalizing feelings, while acknowledging strong emotional responses, will help
build trust among the group members. It is important for the facilitator to remain objective
and not personalize the potentially strong reactions members may have to conflict in the
group. By acknowledging the conflict among members as part of the group process, and as
something to be expected not feared, members may begin to let go of anxiety and irritation
toward one another and begin to practice the coping skills that the facilitator has
demonstrated for them during this phase.
Working – can be recognized by the group facilitator when members appear to be
connected and freely interact with one another without being prompted. They demonstrate
a shared commitment to the group and each other. This stage is marked by members
challenging each other to work on individual goals, while recognizing each member’s
contribution to the group as a whole. The facilitator continues to model appropriate coping
skills, as members begin to practice these skills within and outside of the group.
Collaboration and openness to feedback are also seen at this stage in the process, whereas
some members will spend an entire group session working on a personal issue with the
support of the others. Many groups stay in this stage for long periods of time without
disruption, others will begin working and suffer a setback in which they regress back to the
transition stage. This is common and not something that should be feared. All groups have
a personality of their own and if the facilitator can remain objective and allow the group
room to grow, the outcome will be much richer than if the facilitator attempts to control
the movement of the group in and out of the stages.
Consolidation – is characterized by the ending of the group process and termination of
group meetings. Many members will reflect on their accomplishments and satisfaction of
their goals, while others will shy away from ending the group because of the feelings of loss
that might accompany it. Some members might feel ambivalent toward the group
terminating, and these feelings should be normalized. Each member will react to the
consolidation process differently. While some will want to celebrate accomplishments,
others will feel sad and lonely at the thought of something ending in their life. The
facilitator supports this closure by providing each member the opportunity to talk about
what the group meant to them, what they gained, what they might be looking forward to
doing with their new-found skills, and what they will do to prevent relapse. The facilitator
also offers information about upcoming groups or other resources within the community
that might be of benefit to the members.

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Types of Groups

Developmental
Developmental counseling groups are created to provide students with a specific set of
interventions, based on need. The students are recruited and placed in groups based on
their specific educational, social, or future-oriented challenges. There are three types of
developmental groups that are found in schools, including:

• Groups for Academic Development: Issues addressed include, but are not limited to, time
management, study skills, test-taking strategies, and institutional transition issues
(middle to high school, high school to college).
• Career Development Groups: Issues addressed include goal setting and decision-making,
transitioning into postsecondary life, exploration of options, financial literacy, and
college planning.
• Social/Emotional Groups: Issues addressed include, but are not limited to, grief and loss,
fears and anxiety, building healthy friendships, self-esteem, dealing with relational
aggression, dating relationships, sexual identity, personal empowerment, accepting a
newborn sibling, or dealing with divorce or separation from parents (incarceration,
hospitalization, etc.).

While academic groups are designed to provide psychoeducational materials and support
for students experiencing mild anxiety while attempting to meet their educational goals,
career development groups provide information and support specific to graduating from
high school and transitioning to adulthood. Personal/social groups provide support for
students with a multitude of interpersonal challenges with the intent of awakening their
awareness and providing support for individual growth. Brigman and Campbell (2003)
reported that achievement and behavior are positively impacted by group counseling
interventions that focus on the social and emotional issues of the group participants. School
counselors are in the unique position of providing group counseling support for all students
as part of their comprehensive, developmental, inclusive, school counseling program. With
a clean structure and common understanding as to the role of the school counselor, the
above groups would be effective in promoting a healthy school climate and have a
tremendous impact on the school community.

Remedial or RtI Groups

RtI groups may provide students with the opportunity to share their feelings on topics that
impair their learning or development, both in and outside of the school community. The
group process may involve helping students learn to cope with specific issues that relate to
potential learning disabilities, while establishing the use of innovative methods for
gathering data on students within contextualized environments (Hamayan, Marler,
Sanchez-Lopez, & Damico, 2013). While confidentiality is a concern, the group facilitator
may report to the RtI team the general progress of students attending the group. This

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would enable the team to establish a comprehensive picture of the students’ coping skills
and ability to engage in support services.
The premise of RtI groups is to help students develop coping skills in order to assist
them in facing challenging personal and social issues, while helping them recognize the
need to engage in the learning process. Such groups might focus on issues surrounding
divorce, deployment of a parent(s), substance use/abuse, healing from the impact of
substance use/abuse of a family member, incarcerated parent(s), grief and loss, anger
management, conflict resolution, depression, disordered eating behaviors, and issues related
to adoption (Pérusse et al., 2009). These groups are psychoeducational in nature, and
provide age-appropriate information to ultimately enhance academic success. For example,
students who are grieving a loss need to be taught about the grieving process and stages of
healing in order to understand the process they are going through and the support that is
available to them. Another example would be a conflict resolution group, where strategies
are taught to students so they may solve their own problems as they arise. With an effective
group counseling program in place, all students have the opportunity to learn new, useful
information as they move through the K-12 system.

Culture and Climate Groups

According to Koth, Bradshaw, and Leaf (2008), students’ perceptions of their “school
climate” were positively correlated to their academic achievement, issues of adjustment, and
social and personal attitudes toward others. Through the use of group counseling
interventions, students may learn to become more culturally aware of the challenges others
face. This could lead to a reduction in biases and prejudices that impact students’ day-to-
day interactions, leading to an increased level of respect for themselves and one another
(Nikels, Mims, & Mims, 2007). By engaging students in a dialogue regarding the cultural
and institutional barriers some students face, a more tolerant, supportive school climate
may emerge. Students facing daily harassment for being viewed as different (LGBTQQI,
race, ethnicity, ability, religion, SES, etc.) face many more challenges than students who
perceive themselves as part of the majority culture.

Box 7.5
Did you know?
Bruce et al. (2009) suggest that a group counseling format may be culturally responsive
for African American students as it is consistent with the African American community’s
shared value on connectedness. A group setting may also provide African American
students with an opportunity to bond and discuss personal issues while also working
toward a shared goal.

Group counseling interventions designed to provide minority students with the

opportunity to gain a voice regarding social issues may contribute to their feelings of

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connectedness to their school and how they perceive themselves within the context of the
school environment. Sharing these thoughts and feelings regarding their personal
development is necessary in order to understand systemic issues they face (decreasing
feelings of alienation, increasing feelings of hope, and increasing positive coping and social
skills). By providing an outlet to talk about concerns, find common interests and values,
and promote equitable learning environments, school counselors can become significant
change agents within the school (Lee, 2005; Pérusse et al., 2009).
Another type of group that has large cultural implications for a school would be those
involving a crisis, such as a terrorist attack, an incident of school violence, the sudden death
of a student or school personnel, or a natural disaster that impacts the local school
community. By providing an immediate, safe place for students to come and debrief their
feelings of fear, anger, hope, and remembrance, the climate of the school may become one
of love and acceptance, instead of fear and division. School counselors must display
confident leadership skills and model appropriate boundaries for students and faculty
during a time of crisis. Projecting a calm and safe demeanor to students and other
school/community stakeholders helps the school counselor to be viewed as a person who
can be counted on in a time of crisis, and one who can keep others safe as well. This
supports the school counselor’s role as a member of the leadership team of the school, and a
district resource for others in crisis.

Group Formation

Homogeneous and Heterogeneous

When looking at the make-up of a group it is prudent to decide the characteristics you
would like to include. There are two types of groups, those that contain members with
similar challenges, and those experiencing different challenges, but who are able to learn
coping skills to tackle a wide range of student concerns. The facilitator is tasked with
deciding which type of group to create and how members will be selected. Once that
decision is made, members may be recruited based on needs and appropriateness for each
group.
A homogeneous group is comprised of students who are struggling with similar issues.
By grouping students together that have a common interest in a particular subject (i.e.,
grief, loss, substance abuse, social issues, divorce, dating violence), the counselor brings
students that might not connect with each other into the same room. Students are able to
identify with one another, whereas someone without knowledge of the issue may not
understand. Students may feel less alone or isolated in this type of group, where members
may offer support to one another. According to Yalom (1995), this idea of “universality” is
what makes groups successful. Participants learn that they are not alone and engage with
others on a level of common understanding.
Heterogeneous groups form around a common means for solving a problem, with
specific psychoeducational information provided (i.e., solution-focused problem solving, or

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choice theory) as a means of working with all members. Within heterogeneous groups,
individual student concerns may vary. Some students may have challenges in certain areas
of their lives, but still serve as a model for others within the group, providing examples of
healthy responses to stressful situations. With these student-models as guides, other
members are encouraged to test out new, healthy behaviors within and outside of the
group. This process works best if not all students lack the coping skills the facilitator hopes
they each develop. The facilitator may also model certain behaviors as a means of
reinforcing psychoeducational material presented.

Leadership Groups
Bemak et al. (2005) developed the Empowerment Groups for Academic Success (EGAS)
approach for use with high school students. This group approach boasted no set
curriculum, but had “clearly defined goals for academic achievement” (Steen & Bemak,
2008, p. 338). The authors believed that the students’ improved school performance was
due to the processing of group dynamics and addressing individual issues that arose during
the group session. Bauer, Sapp, and Johnson (2000) demonstrated a “supportive view” that
group counseling can also be an “educational experience” where students can learn and
practice positive interactions that will assist them in higher performance in school. This
supports the idea that empowerment within groups creates positive outcomes within the
school environment. By encouraging group participation, students will develop a greater
understanding of themselves in relation to others. This avenue toward more effective self-
reflection carries students toward roles as leaders and decreases the likelihood that they will
engage in at-risk behaviors.

Effective Group Facilitation

Group Leadership Skills

When implementing group work in a school setting, many people think about the activities
and curriculum first and often miss other essential aspects of creating effective groups.
Actually, the most important component that makes groups work is the quality and skills of
the facilitator (Brown, 2009). As a facilitator, the school counselor not only brings their
skills and techniques but also their personality, including playfulness and supportiveness
(Corey, Corey, Callanan, & Russell, 2004). The authenticity and uniqueness of the group
facilitator can make or break a group. Brown (2009) avows that “effectiveness is tied to the
groups’ perceptions of what you demonstrate rather than what you say. Who you are ends
up being more influential on group members than your actions or your words” (p. 4). The
group’s progress can be based on the authenticity of the facilitator. Depending on only
techniques and curriculum forces the facilitator to become mechanical (Brown, 2009).
While many experienced group leaders caution that there is no “right” way to facilitate,
Corey et al. (2004) warn that the primary goal of good facilitation is being “with the group
members and understanding their subjective world” (p. 25).

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 The facilitator serves as a guide, model, instructor, mediator, mentor, coach,
cheerleader, and architect, whose responsibility it is to structure the framework in which
the group will operate (Brown, 2009). Malekoff (2004) suggests that group leaders embrace
the beauty, fluidity, and the uncertainty of groups while maintaining a sense of humor and
checking your ego at the door. In addition to those skills the group facilitator must be
flexible and willing to handle novelty and uncertainty. Malekoff (2004, p. 24) states that
“to look with planned emptiness is to hold to a position of uncertainty, to be willing to
learn from the inside-out, and to enable oneself to weather the sometimes disorienting
qualities of a group in motion.” These skills and traits are without merit, however, if the
most crucial effective facilitation skill cannot be met, which is being able to develop
relationships. Competency for group work requires a leader’s ability to connect with group
members, developing a trusting environment in which students can be themselves and feel
safe participating in the activities.
The leader’s skills and personality are balanced with the complexities of the multitasking
skills of facilitation. Group facilitation requires a focus on the whole of the group, which is
a change from the individual counseling perspective. Additional suggested perception shifts
(Brown, 2009; Corey et al., 2004) for effective group leading include:

• Observing and understanding interactions among and between members – which are
often projections, transference, and a reflection of their daily interactions.
• Being honest with the group members regarding observations and feedback in a way that
can be understood by them without provoking defensiveness.
• Identifying similarities among members – offering an understanding of universality,
which impacts feelings of separation.
• Using group dynamics effectively – which is a major source of information about group
members’ responses, offering insight into potential intervention strategies.
• Making group process commentary – revealing negative and positive group interactions
is a primary responsibility of the group facilitator.
• Demonstrating acceptance of all participants in the group and not labeling or judging
individuals.
• Recognizing the impact of the various cultural and diversity factors which are presented
in the group even when all members appear to be from the same culture or diversity.
• Detecting the facilitator’s own countertransference reactions, misusing leadership power,
and attempting to meet the group leader’s own needs at the expense of the members’.

Group Planning
Group counseling is inherently more challenging than individual counseling because there
are many moving parts. It offers more professional growth for the facilitator and arguably
more personal growth for the participants. Group counseling gives a view of the
individual’s microcosm while exposing macrocosmic aspects of the group interaction.
Allowing this flow to occur requires the three P’s of group development. Planning,
performing, and processing constitute the best practice framework for group facilitation as

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determined by the Association for Specialists in Group Work (Thomas & Pender, 2008).
Planning. The planning stage refers to all the preparatory aspects of setting up a group.
This may include a needs assessment for what types of groups to offer, group curriculum
and design, time and site logistics, identification of group members, and parent permission
(Conyne, Crowell, & Newmyer, 2008). This portion of the group planning process has
often been a neglected area. Frequently, the success or failure of a group is attributed to
unmotivated participants, inadequate curriculum, or parental interference, when, instead, it
may ultimately lie at the door of poor or negligent planning (Malekoff, 2004). In order to
effectively determine a plan for your group, keeping in mind ecological impact factors, the
areas in Box 7.6 should be addressed.

Box 7.6
Conyne et al. (2008) suggest using the Purposeful Group Techniques Model (PGTM)
that includes five steps:
1. Identify the group type and purpose, the relevant best practice area, and the
developmental stage that it may be in at the present time.
2. Analyze the presenting group’s situation by applying ecological concepts of context,
interconnection, collaboration, social system, meaning-making, and sustainability.
3. Review possible group techniques, considering focus and level.
4. Select a best-fit technique for that situation that holds promise for success.
5. Implement and evaluate how well the technique worked.

Intentional Techniques
Another aspect of effective group facilitation is intentional planning of techniques and
activities. Conyne et al. (2008, p. 8) define techniques as “the interventions (‘tools of the
trade’) that are used by group leaders – and sometimes by group members – to focus group
processes, try out behavior, accentuate thoughts and feelings, and provide opportunities for
learning.” Some facilitators choose to use a “canned” curriculum of techniques, while others
develop their own. It may be easiest to follow an established curriculum, but if it doesn’t
meet the conceptual framework of the group (Conyne et al., 2008), or the group goals, nor
does it address the dynamics of the members, then the curriculum will fail.
Adult groups may benefit from a discussion-based format; however, talk groups do not
fit well with the developmental needs of the younger group participants (Conyne et al.,
2008; Corey et al., 2004; Malekoff, 2004). Talk groups are also more difficult to facilitate
with younger participants. Adolescents and children learn best by doing, thus experiential
activities actually teach lifelong learning skills. In planning for this type of experiential
learning and choosing activities, the facilitator must first assess which techniques will best
serve the interactions of each particular group.

Box 7.7

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 Cooley’s (2009) Recommendations for how Group Facilitators Demonstrate Effective
Leadership Skills:

• Express concern regarding the members’ behavior without calling names or labeling.
• Resist the urge to address a sarcastic remark with sarcasm.
• Be open about how the group process works and answer questions as they arise.
• Address members’ feelings of resistance in the moment.
• Describe disruptive behavior without labeling, criticizing, or condemning the
member involved. Model the effective use of “I” statements.
• When expressing hunches or observations, avoid generalizations and provide specific
examples that lead to your discovery.

After the decision on activities has been made, an effective group leader must carefully
consider three main components of every activity: concept introduction, the activity, and
debrief (Williams et al., 2008).
Concept introduction – How will the group leader get the group members to buy in to
the activity? Just as a paper is written with an introduction, a body of information, and a
conclusion, the facilitator must follow the same pattern with an experiential activity. So to
encourage engagement and enthusiasm, the facilitator develops a creative method of
introducing the concept in the activity. In addition, it is important to keep in mind the
objective for the activity.
Conduct the activity – Experiencing the experience is when the actual learning occurs for
the participants, if facilitation is done well. Conducting the activity includes attaining the
necessary materials needed and prioritizing the physical and emotional safety of all the
group members. After the directions of the activity are given and questions are answered,
the role of the facilitator shifts to that of an observer. Facilitators do not solve the problem
for the participants but allow for exploration within the group, and encourage effective
communication, teambuilding and problem-solving without rescuing the participants
(MacIver & McCarroll, 1999).

Whether as a [group leader] who facilitates discussions, or as an enforcer of rules for

the safety of participants, or as a leader who models appropriate behavior, the role of
the facilitator should remain fluid in function as the dynamics of group change.
(MacIver & McCarroll, 1999, p. 10)

Debrief the activity – The third, and most valuable, component of facilitation is
processing the experience. No activity should be done unless there is time to debrief the
experience, which is where the intention of an activity comes to fruition (Williams et al.,
2008). Done immediately following an activity, the facilitator structures the debrief so
individuals are encouraged to reflect on how the group planned, how the members
interacted, analyze the communication, and transfer meaning to the group learning that
just occurred (MacIver & McCarroll, 1999). There are many suggested processing

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structures; however, the one that seems most concise and meaningful is the reflective model
presented by Rolfe, Freshwater, and Jasper (2001). This technique consists of asking three
basic questions: “What?”, “So what?”, and “What now?”
“What” Questions: This line of questioning is about the immediate response of the group
members regarding the activity. Examples: So what just happened? What was that activity
like for you? It encourages the group to reflect on the immediate feelings that occurred
during the activity. These questions can refer to actions, attitudes, and behaviors of the
group or individuals.
“So What” Questions: These questions ask about the purpose of the activity. Examples:
Why do you think we did this? What was the point of this activity? These questions are
intended to draw conclusions about the actions of the group and success of the strategies
employed by the group. This portion of the debrief process allows for group members to
consider actions that worked well and consider changing actions that were not successful.
“Now What” Questions: The final level of debrief questions are about the real life
application or meaning of the experience for each person. Example: What did you learn
about yourself in this activity? What are the behaviors you brought to this activity that
helped with the groups’ success? The purpose of these application questions is to increase
the likelihood that group members develop self-awareness and apply the learning to their
own lives.
Encouragement to utilize activities and techniques comes with the caution of balance.
Be intentional in your planning and purpose. As stated by Malekoff (2004, p. 166),
“Activity is more than a ‘tool,’ more than programmed content, more than ‘canned’
exercises and more than a mechanistic means to an end.” Ideally, the means to the end is
obtaining new personal awareness and more effective behaviors. It is the essence of
experiential learning. But this does not occur by coincidence. Simply doing an activity does
not give meaning and application to the participants. It is through the processing of the
activity that meaning is attached and learning occurs (Williams et al., 2008).

Assessing Group Functioning

• Causes members to be reliant on others.

• Outcomes of experience cannot be totally predictable.
• Possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes, and/or success.
• Provides opportunities for learning and experiencing in a unique and physical setting –
Kinesthetic learning.
• Holistic, involving all senses, using a variety of learning styles.
• Immediate feedback on performance.
• Activities are novel and multi-dimensional.
• Educators recognize spontaneous opportunities for learning.
• Learning is personal and a basis for future learning.
• Relationships are developed.
• An activity that is structured to encourage individuals to plan, reflect, describe, analyze,

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 and communicate about experiences.
• Can be used to:
• Help individuals focus awareness on issues
• Facilitate awareness to promote change
• Reflect, analyze, describe, or discuss
• Reinforce perceptions of change and promote integration

When group members engage in the assessment process, reflection and understanding
become part of their awareness. Without this necessary function, members may not fully
understand the depths to which they have connected with others in the group, or with the
group facilitator. While this process relies mostly on the work of the members, the
facilitator has an obligation to provide the structure necessary for members to engage in
meaningful ways. The skills needed by the facilitator vary, depending on the overall
development of the members, but having adequate training is a must for those who hope to
engage in group work with students.

Group Dynamics
Leading a counseling group within a school is considered by Lee and Goodnough (2007) to
be a highly specialized skill, requiring specific training in how to facilitate groups. Group
facilitators also need to be grounded in counseling theory and practice in order to be
effective (Pérusse et al., 2009). When students apply what they learn in the group setting to
their own lives, they come back to the group to share their experiences. This sharing may
open students up to emotional risk. Encouraging students to maintain confidentiality
supports the notion that the group is a safe place to experience emotional growth, promote
trust among members, and develop a sense of inclusion (Pérusse et al., 2009). Group
facilitators help students understand that they are not alone by connecting students to each
other in meaningful ways. This is used to promote healing by allowing students to share
their personal experiences in a supportive environment.

Structure of a Group
Solution-Focused Groups in Schools
Regardless of the theoretical orientation used, solution-focused counseling interventions
offer the school counselor options that fit into the demands of a hectic schedule that
potentially limits the amount of time spent with students. In order to maximize the
effectiveness of group time, school counselors may utilize solution-focused techniques with
students, while teaching them steps so that they may potentially solve their own problems
in the future. This approach supports strengths-based inquiry and does not look to explore
past issues, but only the present and future orientation of the students (deShazer, 1988).
While looking at students as agents for change in their own lives, school counselors
cultivate power within students’ perspectives and become advocates for individual change
within the system. The more control the students believe they have to solve their own

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problems, the more likely they will be to do so. However, the school counselor must
provide the appropriate level of information and guidance in order for students to fully
integrate this approach into their daily lives.
Traditional group counseling models are based on students sharing their feelings,
finding common ground with others who suffer a similar plight, and gaining the strength
to overcome their issues. Through this process, students learn to communicate their feelings
in a more effective way, and relate to others on a deeper level. Solution-focused group work
emphasizes looking internally to discover strengths and resiliency toward solving problems
in the past that may lead to healthy beliefs in their future-oriented problem-solving ability.
Building on past successes and relating those behaviors to current situations helps the
students gain power over their behavior and ultimately compile a mental list of coping skills
they may draw from in the future.
Steps to utilizing solution-focused groups in schools. According to Cooley (2009),
there are eight assumptions of solution-focused brief counseling. These assumptions guide
the process of working from this perspective and help to form a template for change with
groups:
1. All students have resources and strengths, even if they are not yet obvious to us or to
the student.
2. If what you are doing is working, do more of it and if what you are doing isn’t
working, at least try something different.
3. Problems are not constant. There are times when the problem either does not exist or is
less frequent.
4. Big problems do not necessarily require complex solutions.
5. Changes in one area will affect other areas.
6. Even if temporarily confused or uncertain, the student is the expert on the problem.
7. The solution may not necessarily be directly related to the problem. The solution can
be found at the intersection of the future focus, the student’s strengths and
resourcefulness, and the counselor’s respectful curiosity.
8. Change is inevitable.
(Cooley, 2009, p. 21)

When deciding who to invite to the group, the school counselor keeps the above
assumptions in mind, and makes an educated decision as to who might be appropriate for
the type of group they hope to create. Most referrals come from teachers, parents, or
students themselves, but school counselors also create groups made up of students they
believe would benefit.

Determining Necessity
The first step in creating a group is to determine if the group is really necessary, and how
many students suffer from similar issues. The best way to make this determination is to
create and distribute a needs assessment to all students, teachers, parents, and
administrators. Oftentimes, parents and teachers believe a problem such as “bullying” is of

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high concern, only to find out that the real issue is low self-esteem among the students. By
obtaining data related to students’ needs, the school counselor will save precious time and
energy determining what students believe is important to them and tailoring their group
interventions to those specific needs. By making an effort to gain information from
students, it will not only empower them to have a voice, but to feel they have an outlet to
vent their concerns. The school counselor will already have begun to form relationships
with students by merely asking them to share their feelings. Obtaining information from a
formal needs assessment might also help the parents and teachers develop a better
understanding of the students’ needs and how to support them. Additionally, surveying
administrators, teachers, and parents regarding their perceptions of students’ needs
increases the likelihood that they will support the school counselor in conducting groups.
Final approval of the group topics should be sought from the administrator(s).

Laying the Groundwork

The next step is to educate students, parents, teachers, and administrators on what the
group counseling process is, the purpose, details about time and space, and what they might
expect if they participate. By making the process known to the stakeholders in the school,
the school counselor will likely gain support and participation for this movement. Once the
needs of students have been determined, and members of the school community have been
briefed on why groups are effective within the school setting, the school counselor may
begin to accept referrals for groups that have been created based on need. Referrals may
come from sources within the school community, or from outside sources (i.e., family
therapist, juvenile justice, social services). It is the school counselor’s responsibility to
determine a student’s readiness for group participation, not the referring party. In order for
groups to be successful, the school counselor facilitating the group needs to be
knowledgeable of the needs of each member and have enough information to manage the
interaction between members during the group sessions.

Timing is Everything
To increase the likelihood of obtaining the cooperation of the teachers and administrators,
groups must be scheduled in a manner that is least disruptive to the academic mission and
the school’s schedule. School counselors often use a staggered schedule in which the group
meets at different times in order to distribute students’ missed time evenly among their
classes (Greenberg, 2003). For example, at the middle/junior high and high school levels,
the number of group sessions coincides with the number of school periods, and there is one
group session per period. In elementary schools, which do not have specified class periods, a
tiered schedule involves meeting one week at 9:30, the next week at 1:30, the third week at
10:30, and so on. The school counselor should first consult with teachers before scheduling
groups to obtain their ideas regarding creating the least disruptive schedule. The school
counselor can obtain the future testing/exam schedule of teachers to avoid scheduling
groups during such times.

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 Another issue relating to the scheduling of groups concerns the number of group
sessions. In middle/junior high and high schools, the number of group sessions often
coincides with the number periods in the school. For example, if a school has eight periods,
the group will be comprised of eight sessions, thus students only miss a class or a portion of
a class once. The problem with staggering the schedule of groups is that the members may
forget the group meeting times. School counselors can remind students of the meeting
times by sending notes to both the teachers and the group members the day before the
group meets and ask group members to remind each other of the meeting times.

Missed Work
The most disruptive aspect of group counseling in a school setting is the work missed by
students. The school counselor should often remind students of their responsibility for
making up missed work, and inform teachers of this group requirement (Greenberg, 2003).
On days when the group meets, group members can obtain any homework assignments by
meeting with their teacher, such as before school begins, lunchtime, in a free period, or
even after school. The school counselor should often ask teachers whether group members
are keeping up with their work, and failure to do so could result in having the student leave
the group.

Location, Location, Location

Choosing a room that is appropriate for a confidential group session can be tricky in
schools. There may not be a room that is available at the time you desire, and with limited
access to conference rooms that offer privacy, facilitators may need to be creative in finding
places to hold groups. One way to obtain group space is to work with a teacher or other
professional within the building who may have space available during her/his planning
period. Often, classrooms are free when students have recess or lunch. Utilizing a first grade
classroom for a fourth grade group while the class is at recess just might be the ticket to
successful time and space management. Other creative options include meeting in the band
room while the band director has a planning period and other students (your group
members) eat lunch. As long as the band director is okay with students eating lunch in the
band room and you adhere to the set timeframe agreed upon, this option may also be
feasible.

The Screening Process

As stated earlier in the chapter, when a referral is made the school counselor must interview
each member to find out: (a) if they are committed to the process; (b) what issues they
anticipate surfacing if they participate; (c) any other potential resistance issues the member
has toward fully engaging in the group process; and (d) what the student hopes to gain
from participating in the group. Finding out if the challenges they are facing match the
referral, and determining if additional challenges to their success are present, may help the
facilitator rule out certain members for a particular group, but also allow for group

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reassignment prior to the onset of any groups. For example, imagine a situation where Juan
(a reserved fourth grader) approaches you to become part of a “Healthy Friendship” group,
but tells you he refuses to be in a group with any of the boys in Mr. Thomas’ class. You ask
Juan to tell you about his interaction with the other boys, and he reveals that they have
been bullying him about his family’s financial situation since first grade. You express
concern and let him know you will support him, no matter what group he finds himself in
and that by being placed with those particular boys, he may discover common ground and
actually build some new friendships. Juan refuses to hear anything about being with the
other boys and asks to be removed from any possible group that semester. Do you
accommodate Juan’s request and place him in another group, away from the other boys, or
let him sit this one out and hope he comes around next semester? In this case, it might be
best to allow Juan to be in another group until he gains the confidence to work through his
issues with the other boys. If he is convinced that this experience will be awful and he
refuses to show up, the facilitator may be sabotaging the group’s success before it even
starts. Upon completion of the initial group process, it would then be appropriate to
communicate with Juan your desire for him to join a group with the boys with whom he
has issues (real or perceived), with the intention of successfully navigating that relationship.
As discussed earlier in the chapter, once a student expresses a commitment to the group
counseling process, school counselors must obtain parental consent in order to include the
student in the group (see Appendix A). An exception to this would include students who
are over the age of consent (check your state’s laws on the age of consent of minors) where
parental permission is not required for participation. It would also be prudent to check
your school district policy on consent for counseling participation. Many districts have a
blanket consent policy that parents sign in the beginning of the school year in order to
cover school-related events and participation in activities. There may also be an opt-out
form that parents or guardians sign when they choose not to allow their children to
participate in counseling or other mental health-related services. If a parent signed the opt-
out form, but you believe the student may benefit from group participation, you may
choose to contact the parent in an attempt to inform them of your program and what you
offer to your students. In many cases, the parents will consent to group interventions
offered to many students versus individual counseling, requested just for their child.
At this point in the process, students, parents, and teachers might notice something
called “Pretreatment Change” happening with students. This phenomenon occurs when a
student demonstrates some type of change as a result of being introduced to the group
concept, but prior to the initial group meeting. The idea of change can be cultivated in
individuals long before the actual changes in behavior occur. School counselors may
nurture the pretreatment change process by discussing how students’ behavior may have
changed as a result of being included in the group formation. Student interaction may look
different, but by recognizing this phenomenon within the first group meeting, participants
may feel drawn to participate due to an already evident impact the process is having on
their thoughts, feelings, or behavior.
At the onset of the first group meeting, the facilitator gains the support and buy-in of

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the members by creating a comfortable, inviting, and inclusive environment for the
students. This may be accomplished by encouraging members to get to know one another
through the use of an activity. Members who find something in common with others in the
group will have a greater chance of returning, especially if they deem the group to be an
effective use of their time. Membership of the group must be seen as something worthwhile
and productive; whether or not the student has worked on any of their own issues or just
helped support others, a sense of community must develop in order for the group
experience to be deemed a success.
Once the members have become acquainted with one another and the facilitator, the
next step is to develop a “Group Agreement” that will guide the behavior of group
members, and help foster feelings of trust within the group. To reiterate, a conversation
about confidentiality and how a breach might impact the group process is one way to instill
the value of privacy and respecting self and others. Remember, this may be a relatively new
concept for some students, and a very important factor for the potential participation of
others. By talking openly about how the group might deal with confidential issues and
offering suggestions when faced with tough situations (i.e., a friend asks you what was said
in the group), members will have a better idea of how to respond to potential threats to
confidentiality. The group will also be responsible for addressing breaches of
confidentiality, and as part of the agreement, they agree to abide by the rules and support
the goals of the group. The agreement should be unanimously supported by all members. If
there is dissention regarding a particular group guideline, the members must work it out
until a consensus is reached and all members are in agreement.
The facilitator is in charge of all group materials and the overall management and
organization of the group process. Students must believe that the facilitator will be on time
and show up prepared. For some students who have experienced abuse in their past, the
facilitator’s lack of preparedness, timeliness, and accountability may lead to feelings of fear,
anger, or uncertainty. It is imperative that the facilitator notify the students as soon as they
are able regarding any changes to the group schedule (i.e., room, time, day, topic) so they
may mentally prepare for the change. By not doing this, the facilitator runs the risk of
losing the members’ trust, and potentially the group’s support for the process.
Goal setting is an important part of solution-focused group work. Each student develops
her/his own goals, which are fluid in nature and can evolve and change over the course of
the group process. By setting goals, students take an increased role in the ownership of and
emotional investment in the development of the group and their own growth. By
demonstrating how to set a goal, students learn a lifelong lesson in how to work toward
something positive in their lives and gain emotional muscle in the process. With each goal
accomplished, students become more confident that they can achieve success. The more
often they set goals, the more likely they will be to achieve what they want.
According to ASCA (2012), individual goals should be SMART: Specific, Measureable,
Attainable, Results-Oriented, and Time-Bound (see Appendix C). These guidelines are meant
to deter group members from setting goals that are too broad in scope, cannot be measured,
have negative consequences (e.g., setting a goal to get expelled from school in order to have

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more time to play video games), or which seek the absence of something and not the
addition of something that will help alleviate the problem symptoms. For instance, when a
student states they are depressed, and sets a goal to not be depressed anymore, that student
is not giving an indication as to what “not being depressed anymore” looks like. By
encouraging the student to set a goal that outlines what they will be doing instead of being
depressed (whatever that looks like for the individual), then there is a more clear picture of
what to aim for. The group members may be able to assist the student in creating a picture
of what a non-depressed day might look like, or activities the student might engage in when
not depressed. This helps foster a sense of community among group members, with each
invested in the others’ well-being. When students feel connected to the group and
responsible for the goals they set, it increases the likelihood that they will continue to work
hard to achieve them.

Using the Miracle Question

In order to assist students with goal formation, it may be helpful to ask them to consider
what life would be like if the problem no longer existed. For students that struggle to come
up with a specific goal, the facilitator might ask:

“Let’s suppose that when you went to sleep tonight a miracle happened in your life and the
problem that you’ve been talking about no longer existed. When you woke up, how would
you know that the problem was gone, what would be different? How would your parents or
teachers know that the problem didn’t exist anymore? Who else might notice and what
would they say was different?”

This type of questioning often allows the student to “free think” about how their life
might be without the existence of the problem. For some, this task allows them to ponder
who might be impacted as a result of the problem not being an issue. For others, this might
prove to be a way to name specific factors that have been eliminated and thus help them to
outline goals rather quickly. The facilitator and group members may take note as the
person is speaking and restate the information back to them in the form of possible goals to
work toward. Some members may be grieving the loss of a person, pet, or relationship. In
many cases, the member would state something like, “Yeah, I’d have my mom back,” in
response to the miracle question. When that happens, the facilitator needs to support the
member as she/he grieves the loss and revisit the goal setting once the person has had a
chance to get to a point where goal setting is appropriate. Pushing goals that suggest their
grieving is being ignored is inappropriate and will most likely lead to the member leaving
the group. By encouraging short-term goals (e.g., going to school each day, interacting with
friends, completing homework), the school counselor is helping the student stay connected
to the school community, while demonstrating compassion for the heartache and loss they
are experiencing.
Once the group members have established goals, they may be ready to look for
exceptions to their problems, or consider times when the problem was not a problem. For

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example, Channin came to the group with complaints about her father always yelling at her
in the morning and as a result she was always upset and had a terrible time paying attention
in her first period math class. When asked about a time when her father didn’t yell at her,
Channin thought about it and quickly retold the story from last week when she had a great
morning. She said that when she woke up on Tuesday morning, she quickly got dressed,
brushed her hair and teeth, fed the dog without being asked, and ate the breakfast her
father had prepared for her. When she left for school, she remembers him telling her that
he was proud of her and gave her the $3.00 she had asked for so she could get ice cream
after school with her friends that day. When she recalled that moment, a big smile came
across her face. She also recalled that she did well on a quiz in her math class that morning
as well. Drawing from that particular experience, Channin was able to set a goal for getting
up and ready in the morning without being asked. The absence of arguing with her father
in the morning (the exception) set the tone for more great mornings and lowered the
likelihood of being distracted and angry during her first period math class. By eliminating
the cause of her distress in the morning, she may continue to excel.
In Channin’s case, the facilitator did not have to search for the strengths that she
possessed or the exceptions to her problem. In some cases, however, students are challenged
by their situations and have little to offer when asked to recall times when the problem
didn’t exist. The facilitator’s role is to help members see their strengths and promote a
healthy self-image. When a member struggles to find an exception to a difficult situation,
the facilitator may recall a time when they used good judgment when a conflict arose
between group members, or when they returned a lost book to a classmate and showed
compassion for someone else. There may be days when the facilitator is hard-pressed to find
exceptions to a student’s behavior, but by focusing on what the student has done well
rather than their failures, the strengths-based approach will result in positive outcomes
(Cooley, 2009). Being purposeful and persistent in helping find exceptions will result in a
student’s continued commitment to individual growth and the group process.
Group facilitation skills are developed over time. When using specific techniques,
counselors must be aware of how the questions they ask may impact the flow or mood of
the group. If a student begins to tell a story that has a negative outcome and the student
engages in self-blame or doubt, the facilitator may use a technique from solution-focused
theory called “reframing” to help the student see another side to the story. This technique,
in which the counselor repeats the same information back to the student, but from a
positive, empowering place instead of a negative, harmful one, can be very effective in
helping students begin to see hope in their situation. The new meaning of the story may
serve as a catalyst for future “glass half full” thinking instead of looking at the negative side
to a situation. By demonstrating concern and compassion for finding strengths, this process
may also help solidify the facilitator’s role as a caring adult on whom students can rely.
Another technique used in solution-focused theory groups is to ask the members to rate
their feelings on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being the very worst they could ever imagine,
and 10 being the best they could ever image. This exercise, known as using “scaling
questions,” helps students truly determine how their current situation has impacted their

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life. In many cases, the worst possible situation is the death of a loved one, and the best is
the achievement of a long-term goal such as graduation from college or winning the lottery.
When students put their current problem into perspective, it helps diffuse irrational self-
blame, doubt, or loathing. Oftentimes, students recognize when a problem has been given
too much energy or how hard they’ve worked to remain stuck in a situation. By discussing
the true highs and lows in a student’s life, current problems become more manageable.
Other useful ways to use a scaling question is to ask students to rate their current mood at
the beginning and again at the end of each group session. Practicing this technique within
the context of the group will allow each member the opportunity to express feelings and
find common ground with others who might be experiencing similar situations. Gaining
the knowledge that she/he is not alone can sometimes normalize a situation for the group
member and in turn, the member may decide to discontinue asserting personal energy
toward the problem.
Asking follow-up questions may help the members to discover the results of the work
they’ve done toward identifying their strengths and “doing more of what works”
throughout the week. For example, when Kenyon, a sixth grader who joined a group for
children struggling with issues in blended families, was asked to identify how she was
feeling at the onset of the weekly group, she stated she was “6” this week. The facilitator
then asked a follow-up question, “Last week you said you were at 4 at the end of group, up
from a 3. What happened this week to lead you to the 6 you’re at today?” Another question
might be, “Kenyon, how has your situation changed in order for you to be up to a 6
today?” By asking appropriate follow-up questions, the group members have the
opportunity to express deeper feelings and share their accomplishments since the group met
last. The facilitator may encourage other members to also ask follow-up questions as a
means of helping them relate to one another. This encouraging process helps to bring the
group closer through common understanding and empathic support for one another.
Appropriate modeling of the process must take place over several meetings in order for the
facilitator to reasonably expect members to engage in this type of questioning. While the
members may feel comfortable with one another, they may look to the facilitator for
guidance before asking another member to go deeper in their response.

Activities in Groups
Oftentimes, the school counselor will begin to plan a group with specific activities or a
specific curriculum in mind. This process leads to the question, “How will I use this
curriculum or activity to promote growth in my students?” Finding the right fit between
your needs and the needs of your students can be challenging. With such an incredible
amount of information available through professional organizations, recommendations
from colleagues, and websites like Pinterest where school counselors “pin” their favorite
guidance and group activities, knowing where to begin can be stressful. While looking for a
curriculum to address a specific problem or issue, make sure you follow these simple steps:
make sure the intervention you choose is age-appropriate, time-sensitive (can be completed
within one group session), and engaging for students. Students will tune out after the first

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few minutes of the group if they believe the activity is boring, consumes too much energy
to complete, or is irrelevant to their life (Cooley, 2009).

Cliques in Groups
One of the most challenging aspects of group counseling is addressing cliques that form
between and among members in a group. As a group facilitator, it might be instinctual to
avoid confronting members who show signs of resistance or choose to form their own
alliances within the group (Cooley, 2009). This type of intrusion may pose a threat to the
effectiveness of the group process. With that in mind, it is important for the facilitator to
check her/his own biases toward the members of the group who appear to be aligning away
from the other members. At times, counselors have difficulty dealing with members whose
character traits mimic problematic behaviors within themselves or others in their lives. By
checking biases at the door, and looking at the potential causes of the clique, the facilitator
may then be able to understand how it occurred and how best to deal with those members’
actions within the context of the group.
Recognizing the conflict among members and openly addressing the impact the clique
has had on the group will allow the facilitator to demonstrate leadership skills and model
how to effectively defuse disruption within the group process. Each member of the group
should have a chance to discuss the specific ways in which the clique has impacted them,
while allowing all participants a chance to respond. When a member uses sarcasm to avoid
dealing with the situation, responding with humor is appropriate. However, responding in-
kind with a sarcastic quip only attempts to equally degrade their character without solving
the problem. Stick with a calm demeanor and focus on getting the issue out in the open.
The intention of this process is to dissolve the clique and realign all the members with the
original purpose of the group. Once all members have successfully recommitted to the
group process, the facilitator may encourage continued processing of feelings related to
other topics as they arise.

Group Behavior Management

When group facilitators are asked about the hardest part of leading a group, managing
behaviors is the typical response (Williams et al., 2008). There is no “one-size-fits-all”
response to group behavior management; however, the effective facilitator develops “tool
kit” responses so the group can stay on target and be productive. Again, as a facilitator, you
are a guide with a facilitating role, and rarely are you the sheriff lecturing or the teacher
lecturing. As a facilitator, the role is about managing the interactions, not giving the
answers or directing the group. This is not a hierarchy in which the facilitator has all the
power and control, as opposed to the classroom where the teacher is the authority. An
effective group facilitator gives the power back to the group and allows the group to
practice the lifelong skills of problem-solving and risk-taking.

Power-Sharing Techniques

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There are several ways in which an effective group facilitator can use power-sharing instead
of overpowering. (Williams, Riedo & DeBard, 2007). Power-sharing attributes the bulk of
power and decision-making to the participants in the group.

Circle Format
The simplest application of power-sharing is utilization of the circle format. The circle has
no head or tail and all participants, including the facilitator, are part of the circle. A
hierarchy does not exist in the circle. This inclusive format keeps the focus on the group as
a whole. It also allows for the facilitator to monitor the body language of all of the
participants. If a group member demonstrates inappropriate behaviors, the circle format
makes the monitoring and intervention easier for the facilitator or co-facilitator. In a circle
eye rolls and discounting body language can be immediately noticed and addressed by the
facilitator (Williams et al., 2007).

Behavior Management Techniques

Another group facilitation tip utilizes the guidelines that were developed by the group
members. To allow natural responses and interactions to occur, the facilitator must assist
the group members to establish group norms, guidelines, or boundaries within which the
members will operate. These norms create a safe space and help the group members hold
each other accountable. If the group leader has facilitated the creation of the group norms
or guidelines in an effective manner, the participants will “own” the guidelines as their
own. Using these member-developed guidelines allows the facilitator to draw attention to
the guidelines if inappropriate behavior is escalating. A simple reminder, asking all group
members if they are following the group guidelines or if the group guidelines need to be
changed, can re-focus groups or individual members into more appropriate behavior.
It is important, as a facilitator, to not direct negative behaviors toward a specific
participant but to indirectly address behaviors. The group guidelines can be the initial
behavior management technique; however, helping the group members learn to manage
their own behaviors is a life skill. When something happens in the group, instead of
directing attention toward the culprit, the facilitator can redirect the attention toward the
group as a whole. Such questions as “How is the group working right now?” or “What
helps this group be most successful?” may help the group work more effectively. Because
the facilitator wants to focus on the behavior and not blame the person, it is important to
avoid directing unnecessary attention to the individual. Discussing behaviors that work in
the group and behaviors that will not work in the group also mitigates negative behaviors.
However, there are always those participants that act out negative or distracting behaviors
to the group. Sometimes those behaviors need specific interventions (Williams et al., 2007).
Naysayer. There will occasionally be participants who are negative. This behavior can be
annoying to facilitators and participants alike. It can also be contagious if the person has
power in the group. The impact of a toxic person can be debilitating to a group; however,
to avoid directly responding to the individual as a negative person, one suggestion is for the

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leader to give the naysayer some type of leadership role to promote positive energy. Another
suggestion would be to ask all participants what they liked about an activity and what they
would change, so that the naysayer doesn’t have all the power. The group can also create a
guideline that says if a participant is going to say something negative they have to provide
an idea about how to change it. As a last resort, the facilitator can remind group members
that attendance is voluntary. The facilitator can remind members that if they are unhappy
they can ask for permission to leave after they explain why they are making that choice to
the rest of the group (Williams et al., 2007).
Over talker. The over talker can quickly drain the energy from everyone in the group.
As a facilitator, you cannot roll your eyes when the individual talks or avoid calling on the
over talker every time they want to talk. Ignoring the behavior may only make it more
blatant. One suggested technique is the use of pipe cleaners. Each participant gets three
pipe cleaners (or any other collection of objects).When one person wishes to talk, she/he
has to put one pipe cleaner into the middle of the circle. When that person runs out of pipe
cleaners they cannot share any more information. This strategy may also encourage the
participant who doesn’t talk very often. (It is important to not allow the participants to
negotiate pipe cleaners or trade them.)
Quiet/Shy person. The pipe cleaner strategy is as helpful with the quiet participant as
with the over talker. Directly asking each participant to share one thing about the activity
gives the quiet person a chance to practice having a voice. The facilitator can gently
encourage anyone who has not had the chance to speak to share first or give the quiet
person a task where they can contribute to the group in some way.
Cliques. Factions of students can quickly overpower the rest of the group members and
disempower group effectiveness. It is vital that the group facilitator continually divide
group members in creative ways. As a facilitator, being unpredictable in how you divide up
the groups for different activities will minimize the clique manipulations. The facilitator
may have to speak directly about how it feels to be left out of group activities.

Additional Group Management Techniques

A Handbook for Leading Positive Youth Development Programs (Williams et al., 2007) offers
a variety of additional group management techniques that may help participants have a
more positive experience:

Rounds
Ask one question and go around the group so everyone contributes an answer. Although it
might take longer, depending on the size of the group, it equalizes the energy and power in
the group and gives all members a voice.

Passing
If there is a group member who doesn’t want to talk at that moment, giving the person a
pass for the time being is helpful. However, it is important to let the person know that the

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facilitator will come back to them after everyone else has spoken. This gives the person time
to think about their answer while making them accountable for an answer. The
accountability is important so that the “pass” does not become the norm for the group.

Talking Stick
This strategy is a tried-and-true method for effective group management. The only person
who can talk is the person holding the talking stick. An addition to this strategy is to have
the next speaker receiving the talking stick repeat what they just heard the previous speaker
say. This reinforces active listening for the members of the group.

Freeze Frame
This is a minimally used strategy when the facilitator feels the physical or emotional safety
of the group or a member is in jeopardy, and thus asks the group members to freeze and
think about their thoughts or reactions to what is occurring in the group. Overuse of this
strategy can cause members to dismiss it. However, used sparingly it is an effective message
that there is an important reason why the facilitator needs to take control of the group.
While there will always be disruptive behaviors in group counseling, effective facilitation
can mitigate the negative impact on the group process. The facilitator focuses on the
behavior and not on blaming the person. One of the most powerful reasons to implement
small group programs is to help the group members learn to manage their own behaviors
through feedback and modeling in the group process. The power of the group process is
that students can learn from each other.

Evaluation
School counselors should accumulate as much data as feasible to evaluate the impact of the
group, and should seek to assess students’ and teachers’ perceptions, and changes in
academic and behavioral data. Students should be asked about their perceptions of the
effectiveness of individual sessions. Such questions could include “Did the sessions meet the
objectives of the day?” (Greenberg, 2003, p. 105), and “Did you learn something new in
group today?” Evaluation at the completion of the group should assess group member
satisfaction, the degree to which members believed the group goals were achieved, and
changes in group members’ behavior or perceptions. Questions at the completion of the
group could include “The thing I liked best about this group was _____,” “The thing I did
not like about this group was ____” (Greenberg, 2003, p. 73). Teachers should evaluate
members at the conclusion of the group. The following Likert scale might be used: “5 = a
lot of change/improvement, 4 = much change/improvement, 3 = some
change/improvement, 2 = little change/improvement, 1 = no change/improvement, 0 =
cannot say/no opportunity to observe” (Greenberg, 2003, p. 174).
The perceptions of students often provide valuable information to school counselors
regarding what activities to modify. However, such feedback is not likely to impress
administrators and teachers who are increasingly being held accountable for demonstrating

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measurable gains in student achievement. Likewise, school counselors must seek to impact
student achievement in a more objective, measurable manner. Depending upon the
objectives of the group, behavioral data might be used to measure the rates of attendance or
homework completion (ASCA, 2012), and on-task behavior. Forms of academic data that
might be relevant to assess include standardized test data, grade point average, and number
of classes passed.

Summary
There are considerable challenges to conducting group counseling in a school setting. Data
must be collected to determine the necessity of group topics. School counselors must work
hard to obtain the support of administrators, teachers, parents, and students. There is a
considerable amount of coordination and paperwork as parents’ written consent should be
obtained, teachers and students must be consistently reminded of the group schedule,
students must complete missed work, and evaluations must be conducted. Given the
challenges in conducting group counseling, some school counselors opt not to conduct
groups. However, we encourage school counselors to accept these challenges as the rewards
may be worth the effort. Some studies have found that small group interventions can yield
up to a moderate effect size on student achievement (Whiston, Tai, Rahardja, & Eder,
2011).

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 Chapter Eight
Consultation and Collaboration

Box 8.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
2.b School counselor roles in consultation with families, P-12 and postsecondary
school personnel, and community agencies
2.c School counselor roles in relation to college and career readiness
2.k Community resources and referral sources
3.h Skills to critically examine the connections between social, familial, emotional, and
behavior problems and academic achievement
3.j Interventions to promote college and career readiness
3.k Strategies to promote equity in student achievement and college access

Collaboration and consultation are vital components of a school counseling program.

School counselors must partner with various stakeholders in order to support the school’s
academic mission, implement and maintain a comprehensive school counseling program,
and effect systemic change. In the ASCA National Model® (2012), consultation and
collaboration are defined as responsive services within the delivery component of the
framework, and collaboration is one of the four model themes.
Within the literature, there are various definitions of consultation and collaboration.
Among the various definitions of these terms, an element that is common to both
collaboration and consultation is involvement with another to impact a third party. School
counselors consult and collaborate with parents, teachers, administrators, and other
important stakeholders in order to benefit students. Collaboration and consultation may be
regarded as the primary behaviors through which schools contribute to systemic change. In
this chapter, readers will learn about the models and theories of collaboration and
consultation, and be provided with examples of collaboration and consultation conducted
by school counselors. We also discuss the importance of involving low-income parents and
parents of color.

Collaboration
Collaboration is included in the four model themes of the ASCA National Model® (2012),
along with leadership, advocacy, and systemic change, all of which are contained within the

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edge of the frame of the model graphic. As the school counseling profession has moved
away from primarily emphasizing providing direct services to at-risk students, it has instead
focused on the implementation of a program and serving as an integral team player to
advance the academic mission of the school, and thus the importance of collaboration has
correspondingly increased. The school counselor’s training in communication skills, group
dynamics, and in working with systems puts him or her in a unique position to collaborate
with others. School counselors seek to promote systemic change by providing leadership
and advocacy, and collaboration is an essential part of all three of these model themes.
School counselors collaborate with colleagues in order to be a vital contributor to the
school’s academic mission. Traditional definitions of both collaboration and consultation
emphasize the role of experts sharing their area of expertise. Historically, training for school
counselors has emphasized understanding students’ career development and labor trends,
the college admissions process, children’s social/emotional development, and mental health
services available in the community. School counselors are often members of the various
school committees addressing school improvement, such as teacher teams and/or data
teams, and also participate on committees focusing on academically or behaviorally at-risk
students, such as the Instructional Support Team/child study team, Individualized
Education Plan (IEP) team, the Student Assistance Program (SAP), etc. School counselors
also typically work as the school’s liaison with community agencies, providing parents and
students with referrals and coordinating the communication between the community
agencies, while providing services to at-risk children and their families. Finally, school
counselors are frequently involved in planning and presenting teacher-in-service sessions.
While school counselors are primarily responsible for creating and implementing the
school counseling core curriculum, there are various collaborative components emphasized
in the ASCA National Model® (2012). Several aspects of the ASCA National Model® reflect
the importance of designing a program that meets the unique needs of the community. The
vision and mission statements and the goals of the school counseling program are expected
to support the school and district’s mission, and school counselors are tasked with
identifying and removing barriers to educational access for traditionally disadvantaged
groups that are specific to the setting. In order to meet the unique needs of the school and
community, school counselors conduct needs assessments and gather already-existing data
to understand the perspectives of the various stakeholders.

Box 8.2
The Top Ten Ways School Counselors Can Support Teachers
1. Call on counselors to help you understand the whole student. When teachers
notice red flags, such as behavioral issues or grades, school counselors are prepared
to help teachers gain a more complete understanding of the issues behind the
actions.
2. Consult with counselors for professional advice. When teachers find themselves
stuck with strategies that aren’t working with a particular student, a counselor who

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 is trained to problem-solve can help them gain fresh ideas to age old problems.
3. Tackle problems before they become insurmountable. When teachers sense
trouble brewing in class, language or behavior that causes them anxiety, they
should talk with a school counselor who can help trouble-shoot and prevent a
situation from escalating.
4. Offer students an empathic listener. When students are having problems that
seem personal or sensitive or that have the potential to get them into trouble, send
them to a school counselor who can provide a sounding board and help them find
solutions.
5. Guide students’ decision-making. When students act out repeatedly in class,
teachers should inform a counselor who can work with them on decision-making.
School counselors can also help the child reframe the situation and illustrate how
different behaviors might be in their best interest.
6. Collaborate with a counselor to integrate counseling and class lessons. Work
together to teach lessons in class about academics, careers, and personal/social
issues. These lessons are preventive by design and developmental in nature to help
students with their decision-making in school. For example, a lesson about bullying
and harassment in a civics class could be paired with a project on laws about
harassment.
7. Work with counselors and teachers to design professional development that
meets your needs. In-service days provide great opportunities for counselors and
teachers to explain their work and develop solutions to school-wide problems.
8. Allow a counselor to make peace. When students can’t get along in class despite
the teacher’s attempts to separate them or diffuse tension, allow a counselor to
mediate and work out a plan for how the two parties can peaceably coexist.
9. Explore career options. Educators may want to engage a school counselor in
helping students understand how their academic work connects to specific careers.
10. Ask a counselor to clarify the severity of a problem. As students develop
physically, rapid changes in their mood or behavior can leave teachers wondering
whether certain behavior is normal or a cause for deeper concern. School
counselors have been trained to ask the questions that get at the heart of what’s
really going on.
Reproduced with permission from I. Brodie (2013, April 29). The top ten ways school
counselors can support teachers. Available online at www.ed.gov/blog/2012/06/the-top-10-
ways-school-counselors-can-support-teachers/.

Ideally, school counseling programs have an advisory council, consisting of 8–20

members who reflect the diversity of the community, and which includes students, parents,
school counselors, administrators, school board members, and business and community
members. The advisory council is a key element of the democratic process essential for
changing prevailing values and norms and developing support for implementation of the
programs of the school counseling program. The advisory council assists with needs
assessments, analyzing the collected data, disseminating the results to the various
stakeholders, creating the foundation of the program, and managing and delivering the

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program. Action plans and closing-the-gap action plans typically specify other educators
who may contribute in the delivery of components of the school counseling core
curriculum.
School counselors also work with the school administration in completing an annual
agreement regarding the expected duties of the school counselor, and the agreement is
expected to be a process through which school counselors can educate administrators
regarding the benefits of a comprehensive school counseling program. Lastly, school
counselors collaborate with colleagues through their coordination of the various programs
that may be closely associated with the school counseling program, which may include the
bullying and violence prevention programs, mentoring and tutoring programs, etc.

Family-School Collaboration
Although most of the attention regarding the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB;
2002) has concerned the federal mandate requiring states to implement achievement tests
and establish more stringent standards for teachers (Epstein, 2005), the Parent Involvement
section and other sections of the NCLB Act include a variety of regulations, the aim of
which is to promote family-school collaboration (NCLB, 2002). State departments of
education and school districts must provide professional development opportunities that
enhance educators’ and parents’ understanding of the importance of collaboration and the
skills to achieve goal-oriented partnership programs. Schools must share with parents and
the community information and decisions about students’ placements and the performance
of the school, including the aggregated and disaggregated results of state achievement tests,
attendance and graduation rates, and information about teachers’ qualifications. Finally,
NCLB makes clear that schools are expected to increase equity in education by making
more of an effort to include families, even those who are not currently involved, and by
ensuring that communications with parents are clear, useful, and executed in languages that
all parents understand.

Box 8.3
One group of students that is at risk for inequitable educational outcomes consists of
students from families that are low income. School counselors can work to develop
family-school partnerships by:

• challenging bias
• training school personnel to work with all families
• initiating outreach activities with families
• conducting research to establish effective practices
• highlighting the benefits of collaborative problem-solving
• accessing student and family strengths.
(Amatea, Daniels, Bringman, & Vandiver, 2004; Grothaus & Cole, 2010)

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 Epstein and her colleagues (2002) have developed the most comprehensive model for
family-school collaboration and have conducted a rigorous program of evaluation that has
demonstrated the effectiveness of the model in promoting family-school collaboration and
enhancing students’ academic achievement. In their model, the home, school, and
community are referred to as “overlapping spheres,” which influence both children and the
conditions and relationships in the three contexts. The external model is comprised of the
external contexts in which students live (e.g., home, school, and community), and the
theory assumes that student achievement is enhanced when these external contexts
collaborate. The internal model refers to the interactions and patterns of influence that
occur between individuals at home, at school, and in the community.
Interactions between the three contexts occur both at the institutional level (e.g., the
school creating a system by which parents can verify homework assignments) and at the
individual level (e.g., parent-teacher conference). Epstein and her colleagues identified six
main types of involvement interactions which are used to organize the school’s activities in
promoting parental and community involvement. She adapted a model indicating how
school counselors can use the six types of family involvement in a prevention mode and in a
treatment mode (Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2010).
Studies have found that schools that have implemented the overlapping spheres of
influence theory using the six types of involvement have increased family-school
collaboration (Epstein et al., 2002). Moreover, increases in family-school collaboration
using Epstein et al.’s model was associated with increases in school climate, improved
student behavior and school discipline, and increased reading achievement scores. Epstein
and Sheldon’s (2002) longitudinal study found that specific family-school collaboration
activities were associated with increased attendance among elementary students, including
providing workshops for parents regarding attendance matters, communicating with all
families, and providing a school contact person for parents to call. Although the
effectiveness of Epstein’s adaptation of the parent involvement model for school counselors
has not been evaluated, the widespread use of the parent involvement model among many
state departments of education establishes its relevance for the role of school counselors in
fostering family-school collaboration.
In support of this, Griffin and Steen (2010) studied school counselors’ involvement in
partnering with parents and community organizations, and used Epstein’s “Six Types of
School-Family-Community Involvement Interactions” to analyze the results. The findings
revealed that although many of the school counselors perceived school-family-community
partnerships to be useful and reported confidence in developing such partnerships, most
school counselors indicated that they did not participate in such partnerships. The activities
of school counselors who did report partnering with parents fit into the categories of
collaborating with the community and parenting within Epstein’s model, with low
involvement reported in decision-making, volunteering, learning-at-home activities, and
communicating with parents. The study also revealed that school counselors reported
engaging in collaborative activities that did not fit into any of the categories in Epstein’s
theory, as they surpassed some of the basic partnership activities comprising Epstein’s

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framework. Griffin and Steen (2010) categorized these advanced collaborative activities as
forms of leadership and advocacy, and examples included establishing a leadership council,
presenting to school boards, etc.
Griffin and Steen (2010) concluded that school counselors could increase their use of
communication, volunteering, decision-making, and leadership and advocacy practices, and
the authors provided recommendations based on a review of the school counselor literature
regarding how such professionals tend to engage in these specific forms of collaboration.
School counselors can communicate with parents regarding how they can support their
child in establishing educational goals while also advertising their role and service as the
school counselor. Moreover, they can establish a family resource center containing
educational resources such as audiovisuals, brochures, and announcements concerning
academic, career, and social/emotional issues. They have enhanced training in interpersonal
communication skills and may be in the best position to initially establish a working
alliance between family members and school personnel, using constructive communication
skills and emphasizing the student’s and families’ strengths, establishing the trust essential
for addressing more challenging and potentially conflictual issues.
School counselors may not only model such constructive communication and teaming
skills during parent-teacher conferences, but may also collaborate with respected teachers in
providing in-service training for the staff regarding effective strategies for relating to parents
and collaborative decision-making, as many teachers do not feel prepared to interact with
parents. School counselors can use parent volunteers to support the school counseling
program, including designing and implementing workshops for other parents (Sheldon,
2003), identifying community resources, and tutoring (Griffin & Steen, 2010). The
authors of this text have found that parents are often eager to hear the experiences of
parents of children who have recently undergone important transitions, such as entering
middle or high school, applying to college, etc., and that such parents can be included on
such panel topics.
School counselors can collaborate with teachers in providing workshops for parents to
increase their understanding of the academic curriculum, with school counselors
contributing their expertise regarding how to structure such workshops to be informative
for parents who have less formal education (Griffin & Steen, 2010). School counselors can
involve parents in decision-making by surveying parents regarding their perceptions of
needed services, and by including parents as part of the advisory council (ASCA, 2012).

Box 8.4
School counselors can help teachers’ growth and development in the areas of:

• program development
• time management
• creative leadership
• accountability
• positive visibility.

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 (Kern, 1999)

Involving Low-Income Parents and Parents of Color

While parental involvement seems to be clearly associated with academic achievement for
White students, the relationship between parental involvement and achievement for
minority and low-income students is more mixed. Studies have found that low-income and
minority students whose parents were involved in their school were more likely to gain
admission to four-year colleges (Wadenya & Lopez, 2008), and have significantly higher
standardized achievement test scores (Dietel, 2006), as compared to those students whose
parents were not involved. However, while parent volunteering has been found to be
associated with White students’ academic achievement it has not been found to be related
to the academic achievement of minority students and students in poverty (Desimone,
1999).
The literature has indicated a number of factors that explain lower rates of involvement
of minority parents and parents of color (Holcomb-McCoy, 2010). These factors include
language barriers, the fact that schools do not provide a welcoming environment, a cultural
disconnection between schools and communities, and the lack of opportunities for parent
involvement. Unfortunately, there is some evidence to suggest that school counselors in the
past have contributed to the barriers to the involvement of low-income and minority
families in discouraging such students from pursuing postsecondary education (e.g., Hart
& Jacobi, 1992).
It has been suggested that parent involvement, which has been traditionally defined as
volunteering, attending school conferences and events, and communicating with teachers,
has been defined in ways that discount how other cultures promote achievement in their
youth (Bower & Griffin, 2011). A broader definition of parent involvement can include
providing nurturance and limit-setting, providing assistance with homework, establishing
high expectations, and discussing with children their aspirations (e.g., Abdul-Adil &
Farmer, 2006). Latino families tend to defer to school personnel and are less likely to
contact them regarding potential problems, which may be interpreted by school personnel
as a lack of involvement (Gaetano, 2007). Low-income families are more likely to have
informal conversations and do unscheduled visits, which are often viewed as inappropriate
by teachers (Fields-Smith, 2007).
Bower and Griffin (2011) evaluated the effectiveness of implementing the Epstein
model of parental involvement in one urban elementary school with a high rate of poverty
and minority student enrollment. While they found that the parents in the school were
involved with their children, the implementation of Epstein’s model did not result in
increased parental involvement as parental involvement is defined in the model. They
recommend that schools develop a broader definition of parental involvement, which may
decrease the frustration that many teachers expressed regarding the low rate of parent
participation in the parent-teacher organization meetings and informal open houses. To
increase parental involvement, they recommend that schools seek a long-term approach to

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acquire the trust of parents, and that schools must conduct continued outreach efforts, even
when initial attempts at connecting with parents appear to be unsuccessful. School
counselors can coordinate cultural awareness workshops.
Schools must work hard at welcoming minority and low-income parents who are likely
to be reluctant to participate with schools given past negative experiences and beliefs that
their views will not be welcomed. School personnel should seek to understand the
perspectives of minority and low-income parents, and thank parents for sharing their ideas
and perspectives, and should avoid becoming defensive if parents’ perspectives are
seemingly critical. Schools need to be creative and flexible in how and when they provide
opportunities for parental involvement. Schools should schedule some events in the
evening, and may increase parental participation by providing food and daycare. Schools
can provide opportunities within the community, providing informational sessions at
churches, community agencies, etc. They should avoid excessive use of the technical
language of education, including such acronyms as Individualized Education Plan (IEP),
504, percentile rank, etc., and should provide clear explanations of such language.
Teachers in the elementary school in Bower and Griffin (2011) which implemented
Epstein’s model of parental involvement developed home learning activities in which
parents could participate. For example, in teaching measurement and capacity, teachers
encouraged parents to ask their children to look in the refrigerator and kitchen to identify
the capacity of objects (e.g., liters of milk, identifying the measurements used for
ingredients, etc.).
Parental involvement and college access. Minority students are more dependent on
school counselors for information about college than non-minority students (e.g., Bryan,
Holcomb-McCoy, Moore-Thomas, & Day-Vines, 2009), and low-income students are
more likely to rely upon school counselors for information about financial aid than are their
high-income peers (Terenzini, Cabrera, & Bernal, 2001). Thankfully, research suggests that
when school counselors actively support minority and low-income students and their
families in middle school for college, versus simply providing information, such efforts
increased students’ likelihood of enrolling in a four-year college (e.g., Plank & Jordan,
2001). To increase the parental involvement of low-income and minority students in
college readiness activities, Holcomb-McCoy (2010) recommends that school counselors
develop innovative ways to disseminate information about colleges and financial aid. She
suggests that school counselors train parent volunteers about the college admissions process
and then arrange for the volunteers to conduct information sessions in the community with
other parents. A comprehensive overview of financial aid is particularly important as
minority and low-income parents tend to overestimate the costs of college attendance (e.g.,
Grodsky & Jones, 2004), and are less likely to be aware of the various forms of financial
aid, such as scholarships (Sallie Mae Fund, 2003).

Collaboration with Various Stakeholders

Day-Vines and Terriquez (2008) provide an innovative and compelling example regarding
the way in which school counselors can collaborate with various groups in order to achieve

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systemic change. Terriquez was a school counselor in an Oakland high school which was
experiencing racial inequities in school discipline. The school was located in an affluent
community, which through busing served a diverse student population of African
American, Asian American, Latino, and White students. The school was described as
racially segregated, in that high ability classes were predominately populated by White and
the Asian American students, and the low ability classes were more likely to be composed of
Latino and African American students. Analysis of the discipline referrals for one academic
year indicated that African American and Latino males were eight times more likely than
the White and Asian American male students to receive a referral.
A school-based, multi-racial youth leadership group called Youth Together was the first
to express concern regarding the racial disparities in suspension rates, and organized student
meetings during lunch and after school hours, at which many students shared the belief
that teachers were fearful of African and Latino American males, and thus were more likely
to remove such students from the classroom. With the support of teachers and the school
counselor, Youth Together organized a meeting with the school administration, teachers,
other school counselors, parents, and student groups to discuss the issue. Youth Together
also surveyed the teachers and students regarding the strengths and potential areas for
improvement in the school’s discipline policies and procedures, with the results indicating
support for achieving equitable treatment of students and training for teachers in
improving their classroom management. These efforts resulted in the establishment of a
school discipline committee composed of various stakeholders, including Youth Together
students, parents, and other school personnel.
The school discipline committee analyzed the school discipline data, disaggregating the
data by race and type of offense. One of the interesting results was that most of the
discipline referrals made by teachers were for the category “defiance of authority,” which
was not clearly defined in the school’s policies, supporting students’ concerns that
behavioral expectations varied considerably by classroom. The school counselor’s role
during this phase of the initiative was to validate students’ concerns while also encouraging
students to understand the perspectives of teachers.
The school discipline committee adopted a variety of interventions, including educating
teachers and students about the school-wide rules and consequences for rule violations, by
hosting several workshops for students during lunch, and the administration requiring the
posting of the rules in the classrooms. The school discipline committee also coordinated an
in-service workshop for all of the staff in which facilitators led small groups of teachers and
youth leaders to identify the teaching strategies and discipline procedures that promoted
positive student behavior. The small group discussion appeared to promote enhanced
perspective-taking for both students and teachers.
One of the administrators on the school discipline committee initiated another
intervention, observing and consulting with the teachers who had the highest discipline
referrals to improve their classroom management strategies. The final intervention involved
the administration of another survey of students to identify alternatives to out-of-school
suspension. The number of suspensions decreased by over 75% for the following academic

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year, and the school discipline committee’s recommendations eventually resulted in the
development of a youth center which offered mental health services, tutoring, and youth
development programs.
Day-Vines and Terriquez (2008) illustrate the power and importance of collaborating
with various stakeholders to facilitate change. The multifaceted composition of the school
discipline committee promoted perspective-taking and increased the likelihood that each of
the represented groups would be more likely to support the changes to the policies and
procedures concerning discipline. The considerable involvement of students enhanced their
sense of empowerment and promoted their communication and self-management skills.
The school counselor shared their expertise and training in conflict resolution,
communication skills, and multicultural awareness and knowledge with students, teachers,
and administrators. Finally, the school counselor’s use of Galassi and Akos’ (2007)
strength-based approach helped the constituent groups perceive and use the resources each
offered for collaborative problem-solving.

Box 8.5
One of the ways in which school counselors can support families is through a technique
known to public service professions, called community asset mapping. It involves
drawing a map of what is valuable in communities, and includes compiling a list of
existing resources that can be used by all stakeholders. For additional information on
this topic, consult the article, School counselors and collaboration: Finding resources
through community asset mapping, by Griffin and Farris (2010).

Consultation
Consultation in schools is a service delivery model in which a clinician, serving as a
consultant, uses problem-solving strategies (in order to alter an existing set of circumstances
to become a desired set of circumstances) to address the needs of a consultee and a student
(Kratochwill, 1990). Both a time- and cost-efficient way to provide a service to a large
number of clients (e.g., children, families), consultants work with consultees, such as
teachers and other educators, who then work with clients (children and their families)
guided by consultative treatment plans. Consultants and consultees work collaboratively to
share their knowledge bases to help solve academic, behavioral, and social/emotional
problems in children. Thus, consultation is an indirect vehicle through which school-based
educational and mental health professionals can combine their expertise to positively
impact upon children’s development and functioning. Although there are various models of
school-based consultation, this chapter will focus upon solution-focused, systems, and
behavioral consultation, as these consultation models may be considered to be the most
frequently used by school counselors.

Solution-Focused Consultation (SFC)

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The principles of solution-focused theory are compatible with the collaborative model of
consultation. Notably, most of the models of consultation for schools use the collaborative,
problem-solving model (Kahn, 2000), in contrast to the triadic-dependent consultation
model. In the triadic-dependent approach to consultation, the consultant is regarded as an
expert who is generally active and directive in prescribing an intervention for the consultee.
Collaborative consultation deemphasizes the power differential between the consultant and
consultee; rather, seeing each member of the consultation team as possessing potentially
important insights and resources. The task of the consultant is to facilitate a constructive
process that enables the consultee to develop more effective approaches in working with the
student(s) in question. In the triadic-dependent model, the consultant offers his or her
expertise, whether it be instructional strategies, behavior modification, and so forth to the
consultee, whereas in the collaborative consultation model, the consultant’s primary source
of expertise is his or her ability to facilitate a constructive process.
A primary assumption of solution-focused theory is that individuals, whether they are
students, teachers, or parents, have the resources to obtain their goals. However, such
people may currently be experiencing difficulty because of their perspective of the problem.
This is often referred to within solution-focused theory as having a problem-saturated
perspective. The task of the solution-focused consultant is to help the consultee develop
new perspectives of the students, himself or herself, and the situation, through the
consultant’s artful use of language. This implies another founding principle of solution-
focused theory, which is that reality is partially a social construction and is maintained
through the use of language.
Consultants’ view of the student or the student’s problem is influenced by their
language. For example, a student’s learning disability or behavioral disorder may become
problematic for the teacher or parent because it is viewed from the most negative and
pessimistic manner, and may be assumed by the parent or teacher to be objective reality.
The solution-focused consultant attempts to access the consultee’s “frame” of the situation,
and help the consultee develop slightly modified or new frames which are more
constructive. In illustration of this, a teacher may see a child’s obsessive behaviors of
checking to make sure his or her pencil is on his or her desk as interfering with the child’s
completion of academic tasks. A modified frame of this problem might be that the child’s
perseveration in making sure the pencil is on the desk is managing his or her anxiety and
allowing him or her to focus on the academic work.
SFC emphasizes a positive frame by assisting consultees to identify and use their
strengths, resources, and past successes to establish goals (Kahn, 2000). Rather than
extensively focusing on the problem, the consultant encourages the consultee to focus upon
past successes and exceptions to the problem, meaning when the problem did not exist or
was less of a problem. The consultant does not provide direct suggestions, but rather
engages the consultee in a constructive conversation that helps the consultee to develop a
new perspective of the situation, resulting in the consultee devising his or her own
solutions. Solutions that are generated by the consultee are considered preferable because
the consultee is likely to use those solutions, since they stem from the consultee’s resources

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and perspective. Another difference of SFC in comparison to traditional models of
consultation is that there is less focus on the student or the object of the consultation, and
more focus on those aspects of the situation that the consultee controls, such as his or her
viewpoint of or interactions with the child.
SFC does not strictly adhere to distinct stages in comparison to traditional models of
consultation, as the focus is primarily to help the consultee develop more constructive
frames, but there is a general process that is followed. Kahn (2000) adapted the steps of
Juhnke’s (1996) solution-focused supervision model to the consultation process, which are
as follows: (a) pre-session and initial structuring, (b) identifying consultation goals, (c)
exploring exceptions, (d) helping the consultee decide upon a solution, and (e)
summarizing and complimenting.
Pre-session and initial structuring. In the pre-session and initial structuring, the goals
are to help the consultee to identify strengths and objectives. Kahn (2000) adapted
Juhnke’s (1996) pre-session supervision questionnaire to the consultation process. The
questionnaire instructs teachers to identify the strengths and resources they can contribute
to the consultation process, such as their teaching skills or interpersonal strengths. The
questionnaire may also include goals for the student and consultee, including “How would
you like the student to be? How would you like to be with your student? With your class?
and How will you know such consultation is successful?” (p. 249). Such questions may
create a shift in the consultee’s thinking, as the consultee may be focused upon the negative
aspects of the situation, such as the student’s lack of progress or the consultee’s inability to
facilitate the student’s progress, leading the consultee to think more about future
possibilities, which often increases the consultee’s hopefulness.
Establishing consultation goals. In examining the consultee’s goals, there is little
emphasis on discussing the problem, which is not considered productive, since the focus
should be upon solutions. However, these authors recommend spending at least 5–10
minutes listening attentively to the consultee’s perspective, even if it is quite negative, and
reflecting the consultee’s perspective back to the consultee using active listening skills. One
reason why it may be helpful to first explore the consultee’s perspective is that it helps the
consultant understand the consultee’s “frame of the problem,” possibly indicating how the
consultee’s frame may be contributing to the problem. Also, it has been the authors’
experience that some consultees are not ready to engage in problem-solving until they
believe that their perspective of the problem has been understood and acknowledged. SFC
shares similarities with behavioral consultation in that effective goals are considered to be
concrete, behavioral, defined in measurable terms, and identified in the affirmative
expectation (rather than identifying the absence of a behavior).
Exploring exceptions. A primary solution-focused technique used during this phase is
exception seeking. This technique involves asking the consultee to identify times in which
the problem did not occur, or occurred to a lesser degree, and then exploring with the
consultee how he or she contributed to the success of that respective situation. In SFC, the
consultant seeks to help the consultee identify the very specific thoughts and behaviors that
may have contributed to the exception, and which consultees often overlook. For example,

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the consultee may be asked to provide specific details about how he or she asked the
student to participate in a class discussion, what the consultee was thinking which
contributed to his or her decision to invite the student’s participation, how the student
responded in terms of his or her behavior, and what these behaviors might indicate about
the student’s thoughts and feelings, etc. Scaling questions may be used during any of the
consultation phases, and have particular relevancy for exploring exceptions as well.
Scaling questions. The consultee can be asked to assess on a 10-point scale the degree to
which a student is demonstrating the respective goal. Typically, consultees and students
provide a rating in the range of 3–8. The consultant then asks the consultee to identify how
he or she thinks the student achieved whatever rating the consultee identified, and how the
consultee contributed to the child’s success. The consultant may use what is referred to as
“not-knowing questions.” Examples include the following: “What was it that you did that
helped your son complete his homework on Thursday night?”, “How did you help the
child develop more interest in the reading assignment?” After exploring the things that have
helped the child and consultee achieve at least a limited degree of success, the consultant
asks the consultee what one additional point of success would look like on the scale; in
other words, what is the next step the consultant could take? This question serves to
counter the tendency of consultees to think in all or nothing terms, and instead think in
terms of small, incremental steps toward change, which solution-focused theory would
suggest is more consistent with the nature of lasting change.
Helping consultees decide on a solution. This phase is often brief, as the previous
consultation phases should have helped the consultee develop new perspectives and
solutions. The primary task of the consultant in this phase is to summarize and emphasize
the new perspectives, solutions, and resources that the consultee has implied will likely
contribute to progress, and asking the consultee to identify the concrete steps he or she
plans to pursue.

Case Consultation: An Illustration of Solution-Focused Consultation (SFC)

Mrs. Dwyer is the mother of James, a seventh grade student in a suburban middle school.
She has sought out the school counselor to discuss her concerns about James’ inconsistency
in completing homework.

Counselor: It is good see you, Mrs. Dwyer. I always appreciate it when parents contact
me about their concerns, and I admire your interest in your son’s
education. Please tell me about your concerns.
Parent: Well, I’m just so frustrated with James. His teachers informed me that he
hasn’t been submitting his homework on a regular basis, and for this last
marking period, his grades dropped from “B’s” to “C’s” in most of his
academic subjects. His father and I accepted “B’s”, hoping James would
pull them up to “A’s”, and now he seems to be going in the opposite
direction.
Counselor: Let me see that I’m hearing you correctly. You and your husband were
satisfied with the “B’s” that James received for the previous marking period,

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 but you are obviously unhappy with the “C’s” he received this marking
period, and his teachers have identified his inconsistency in completing
homework as one reason for the decline in his grades in academic subjects.
Parent: Yes, I mean, I am just not sure what to do when it comes to his homework.
I think my husband and I thought that we could back off a bit since he
seemed to be doing well, and friends of ours who have children in high
school had told us how at some point we have to allow James to be more
responsible in doing in his work. Now we’re wondering if we should go
back to staying on top of him more.
Counselor: You’re wondering about how to help James with his homework. You want
James to assume more responsibility for doing his work, but are thinking
about going back to what you did last marking period when it came to his
homework.
Parent: Yeah, I know I feel sort of caught, and I think my husband feels similarly.
Counselor: So, if I understand it your goal right now is to help James increase his
homework completion, is that accurate?
Parent: Yes, from what I understand from the teachers, they believe this is what
brought James’ grades down, as his test scores and quizzes were generally in
the “B” range.
Counselor: Okay, on a ten-point scale, with 10 being James is handling his homework
well, and 1 being James is not assuming any responsibility for his
homework completion, where you would like him to be and what number
would you currently give James?
Parent: I’d say he is at about a 3 since he is completing his homework sometimes.
Counselor: How about last marking period? What number would you give James when
it came to completing his homework on that 10-point scale?
Parent: More like an 8. My husband and I believe he was completing and turning
in his homework every time, but rather than a 10, I would give James an 8
because we often had to ask numerous times if he had homework before we
would even look to see if he did, and we sometimes had to sit with him
when he did it to make sure that he wouldn’t go and do something else.
Counselor: And I heard that part of your goal is that you want him to complete his
homework, but with less prodding from you and your husband. Could you
tell me a time where you saw this happening, that James did his homework
with less prodding from you and your husband?
Parent: Well, it hasn’t happened a lot, but I can think of a time about a month ago.
James did all of his homework right when he got from school without me
even saying anything to him when he got off the bus.
Counselor: Wow, interesting. So what is your sense of how you helped James do that?
Parent: Well, the night before, both my husband and I sat down with James and
explained to him that we want him to get his work done right after school
as we thought he is more focused then. We also shared that once he gets his
work done, that gives us more time to do something fun with him like play
a video game.
Counselor: So you think sharing your perspective with James, that he is more focused
right after school, and then explaining how this gives him more time to do

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 fun things with you and your husband helped to motivate him?
Parent: Yeah, it seemed to work that night.
Counselor: Wow, it sounds like you have seen the success you are looking for.
Parent: I guess you’re right. I guess we need to keep it going. It is hard because I
don’t think James did his homework the following night, and then we fell
into what we do sometimes, which is to nag him, which just leads to an
argument.
Counselor: So we know what an 8 looks like. What would a 9 look like, meaning what
would James be doing if he were at a 9?
Parent: Well, obviously he would be doing his homework right away when he gets
from school, and he would be more organized. Sometimes it takes me and
James a while to figure out what homework he has to do, as he doesn’t
write it down in his agenda like he is supposed to.
Counselor: Okay, so a 9 would be James is getting his work after school, and he knows
what he needs to do. What is your sense of how you help him to be a 9?
Parent: We’ve told him about the importance of using his agenda. I’ve been
wondering if he has too much stuff in his backpack. I mean, he has to pull
out tons of stuff just to get to his agenda.
Counselor: Ah, so you think you want to teach him to pare down to essential things?
Parent: Yes, and you know, I think it is something that my husband and I need to
learn to better model for James. I mean, we tend to be a bit disorganized
around the house, and I’ve been thinking I need to better show James how
to organize things.
Counselor: It sounds to me like you have a number of ideas about what helps James to
complete his work. You sense that reminding him the night before of your
expectations seems to work, and helps you to avoid nagging him, and
provides a reinforcer, something he can look forward to for completing his
work. You see the next step as helping him to be organized in keeping track
of what are his homework assignments, and you have several ideas regarding
how you can help him to do that.

Case discussion and conclusions. Several aspects of solution-focused theory are

displayed in this case example. First, the counselor focuses on positives throughout the
session. The counselor initiates the session by praising the mother for being involved in her
son’s education, which helps to both establish the tone for the session and to develop
rapport with the mother. Rather than focusing on what has not been working, the
counselor focuses on the exceptions, meaning when things have gone well, and explores the
details of what James did during the exception, and the mother’s perceptions regarding her
and her husband’s contributions to James’ exceptions.
The counselor uses a scaling question to identify what successes the mother perceives to
already have happened. Furthermore, the counselor helps the mother to identify what will
be the small steps that will yield future progress. Scaling questions help to combat people’s
tendency to think dualistically. When frustrated, people tend to minimize their
strengths/resources, and exaggerate the degree of change needed to achieve a goal. Asking
people to identify the progress they have already made, and what a point above the success

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they have already experienced will look like, helps people identify the small changes and
details that will lead toward their goals. In other words, it encourages people to focus on the
process of change rather than concentrate on whether they have or have not achieved the
respective goal, which often is not particularly helpful in making progress toward that goal.
The counselor assisted the mother in generating her own ideas and solutions in assisting
her son, which reflects another core principle of solution-focused theory – that people have
the resources to resolve their own problems. The counselor could have readily offered direct
suggestions, but refrained from doing so because of the fact that people tend not to follow
the suggestions of others. Rather, the counselor helped the mother identify solutions that
had already worked in her family and were generated by her, two conditions that are likely
to increase the likelihood that the mother will use the ideas she generated. The authors’
experience is that most people have done considerable thinking about their problem and
have identified potential solutions for that problem, and rather than offering solutions that
would work from the consultant’s worldview, it is more effective to facilitate the consultee’s
exploration of the solutions he or she is considering.
The process and techniques used in SFC are extremely similar to the process of solution-
focused counseling. The primary difference is that the consultant asks the consultee to
identify his or her contributions to changes in the person of concern. The next model of
consultation that will be explored in this chapter is systems theory consultation, which
considers the multiple contexts of the consultee’s and student’s functioning in order to
encourage long-lasting change.

Systems Consultation
Systems consultation is another model discussed in the school counseling literature. In the
systemic approach, the problems and potential solutions are not seen as existing within the
child, but rather within the nature of the interactions between the student and teacher and
between the teacher and parents (White & Mullis, 1998). Indeed, Westwood (2002) found
that some of the important components of successful inclusion plans for children with
emotional and behavioral disorders included a positive teacher-child relationship, the
support of the child’s counselor in the inclusion process, and parental involvement.
Additionally, Weintraub (1998) found that regular education teachers considered some
of the most effective interventions for students with problematic behavior to be consulting
with parents to address problems perceived to be related to the student’s home life and
developing a relationship with the child to decrease alienation. The systemic approach to
consultation is holistic in that it recognizes that the children’s emotions and cognitions are
interconnected, and that the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of their parents and teachers
are also interconnected. As in behavioral consultation, the child’s behavior is seen as
functional, and exploration of the various contexts of the child’s life is necessary to
determine the potential purpose of the behavior. In using systems consultation, the school
counselor may first assist the teacher in examining the history of his or her relationship with
the child, exploring the reciprocal nature of the interactions between the teacher and child.
The relationship between the teacher and child is investigated, and the teacher may be

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asked to consider how his or her behaviors, thoughts, and feelings impacted the child, and
reciprocally, how the child’s behaviors, thoughts, and feelings influenced the teacher.
Through such questions, the consultant attempts to assist the teacher in developing new
perspectives of the child and his or her relationship with the child that results in the teacher
generating new solutions. According to the systems perspective, a consultant is often
necessary when there is tension between a student and teacher because the teacher’s
perspective of the child and the situation has become restricted by his or her emotional
intensity. In such cases, the consultant uses his or her objectivity and ability to see the
relationship patterns to guide the teacher and/or patterns to perceive the situation from a
broader perspective.
In the systemic approach to school-based consultation, there is also considerable
emphasis upon facilitating collaboration between the home and school (White & Mullis,
1998). The primary goals of involving the parents are to better understand the family
context that may be contributing to the child’s difficulties, obtain the parents’ perspective
and ideas to address the problem, and to increase family-school collaboration given the
considerable empirical support demonstrating the relationship between academic
achievement and family involvement (e.g., Epstein, 2005).
The consultant often acts as a facilitator of family-school collaboration. Often, the
relationship between the teacher and parents has been soured by their mutual frustrations
in addressing the challenging behaviors of the child. Frequently, the teacher and parents
focus on each other as a source of the problem. In such situations, the consultant seeks to
rebuild the relationship between the teacher and the parents through hosting parent-teacher
conferences. In these meetings, the consultant uses a structured format of a problem-solving
model to reestablish a more functional hierarchy and increased trust among the adults, thus
facilitating more constructive communication between the parents and teachers and
blocking unproductive communication. However, sometimes teachers are most concerned
about remedying the academic difficulties that children are experiencing related to their
emotional or behavioral problem(s). In such cases, instructional consultation, which is not
discussed in this chapter, may be a valuable tool to help facilitate a change in a student’s
academic performance.
The authors have found that the solution-focused and systems consultation approaches
can be readily integrated. Both approaches emphasize that the consultant collaborates with
the consultee by facilitating a process in which the consultee explores the nature of his or
her interactions with the person in question. The systemic approach to consultation may
initially be used by the consultant to understand the history of the patterns between the
consultee and the person of focus, and the consultant may use the solution-focused
approach in the latter part of the consultation session to explore the positive contributions
that the consultee is making toward the process and for exploring the implications for
change.

Behavioral Consultation
Behavioral consultation (BC) involves a structured and systematic problem-solving method

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that enables the consultant (the school counselor) and teacher (the consultee) to collectively
identify, define, and analyze the problem, and evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.
Akin-Little, Little, and Delligatti (2004) propose that the behavioral method of
consultation can be preventative in nature when school counselors assist teachers in
learning strategies to manage future behavioral problems. However, BC is principally used
in order to help a teacher cope with the immediate behavioral problem of a child or
adolescent.
Behavioral consultative processes. Similar to other consultation models, the four steps
in the BC process include problem identification, problem analysis, plan implementation,
and evaluation.

Box 8.6
Goals of Behavioral Consultation

• To produce behavioral change in the student.

• To produce behavioral change in the consultee.
• To produce behavioral change in the organization.
(Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990)

The consultant and consultee discuss the desired outcomes or changes resulting from the
proposed interventions as well as when and where the intervention will occur and who
implements the intervention. They will also set an expected date by which the behaviors
will have changed as a result of the proposed intervention. What follows is a description of
the steps unique to the BC process.
During the problem identification step, the consultant draws upon test data, observations,
records, and interviews, for example, to glean information about the student and establish
the objectives of the consultation. Thus, the problem identification step in the consultative
process allows the consultant to better understand the needs of the consultee with respect to
the student (Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990). During this stage, the consultant and consultee
work together to clarify the presenting problem. Because the definition of the problem will
lead to interventions, it is important that the definition of the problem behavior is succinct
and presented in measurable, objective terms.
Consultees sometimes have difficulty describing the problem in clear and specific terms
and often use vague or nonspecific terms to describe the behavior. Thus, during the initial
problem identification stage, the consultant must assist the consultee in accurately
describing the behavior in measurable terms (Gutkin & Curtis, 1999). Through the verbal
communication process, the consultant can use elicitors, emitters, paraphrasing, and
summarizing to improve problem identification. Furthermore, the consultant and consultee
should agree upon the presenting problem behavior so that both are able to record the
behavior as necessary. For example, the target behavior that is described as a classroom

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disruption may be redefined as “the number of times the student speaks without raising his
or her hand during class or without being called upon by the teacher.” In this way, the
target behavior is specific and easily measured.
During the second step of the consultative process, problem analysis, the consultant seeks
to identify the variables in the environment and in the student that are contributing to the
maintenance of the problem. One of the first steps of this stage is to collect baseline data on
the target behavior. When analyzing the problem behavior, the consultant looks at the
antecedents and consequences of the behavior over time. Much of this information is
gathered through observations of the student in his or her environment (Zins & Erchul,
2002).
Bergan and Kratochwill (1990) also discuss the importance of identifying the student’s
skill deficits during the problem-analysis stage. Skill deficits may be identified through
observations, examination of work samples, and interviews. Identifying skill deficits allows
the consultant to plan appropriate interventions later that assist in incrementally increasing
the student’s skills. For example, a child with poor social skills who has difficulty initiating
conversations with peers may need to first learn common ways to introduce topics of
conversation. As a part of the problem-analysis stage, consultants can also encourage the
consultee to identify his or her strengths and other available supports that may be used as
part of the intervention (Zins & Erchul, 2002).
After the target problem has been identified and analyzed, the consultant and consultee
should brainstorm possible interventions in order to prepare for plan implementation. Zins
and Erchul (2002) set forth principles to consider when consultants and consultees select
interventions in the school setting, including the following: (1) Positive intervention
approaches should be developed before the use of behavior reduction techniques unless the
behavior is extreme; (2) Choose interventions that are the least intrusive and complex.
Modifying variables in the child’s environment may be easier and less intrusive than
helping the student to learn a new skill or behavior; (3) When students must learn new
skills, ensure that the strategies complement existing routines as much as possible; (4) Seek
additional resources such as tutoring or community resources that may be used if the
intervention is not effective in altering the student’s behavior; (5) Consultants should
provide ongoing support and reinforcement to consultees, since they are learning new ways
to interact with the student; (6) Choose interventions that are time-efficient, non-intrusive
and are perceived to be effective by consultees; and (7) Change should be targeted at the
highest level of the organization as possible.
Regarding the implementation stage of the consultative process, Bergan and Kratochwill
(1990) discuss several integral components. They assert that both the consultant and
consultee should agree upon the nature of the problem, complete the skills analysis, design
a plan, and arrange for a follow-up session with the consultee. When designing a plan, these
researchers discuss the following steps: (1) establish objectives, (2) select interventions, (3)
consider any barriers to the implementation of the intervention, and (4) select appropriate
assessments. The consultee is expected to carry out the intervention plan during the
implementation stage, although the consultant should remain available for monitoring and

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additional suggestions and/or revisions of the plan. Specifically, the consultant takes the
lead in teaching the consultee behavioral skills of reinforcement or modeling, as well as
teaching the consultee how to conduct observations. An important part of this stage is
formative evaluation, in which the progress of the student is continually monitored to
ensure that he or she is benefiting from the proposed intervention plan.
Finally, the evaluation stage is characterized by determining the effectiveness of the
intervention, generalization, fading, and follow-up. The information shared between the
consultant and consultee during this time include whether the goals of the intervention
have been met by the student, the overall effectiveness of the plan, and a determination of
whether the consultant-consultee relationship can be safely terminated (Kratochwill, 1990).
In the case of unsuccessful interventions, a new plan may need to be made and
implemented.
When evaluating intervention effectiveness, the same procedures used during the
baseline data collection phase can be replicated. The evaluation plan should be devised
prior to intervention implementation. The effectiveness of the intervention should be
evaluated in order to ensure treatment integrity and to identify potential side effects. When
evaluating intervention effectiveness, there are two possible outcomes. One is that the
intervention resulted in a successful attainment of treatment goals, and the process can then
shift to follow-up monitoring, generalization, and fading. On the other hand, the
intervention may have not resulted in a change or successful outcomes. In this case, the
consultant and consultee may have to repeat the problem-solving process to reach
alternative treatment intervention options (Zins & Erchul, 2002).
Once the effectiveness of the intervention has been evaluated, generalization of the
intervention, follow-up, and fading of the reinforcement contingencies can be
implemented. According to researchers, the factors that help to maintain positive behavior
gains are not well understood (Zins & Erchul, 2002). However, researchers have identified
ways to plan for generalization when developing the interventions, including identifying
reinforcers in the naturally occurring environment that maintain the behavior, especially
those that encourage independence in the student, such as self-monitoring or self-
management (Meichenbaum & Turk, 1987).
Effectiveness of behavioral consultation. Empirical evidence, demonstrated primarily
in single-case study designs, indicates that BC is effective in promoting positive behavioral
changes (Guli, 2005; Wilkinson, 2005; Zins & Erchul, 2002). Although the use of BC
may result in clinically significant treatment outcomes, there are several methodological
issues to consider. As previously mentioned, intervention effectiveness is usually determined
using case study designs in which one or two participants are studied. However, using a
small sample size limits the generalizability of the research findings. Other methodological
concerns identified in the consultation literature include problems related to replication,
treatment integrity, and clearly identifiable procedures (Guli, 2005; Wilkinson, 2005).
Suggestions to improve the rigor of consultation effectiveness studies include using
between-subjects research designs, multiple baselines in single participant research, the
reporting of effect sizes, reliability, and validity data in each study, and study replication

205
(Guli, 2005).
In addition to single-subject research designs, there are barriers to the implementation of
effective consultative strategies. Examples include lack of consultant training, difficulty
identifying the target behavior(s), and lack of consultee training, among other factors
(Kratochwill & Van Someren, 1995). Overall, while researchers suggest that BC is a useful
indirect mode of service delivery, replicating studies that use more diverse populations and
problems are needed in order to provide stronger evidence for its effectiveness. Another
model of consultation, solution-focused theory, offers a number of advantages for school
counselors when engaging in consultation.

Summary
It is likely that school counselors will be increasingly called upon to engage in collaboration
and consultation for a variety of reasons. The NCLB Act (2002) requires that school
personnel make concerted efforts to increase parent involvement, including hard-to-access
parents, given that research demonstrates the positive relationship between parental
involvement and academic achievement. Enhanced use of consultation and collaboration
by school counselors is also consistent with the trend in the school counseling profession to
maximize the impact of the school counselor through the utilization of comprehensive
interventions that are more likely to impact the larger school environment in comparison to
direct services, such as individual counseling.
It is possible that school counselors who positively influence teachers, administrators,
and parents by imparting their training and expertise achieve a more significant impact
than school counselors who rely upon solely providing a direct service to students. As a
colleague of one of the authors stated, “If I help a teacher more effectively manage her class,
teach a subject, or relate to students, it will likely help thousands of students over time.” By
using consultation and collaboration, school counselors thus adopt an expanded view
regarding the way in which they can help students both at school and at home. School
counselors are likely to be in a key position to promote the increased emphasis on
facilitating school-family-community partnerships given their training and expertise in
group dynamics, communication skills, and child and adolescent development. Moreover,
enthusiastic adoption of this role may contribute to the further development of the identity
of the school counseling profession.

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 Chapter Nine
Academic Development

Box 9.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
2.a School counselor roles as leaders, advocates, and systems change agents in P-12
schools
2.b School counselor roles in consultation with families, P-12 and postsecondary
school personnel, and community agencies
2.d School counselor roles in school leadership and multidisciplinary teams
3.d Interventions promote academic development
3.i Approaches to increase promotion and graduation rates

In this chapter, school counselors are exposed to information regarding the way in
which they may work collaboratively with teachers and families in promoting students’
academic development and success. A historic criticism of the role of school counselors is
that by primarily focusing on the mental health needs of a comparatively small number of
students rather than on the academic development of all students, school counselors have
functionally reduced their potential positive impact. The aspects of school counseling
services that have typically benefited all students, such as class scheduling and tracking
students in academic/career paths, are increasingly viewed as administrative responsibilities
instead of the developmental interventions that counselors are trained to provide (Galassi &
Akos, 2012). Although school counselors, among their other responsibilities, can be critical
educational team members in promoting students’ academic development, they may lack
confidence in their ability to effect change in children’s scholastic performance. As an
example of this, in one study, school counselors expressed doubt that they could impact
student achievement on standardized tests with the interventions they typically use
(Brigman & Campbell, 2003). Indeed, Stone and Clark (2001) report that school
counselors have been “conspicuously absent” from educational reform reports and actually
may be seen as incidental to students’ educational progress as it is defined in terms of their
academic achievement (p. 48). Consequently, the relationship between the school
counselor and families in promoting children’s academic progress will be a focus of this
chapter. In the ASCA National Model® (2012), the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors (ASCA,
2014) are depicted in three general areas to promote behaviors that enhance the learning
process: academic, career, and personal/social development. In this chapter, the first broad

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domain, students’ academic success, will be discussed.
The profession of school counseling is evolving in its definitions of the role of the school
counselor in promoting students’ academic achievement. Although perhaps not an intuitive
competency, research has suggested that school counseling interventions may have a
positive effect upon students’ academic achievement and standardized achievement test
scores (Wilkerson, Pérusse, & Hughes, 2013). In the past decade, one of the major reforms
of the school counseling profession has been to increase school counselors’ contributions to
students’ academic development (Galassi & Akos, 2012). However, the school counseling
profession has not yet appeared to have achieved consensus regarding the way in which
school counselors can increase their focus on children’s academic development. In the
research literature, there are any number of ways that school counselors are encouraged to
support students’ academic achievement, some of which appear to be more consistent with
their fundamental role than others. Therefore, this chapter explores some of the ways in
which school counselors can contribute to students’ academic development, while
respecting the unique contributions to children’s overall school success that school
counselors typically provide.

Research Supporting School Counselors’ Work in Increasing Students’

Academic Competence
Brown and Trusty (2005) contend that strategic interventions, in which there is a match
among the needs of the students, the desired outcomes, and the intervention chosen, are
more likely to increase students’ academic achievement than comprehensive school
counseling programs, since there is limited evidence for their effectiveness in improving
students’ academic skills. However, other research has suggested that evidence-based school
counseling programs with measurable outcomes can indeed positively impact students’
academic achievement. Schools that have been designated as a Recognized ASCA Model
Program (RAMP; e.g., those with comprehensive, data-driven, accountable school
counseling programs) demonstrated school-wide proficiency rates in English/language arts
and Math that were significantly higher than compared to elementary controls, with four-
year longitudinal results indicating a significant positive difference between RAMP-
designated schools and their controls in math (Wilkerson et al., 2013). In an investigation
of the effects of fully implemented comprehensive guidance and counseling programs on a
number of student outcomes on a statewide basis in Missouri, researchers found that,
among other beneficial effects, the comprehensive programming was significantly predictive
of students earning higher grades (Lapan, Gysbers, & Petroski, 2001).
These results suggest that programs evidencing best practices in school counseling are
able to demonstrate clinically significant gains in students’ academic skills in comparison to
programs not identified as using such practices. Thus, while school counselors’ practices
have traditionally been documented to have beneficial effects upon students’ social,
emotional, and behavioral health and functioning, these practices are also helpful in
improving students’ academic achievement.

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 The Education Trust, a nonprofit organization, established the Transforming School
Counseling Initiative (TSCI), with one of its primary aims to modify the preparation of
school counselors to enable them to promote the academic development of all students
(Martin, 2002).

Box 9.2
Did you know?
The initial Transforming Counseling Initiative was financially supported by the
Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund. (https://prezi.com/smno53s6qeut/education-trusts-
transforming-school-counseling-initative/).

The TSCI argued that the profession of school counseling, through its responsibility for
scheduling and educational placement, contributed to educational disparities between
typically advantaged and disadvantaged students, encouraging minority and students from
lower socioeconomic status levels to pursue vocational tracks of study as opposed to
promoting college readiness (House & Sears, 2002). The TSCI appears to have influenced
the design of the ASCA National Model® (2012), which while asserting that school
counselors promote students’ academic, career, and personal/social development, also
explains that “the ultimate goal of a school counseling program is to support the school’s
academic mission” (ASCA, 2003, p. 52).
While TSCI and ASCA appear to be intending to move the school counseling
profession in the direction of an enhanced commitment to academic development, other
developments seem to be encouraging the movement of the profession in the opposite
direction. Most states have eliminated the requirement for school counselors to have
teaching experience, and with good cause, since research has suggested that teaching
experience is not predictive of effectiveness for school counselors (e.g., Baker & Herr,
1976). The apparent challenge to the school counseling profession is the question of how
do school counselors make a meaningful contribution to academic development when most
do not have a background in teaching?

Research Supporting School Counselors’ Work in Contributing to Students’

Academic Development at the Systems Level
Galassi and Akos (2012) developed what is arguably the clearest framework of how the
ASCA National Model® (2012) can be used by school counselors to focus upon students’
academic development. The ASCA National Model® (2012) indicates that school counselors
contribute to academic development at both the systems and student level. At the systems
level, school counselors promote academic development through the functions of
“leadership, collaboration with other educational professionals and community agencies,
coordination of academic-related services, and advocacy to identify and remove systemic
barriers to educational access and opportunity” (Galassi & Akos, 2012, p. 53). Galassi and

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Akos (2012) purport that school counselors must have an understanding of systemic change
within the educational context. Also, school counselors should understand characteristics of
schools that are high-performing and which have reduced the gap between typically
advantaged and disadvantaged groups, and seek to facilitate such an environment in their
collaborative efforts with school personnel.
As an example of the role of the school climate in promoting academic development,
Galassi and Akos (2012) cite Brown, Benkovitz, Muttillo, and Urban’s (2010) study
comparing high-performing schools that had a minor achievement gap with high-
performing schools that had a larger achievement gap. Brown and colleagues (2010) found
that both types of schools evidenced the common beliefs that achievement occurs through
collaboration, hiring practices are important, behavioral climate is essential, school
personnel are committed to delivering the state curriculum, and that these characteristics
were more pronounced in the high-performing schools, which had a smaller achievement
gap. Also, these authors noted that administrators in the high-performing schools with
small achievement gaps for students were more intentional in acknowledging and
rewarding academic achievement, regularly monitoring teaching and learning by providing
instructional feedback and support, and expecting a high level of achievement for all
students. Other systems-level variables affecting academic achievement which Galassi and
Akos (2012) encourage school counselors to be familiar with include the effectiveness of
classroom instruction, emergence of career academies, smaller learning communities, and
the importance of strength-based approaches.
Stone and Clark (2001) indicate that leadership is an increasingly valued and shared
responsibility at the school level, and that school counselors should be foremost among
school personnel who may partner with principals in assuming roles as educational leaders.
However, these authors argue that school counselor leadership has not been adequately
investigated or prioritized in school counselor training programs or in the practice of school
counseling. Although school counselors may not perceive themselves as being school
leaders, they do have unique opportunities to exert leadership. One of these roles is that of
consultants who collaborate with others in the lives of students, such as teachers,
administrators, family members, and community members. Another of these roles is that of
advocates, particularly in reference to students’ motivation, achievement, and planning for
future goals. A third role is as trainers who provide in-service opportunities for teachers and
parents in such topics as educational planning, motivation, student assessment and
achievement, identification and interventions for students with special needs, and issues of
student diversity (Stone & Clark, 2001).

Academic Development at the Student Level

In addition to their impact upon school systems, school counselors can promote academic
development in their application of direct student services, which includes the school
counseling core curriculum, individual student planning, and responsive services. Much of
the research literature in the past decade concerning school counselors’ use of direct services

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to promote students’ academic development involves teaching students study skills through
small group counseling and school counseling lessons. Galassi and Akos (2012) recommend
that school counselors be familiar with the emerging research literature regarding how to
effectively promote study skills, and in particular, Brigman and Webb’s (2008) Student
Success Skills.
Teaching students to use study skills. Accordingly, school counselors may wish to have
a grouping of practical techniques to use to promote students’ academic skills. Therefore,
one of the ways that school counselors can support students’ academic achievement is by
instructing them in study skills. Information included in the following section comes from
an excellent chapter regarding best practices in school psychologists’ practice in teaching
study skills, by Smith Harvey and Chickie-Wolfe (2007). Interested readers are encouraged
to consult this resource for more information on this topic.
Students who are able to effectively organize their time and have good test-taking skills
are able to achieve better grades as well as perform more proficiently on standardized tests.

Box 9.3
Did you know?
Some studies have found that test-taking skills training benefits students from low
socioeconomic backgrounds more than twice as much as students who are not from low
socioeconomic backgrounds (Scruggs, 1986).

Study skills involve self-regulation, in which students learn to use a variety of techniques to
incorporate fundamental principles of effective learning into their studying and learning.
Smith Harvey and Chickie-Wolfe (2007) explain that best practice in teaching study skills
should include the techniques being embedded in the curriculum, since study skills taught
in isolation are less likely to be maintained or used in multiple settings. A team of
collaborative members that includes school counselors, teachers, parents, and students
should be developed in order to teach the study skills, which first includes an ecological
assessment of four steps (Smith Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).
Ecological assessment – step one. First, team members analyze the problem together and
define it using measurable and specific terms. This may include a classroom observation in
which the students’ academic skills and behaviors are identified and compared with peers.

Box 9.4
Did you know?
There are numerous study skills checklists and assessments available on the Internet.

This is followed by a student interview, in which students’ motivation, emotions, and

behaviors regarding study skills; environmental supports toward the use of study skills; and

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students’ cognitive skills, reading skills, writing and reporting skills, math, science, and
technology skills, test preparation and test-taking skills, and the use of metacognitive
strategies are measured. A work session observation, in which the school counselor observes
a student completing academic tasks, is conducted. During this first step, the student
should describe his or her work methods, approaches to studying, textbooks, notebooks,
assignment books, and completed work, along with the observer’s analysis of classroom-
completed work and homework samples from the student. A parent and teacher interview
should occur, followed by the assembly of information to identify strengths and needs
(Smith Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).
Ecological assessment – step two. Following the assessment, the second step involves
team members meeting to review gathered information, coming to an agreement about the
desired or acceptable level of performance by the student(s), and identifying resources,
including materials and supportive people. The potential interventions should be
enumerated along with their positive and negative attributes. After interventions are
selected, a timeframe to teach the study skills and implementation strategies are identified.
The responsibilities for each team member are named, written, and reinforced through the
writing of a signed contract (Smith Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).
Ecological assessment – step three. In the third step, interventions are actualized, through
interventions being implemented with guided instruction and modeling, with a transition
to fading instruction as self-sufficiency is evidenced. Results should be tracked until the
behavior reaches the acceptable levels of performance identified prior to the
implementation of the intervention. Ideally, the student will monitor his or her own
behavior, as self-monitoring is related to more independent and sustained learning (Smith
Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).
Ecological assessment – step four. After successful strategies have been ascertained, in the
fourth step, the team should plan and initiate strategies in order for the student to
generalize and maintain the study skills learned. In this level, goals should be set for
successful generalization. Progress monitoring can be used to track progress in using the
study skills effectively and consistently across settings. Smith Harvey and Chickie-Wolfe
(2007) explain that goal setting and progress monitoring will likely need to be used in at
least three settings to promote successful generalization of skills.
Consideration of students’ motivation, emotions, and behavior. After an ecological
analysis of the problem, team members should consider students’ motivation, emotions,
and behavior. Developing short- and long-term goals for each subject and including them
in students’ weekly planners can be a helpful intervention. School counselors should
determine what the student attributes academic success and difficulty to, as pupils with an
external locus of control need to experience the connection between the use of study skills
and the result of academic success. Students also need to identify the purpose of learning
materials, such as why the teacher gave the assignment or how the assignment will be useful
in life (Smith Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).
Another consideration for school counselors is to determine what kind of homework the
student enjoys and dislikes, since many students assume that they generally dislike

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homework, when in fact they do enjoy some homework assignments. Less-preferred
homework assignments may be completed first, sandwiched between preferred assignments,
or completed after easier work has been accomplished. Finally, counselors should determine
whether the student suffers from disabling academic anxiety. There is a curvilinear
relationship between anxiety and performance; some anxiety is helpful in encouraging an
optimal level of functioning, while too much anxiety can be crippling. Test anxiety affects
between a third and a half of intermediate-level students, and can be identified by students
during individual interviews or self-report measures. Direct interventions to diminish
anxiety may range from relaxation techniques to medication, while indirect interventions
include study-skill training, including test-taking strategies (Smith Harvey & Chickie-
Wolfe, 2007).
Consideration of environmental supports. After considering students’ motivation,
emotions, and behaviors, attention should next be paid to the student’s environmental
supports. First, to what extent are the student’s parents checking assignments and
monitoring homework completion? Children typically require help from their parents with
time management and organization of materials, and while students generally need less
supervision as they age, those with learning difficulties will likely require more support for a
longer period of time than typically developing adolescents. School counselors should check
to see whether there is a regular, quiet time set aside for homework completion, and if there
is enough support at home for the establishment of solid study strategies. This may require
the identification of an alternative location to complete homework, such as an after-school
program. Another consideration is what the student does when he or she gets stuck with
homework completion at home. Is there a person from whom the student may seek help?
Additionally, is there adequate communication between home and school to foster the
student’s homework completion? Please see the discussion of parent-school involvement
later in the chapter. Teachers need to be able to talk with parents about problems with
homework; likewise, parents need to be able to consult with teachers for assistance with
children’s homework and their organization (Smith Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).
Consideration of students’ cognitive skills. Next, the school counselor should analyze the
student’s cognitive skills that may promote or inhibit his or her learning. For example, does
the student plan for learning, such as bringing home all necessary supplies for homework?
Students should document short-term assignments in a homework book, and keep track of
long-term assignments, such as projects or papers, in a calendar. School counselors will also
want to establish whether the student uses estimation skills to gauge the amount of time
necessary for assignments and schedules such assignments accordingly. When the student
submits assignments, does he or she include his or her name, title of the assignment, and a
date? School counselors should also determine whether or not the student corrects his or
her papers before submission. Other necessary cognitive skills include the abilities to
organize papers, keep work areas clean and organized, follow directions and information
given, and take notes in class. Finally, the student should be able to pre-read reading
materials before listening to a lecture, as such a practice tends to increase his or her
understanding of the material presented (Smith Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).

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 Test preparation and taking. Perhaps one of the most important sets of skills that
students may possess is to be able to effectively prepare for assessments of their learning.
This includes spacing learning across several study sessions, conducting weekly reviews, and
using effective memory-enhancing strategies, such as rehearsing, making organizational
charts, using associative strategies (e.g., peg words), and using graphic organizers. School
counselors should also determine whether the student uses study guides while studying. It is
typically helpful to assemble information into meaningful groupings, although teacher-
provided study guides that require students to add their own elaborative information can
also be valuable. School counselors should also ask whether or not the student is able to
predict test questions, and use corrected assignments and tests as a learning tool. Finally, it
is important to recognize if the student knows and can use good test-taking strategies. For
example, he or she should come to an exam with all necessary materials, skim through a test
to determine its layout prior to allocating time to each section, record memorized material
as soon as possible, try to answer every question, immediately eliminate incorrect multiple-
choice responses, and so forth (Smith Harvey & Chickie-Wolfe, 2007).
Solution Shop: A solution-focused counseling and study skills program for middle school
students. One example of the use of study skills instruction embedded in a counseling
curriculum is Solution Shop, a data-driven counseling and study skills program. Cook and
Kaffenberger (2003) explain that in using the program, school counselors invite middle
school students with two or more failing grades to participate, in groups of ten. Each
student then develops both individual academic and personal goals, after which the student
participates in solution-focused group counseling and study-skill instruction for part of one
class period. During the other part of the period, students receive individualized tutoring.
At the end of the first year of the program, 57% of the students who participated in
Solution Shop had improved GPAs (Cook & Kaffenberger, 2003).
Implementing interventions to improve students’ success skills. Students’ academic
achievement may also be positively impacted upon by counselor-led interventions designed
to improve student success behavior. Brigman and Campbell (2003) conducted a study in
which they encouraged school counselors to use a research-based group and school
counseling lessons curriculum, Student Success Skills (SSS; Brigman & Goodman, 2001).
This curriculum was developed in response to studies that found a set of skills to be
fundamental to students’ school success: cognitive and metacognitive skills, including goal
setting, progress monitoring, and memory skills; social skills, including interpersonal skills,
problem-solving, listening and teamwork skills; and self-management skills, including the
ability to manage attention, motivation, and anger.
The process of teaching skills used in this curriculum followed the instruction model
identified by Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1994) as being effective, an Ask, Tell, Show,
Do, Feedback method. Brigman and Campbell (2003) found that the combined school
counselor interventions of group counseling and school counseling lessons were associated
with a positive effect upon students’ academic achievement and behavior. In a later study
conducted by Campbell and Brigman (2005), use of the SSS curriculum was associated
with improvement in math and reading on the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test.

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In an additional investigation authored by Brigman, Webb, and Campbell (2007), the
authors found improvements in math achievement, but the increase in reading scores was
not as strong as it had been in previous studies. Additionally, a statistically significant
difference was not found between the treatment and comparison groups in the area of
reading achievement (Brigman et al., 2007). The SSS intervention seems to be similarly
effective among students from different racial and ethnic groups; research has suggested
that White, Latino, and African American students showed comparable gains in their
academic achievement after SSS participation (Miranda, Webb, Brigman, & Peluso, 2007).
Format for group sessions. This group counseling intervention entails eight weekly
sessions of forty-five minutes each, after which four booster sessions occur. Brigman and
Campbell (2003) explain that the group format is comprised of three sections: the
beginning, middle, and end. The beginning phase of the session had four tasks, including a
temperature check on feelings/energy, a review of the past session, a focus upon goals and
progress associated with academic achievement and school success behavior, a preview of
the day’s meeting, and a rationale or benefits statement that related to engagement in the
activity (Brigman & Campbell, 2003).
The middle phase of each session included the introduction of the main activity, in
which the leader used the “Ask, Tell, Show, Do” method of skill and knowledge building.
Before the presentation of a new topic, counselors “Ask” students to define and relate their
existing knowledge and how they currently use this skill or concept. Second, the students
“Tell” or offer new information related to the skill/information being discussed and third,
“Show” the use of this skill or information. Finally, the “Do,” or guided practice, provides
the students with the chance to apply the new ideas/skills; this typically involves role-play
and feedback but may include art, music, games, or story-telling or reading with different
endings suggested by the students (Brigman & Campbell, 2003).
The ending of the group session also includes four tasks. The first is a review of the
content that was covered in the session, while the second is to process or discuss the
thoughts and feelings of participants during their participation in the activities of the
session. The third task is for students to set a goal, consider what was most meaningful in
the session, and choose how they will use a particular technique the next week to reach
their goal. The final task of the session is a preview of the next session conducted by the
leader (Brigman & Campbell, 2003).
Format for school counseling lessons. Brigman and Campbell (2003) describe the format
for school counseling lessons as including three main topics: (1) cognitive skills, including
memory strategies, setting of goals, and progress monitoring; (2) social skills, including
conflict resolution, social problem-solving, and teamwork skills; and (3) self-management
skills, including anger management, motivation, and career awareness. The school
counseling lessons are taught in a four-part format in accordance with the small group
sessions. Activity one includes the use of an introduction, something that stimulates the
children’s attention, and a rationale that encourages children to value the topic being
taught. Children share what they already know, provide a definition of the topic being
discussed, and may think about ways to handle a proposed problem though the use of

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quotations, puppets, visual aids, and so forth. School counselors may also use pair sharing
and group discussion skills to respond to student comments and interweave students’ ideas
with one another. Once the activity is completed, small groups present their information to
the entire class, after which students summarize the content of the lesson and engage in
setting a goal. Students consider the activity, what they learned, and how they can use the
information learned. Children are encouraged to think of something they had learned from
the lesson that they could use, and to share this with their partners, while volunteers report
on how they would apply the lesson with the entire class.

Differentiation for School Counseling Lessons

When teaching lessons such as those in the SSS program, it is important for school
counselors to consider the need for differentiation based upon students’ ages and ability
levels (Galassi & Akos, 2012). For example, instruction for younger students is likely to be
comprised of more concrete terminology, a shorter duration of lesson, and visual aids, such
as puppets. Correspondingly, older students will likely be able to comprehend a more
abstract presentation of information (e.g., imagine how a peer might feel if…), and
activities such as role-playing examples of social situations. Similarly, when planning lessons
for students with disabilities, school counselors will also want to pay attention to differences
in reasoning skills, adjusting the language and activities for the needs of the students
receiving the instruction. Students with cognitive disabilities will likely require short bursts
of instruction, with activities in multiple modalities, overlapping concepts, and repetition.
Manualized treatment programs may be particularly helpful for students who have
difficulty with information processing, as the scripted lessons are likely to adhere to a
developmental sequence with information building upon skills that have already been
acquired. Other methods for differentiation include addressing content, such as using
student questions and interests to help guide instruction; addressing the process, or how
students arrive at the content, for example, through using learning centers and contracts;
and addressing products, the ways that students demonstrate a culminating understanding
of the content, including computer-based presentations (Akos, Cockman, & Strickland,
2007).

Curriculum Mapping
Another issue that Galassi and Akos (2012) address is the need to be able to integrate
counseling topics into traditional curricular mapping. Typically, there is an academic scope
and sequence that is identified in school district curricula in which certain topics are
covered in different grades and subject areas so that educators can ensure that information
is not missing when academic skills are taught. In the era of high-stakes testing, schools
must demonstrate that there is a systematic coverage of content.
Curricular mapping facilitates the breadth and depth of a specific curriculum, with the
scope of the curriculum reflecting what is going to be taught of a subject during each grade
level, and the sequence signifying the order in which the lessons are to be taught. Upon

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examining the curriculum, school counselors can identify where counseling topics naturally
fit, and use the curriculum to develop a thematic unit, in which lessons are constructed
around a common theme. For example, when students are reading a classic novel, such as
the Lord of the Flies, it may be an ideal time to discuss the negative effects of bullying upon
both perpetrators and victims.

Individual Student Planning

Intuitively, selecting the right courses for each student is critical for his or her success.
Galassi and Akos (2012) state that the impact of course selection upon academic success is
an important mechanism by which school counselors can promote students’ academic
development. School counselors can work to assign students to rigorous academic programs
as well as to change schools’ practices that deter equity and diminish students’
opportunities (Stone & Clark, 2001). Typically, students from low-income families appear
to be less likely to have access to guidance about their coursework both at home and at
school, while more economically advantaged students tend to enjoy more time in interviews
about interests and abilities with school counselors (Stone & Clark, 2001).
In one study, researchers investigated how credits in intensive mathematics courses
affected students’ completion versus non-completion of the bachelor’s degree in college. Of
all variables studied, the completion of intensive math courses, including Algebra 2,
trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus, had the strongest effects of all curricular areas
upon degree completion. The authors of this study, Trusty and Niles (2003), argue that it
is of utmost importance that school counselors inform and advise students and parents
effectively. Counselors should use student data from multiple sources, including
achievement test scores, aptitude test scores, performance samples, teacher observation, and
outcomes from guidance activities, in order to help students in making scheduling decisions
and assisting them in postsecondary education and career planning (Trusty & Niles, 2003).

Promoting the Relationship Between Academic and Career Development

Galassi and Akos (2012) also indicate that school counselors can be helpful to students in
connecting academic development and planning to traditional career counseling. First,
school counselors can work to influence the beliefs and attitudes of teachers and
administrators to promote the concept that all students should be encouraged to achieve
high standards (Stone & Clark, 2001). While conducting career counseling activities, the
competency of which is discussed in Chapter 10: College and Career Readiness, school
counselors can connect the skills necessary to succeed in various professions with the
competencies that can be developed through coursework in various academic subjects. As
mentioned, the selection of particular courses can be critically important not only for
students to gain admission to college, but also to graduate from college.
One of the ways in which school counselors can link high school classes to
postsecondary educational and vocational opportunities is through implementing the
Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The CCSS were developed using a backward

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design that used college- and career-ready standards as a point of departure, and working
back through each grade. This method was successful in accomplishing grade-level shifts in
content down through each grade. The CCSS reflects a shift in the instructional goals from
high school completion to college and career readiness, which permits each student to work
toward college and career readiness (Achieve, College Summit, NASSP, & NAESP, 2013).
School counselors may work with students who do not typically enroll in STEM
courses, for example, in order to encourage them to take the classes that will prepare them
for college and professions in which women and students of color are historically
underrepresented. House and Hayes (2002) explain that opportunities for students,
particularly those who are poor and those of color, are almost always highly related to their
course of study. Students who do not benefit from the receipt of a rigorous curriculum,
with support to keep them in such classes, may face insurmountable barriers to gaining
employment in increasingly sophisticated workplaces (Schneider & Stevenson, 1999).
School counselors have access to vital data about student placements, academic success and
failure of all students, and course-taking patterns. They also know which teachers are
known to hold high standards for all of their students, and who are skilled in helping all
students attain these standards (House & Hayes, 2002).

Encouraging School Attendance and Preventing Student Dropout

Of course, in order for students to be academically successful, they need to stay in school.
White and Kelly (2010) argue that there are significant social, psychological, and financial
consequences associated with school dropout. In 2003, the median income of individuals
aged 18 years and older who completed a high school credential was $20,431 in
comparison to $12,184 for those who had dropped out (Laird, DeBell, & Chapman,
2006). Students who are truant from school appear to be more likely to experience adult
criminality, violence, marital discord, and problems with their place of employment than
their peers who graduate from high school (Gonzales, Richards, & Seeley, 2002).
Of particular worry, students of color are more likely to drop out of high school than
their White peers (Darling-Hammond, 1998). Wirt et al. (2002) report that in 2003, 91%
of White students, 89% of African American students, and 62% of Latino students
completed high school or its equivalent. A more recent estimate suggested that in 2008,
17% of Hispanics dropped out of high school in comparison to 5% of non-Hispanic White
students, 4% of Asian students, and 9% of Black students (US Census Bureau, 2011).
While the high school completion gap has closed to some extent between White and
African American students, Latino students, particularly those who are immigrants, are
much less likely to complete school than their White peers (Trusty, Mellin, & Herbert,
2008).
Galassi and Akos (2012) suggest that school counselors become knowledgeable about
some of the major national resources and reports in this area, such as the National Dropout
Prevention Network (www.dropoutprevention.org), of which the mission is to increase
students’ graduation rates through research and the development and dissemination of

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evidence-based solutions. Of critical importance is not only for school counselors to
become aware of the problem of students dropping out and evidence-based solutions to the
problem, but also being able to access dropout data in one’s own district (to identify
particular subgroups of students that are at risk of dropping out), identify initiatives to
discourage dropout in one’s own district, and developing, proposing, and advocating for
individual and systems-level interventions to combat the problem of student dropout in
one’s own school system (Galassi & Akos, 2012).
In a review of intervention approaches on the probability of school dropout, White and
Kelly (2010) found only one study that actually included dropout as a dependent variable
(Wirth-Bond, Coyne, & Adams, 1991). The complexity of conducting research on such a
systemic and multifaceted problem and the recent focus in the school counseling literature
upon remedial or crisis topics are likely contributing factors to this issue. Nevertheless,
White and Kelly (2010) summarize the best practices for school counselors in preventing
school dropout, including strategies addressing protective factors such as social support
(e.g., instituting a peer mentoring system or buddy system), monitoring and mentoring
(e.g., assigning adult mentors or advocates to identified at-risk students to track progress
and collaborate with parents), personal and social skill development (e.g., providing explicit
social skills instruction), and parental involvement (e.g., offering parent training), and
addressing risk factors such as academic instruction (e.g., assisting teachers in providing
more academic instruction and less time on behavior management), and academic support
(e.g., offering after-school study skills and time management classes).

Tutoring and Peer Tutoring

One approach for improving students’ academic achievement that enjoys broad empirical
support is tutoring, including peer tutoring. Indeed, Trusty and colleagues (2008) explain
that the strategic intervention (discussed earlier – a technique that is designed to closely
match students’ needs and proximal outcomes, which is supported and refined by research)
that appears to have the strongest empirical evidence is peer and cross-age tutoring and peer
facilitation. Robinson, Schofield, and Steers-Wentzell (2005) indicate that tutoring has
academic benefits for tutors and tutees and that average- and low-achieving students appear
to be effective tutors. Moreover, programs that are designed to allow students to work both
as tutors and tutees seem to be effective in promoting students’ academic achievement
(Trusty et al., 2008).
Peer tutoring can be described as students using direct instruction to target peers, and is
characterized by peer pairing techniques and the instructional repertoire of the tutor.
Potential problems and concerns of peer tutoring include the competence of the tutor, the
issue of informed consent, negative side effects, such as bullying between tutor and tutee,
and accountability. Greenwood, Carta, and Hall (1988) report that peer tutoring has been
applied to a wide range of academic subjects, from learning how to roll a ball to social
studies units for secondary students. While the goal of peer tutoring has historically been to
teach the subject matter independent of the teacher, the movement of class-wide peer

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tutoring has permitted the use of the best available matches or the use of materials or
teacher monitoring to negate the potential negative outcomes of the differential ability
levels of tutors and tutees. Typically, peer tutoring arrangements allow the tutee repeated
opportunities to respond, immediate feedback and consequences, remediation for incorrect
answers, and tutor-collected outcomes data. Additionally, tutors who are given specific
training are more likely to use the desired tutoring behavior than untrained tutors
(Greenwood et al., 1988).
Systematic tutoring procedures are those in which students learn highly specific
instructional behaviors, and have facilitated tutoring over a long period of time with a large
number of students. Units of academic content can be sequenced so that once the tutee
learns a skill, the next can be immediately taught, with the systematic coverage of content
ensured. Furthermore, peer tutoring may be used with students of all ability levels,
including those with disabilities assuming both roles as tutors and tutees. Maher, Maher,
and Thurston (1998) propose a model in which students with disruptive behavior disorders
work as tutors, in which the purpose and goals for the disruptive student (the tutor) and
the tutee are described, an explicit tutoring process is provided, training in the particular
tutoring program is offered, the disruptive student is given techniques to monitor his or her
involvement in and performance as a tutor, and a program evaluation plan is instituted to
gauge the benefits for the tutor and tutee. Peer tutoring actually may allow for students to
be educated in a less restrictive setting rather than the one-to-one teaching context that may
be otherwise necessary. School counselors may wish to be particularly cognizant of the need
for fidelity in peer tutoring programs, such as the use of a procedure checklist for tutoring
techniques and reinforcement contingencies (Greenwood et al., 1988).

Parental Involvement
Another variable that appears to influence students’ academic achievement is parental
involvement. A body of research has established that parental involvement is positively
associated with students’ academic achievement, and attendance, among other outcomes
(Van Velsor & Orozco, 2007). In the school counseling literature, parent involvement is
often conceptualized as school-family-community partnerships, which are collaborative
relationships between school personnel, families, and community members in which all are
considered to be equal in the planning, coordinating, and implementing of programs and
activities at home, at school, and in the community to help to increase the social, academic,
and emotional success of students (Bryan & Holcomb-McCoy, 2004).
The nine school-family-community partnership programs that are most frequently
found in schools include mentoring programs, parent centers, family/community members
serving as teachers’ aides, parent and community volunteer programs, home visit programs,
parent education programs, school-business partnerships, parent/community members
participating in site-based management, and tutoring programs (Bryan & Holcomb-
McCoy, 2004). Cox (2005) integrated the results of 18 empirical studies that involved
parent education collaborations and children’s success behaviors at school, including grades

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and quality of work, and found these interventions were the most successful when
characterized by two-way communication and equal participation among parents and
educators in the intervention (Trusty et al., 2008).
Regardless of school level, school counselors in one study found it important to be
involved and to play major roles in school-family-community partnerships (Bryan &
Holcomb-McCoy, 2004). In this investigation, elementary counselors perceived
partnership programs and their personal role in these partnerships to be more important in
their schools than secondary-level counselors. Furthermore, irrespective of the counselor’s
work setting, more importance for the role of the school counselor was reported for
mentoring and parent education programs in comparison to other school-family-
community partnerships (Bryan & Holcomb-McCoy, 2004).
As an example of an intervention to increase family-school connections, Epstein and
Van Voorhis’ (2001) interactive homework approach is designed to increase families’
involvement in their children’s education as well as to improve communication between
parents and teachers. Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) is a way for students
to include their families, friends, and community members in their education by sharing
interesting things they are learning in school, such as gathering parents’ memories or
experiences about a historical event. The TIPS intervention was found to significantly
improve student achievement and family support of children at school, and school
counselors can support such an approach by providing leadership and advocacy in
supporting TIPS (Galassi & Akos, 2012).
Obstacles to school-family-community relationships include cultural barriers and
accessibility, lack of connectivity (i.e., a lack of trust among schools, families, and
communities), and a lack of resources (i.e., poor funding for collaboration; Trusty et al.,
2008). Trusty and colleagues (2008) recommend that school counselors work to promote
safe school environments, positive communication, and reduction or elimination of barriers
for students and families. Nationally recognized school-family-community partnership
models, including the school and family integration model (Bemak & Cornely, 2002), can
help to guide school counselors in their roles and tasks in creating successful school-family-
community partnerships. School counselors can use data collected from systematic needs
assessments, develop a plan of action, including measurable proximal and distal outcomes,
and evaluate these outcomes in order to create a structure to guide school-family-
community partnerships (Trusty et al., 2008).

Closing-the-Gap Action Plans

One of the persistent problems in the US educational system is inequity in academic
achievement and attainment, with students of color and those from economically
disadvantaged families underachieving in comparison to White and economically
advantaged peers (Bruce, Getch, & Ziomek-Daigle, 2009). Contextual forces such as
racism, poverty, family involvement, exposure to quality education, ethical and equitable
educational practice, and personal and cultural identity development are considered to be

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those variables that may potentially contribute to achievement differences among students.
Regardless of the etiology of the disparity in achievement between students, for ethical and
pragmatic reasons, it is important that school counselors take the responsibility to remedy
the underachievement of students among specific demographic subgroups (Bruce et al.,
2009).
In the ASCA National Model® , “closing-the-gap activities address important issues of
equity and student achievement” (2012, p. 104). Closing-the-gap action plans can be
perceived as a social advocacy role for school counselors. Such a role involves helping all
students to gain access to vigorous academic preparation and support for success in these
programs. House and Martin (1998) describe this role as being based upon the belief that
individual or collective action must be taken to remedy injustices or to change the status
quo to benefit an individual or group. In a democracy, educational equity is built upon the
foundational principle that all children, particularly those who are at risk for being
underserved – youth of color or who are socioeconomically disadvantaged – are more aptly
prepared for future success than the prior generation.
Trusty and colleagues (2008) advocate for the use of the proximal-distal framework to
help counselors to develop logical causal sequences and develop helpful perspectives on
developmental contexts that will assist their work in closing achievement gaps.
Nevertheless, school counselors should recognize that principally, students’ academic and
social engagement in school is critically important to closing achievement gaps. Human
relationships within schools and among schools, students, families, and communities
comprise the foundation of student engagement.
Closing-the-gap action plans may vary depending upon the age of the students, the
context of the school system, and specific student needs. Regardless of the specifics of the
plan, however, the ability to aggregate and disaggregate student information is essential to
help school counselors to identify and eliminate school practices that may be impeding
equitable access and opportunities for success in rigorous coursework (Stone & Clark,
2001). Examples of successful plans include the impact of a group counseling intervention,
which consisted of eight weekly group counseling sessions, upon African American
students’ achievement levels during high-stakes standardized proficiency testing in Georgia,
in which all participants received passing scores on the English language arts and math
sections of the assessment. The achievement gap between African American and White
students was also narrowed, in that 63.2% of African American students achieved a pass
rate (up from the 38.7% pass rate from the previous school year) in comparison to 70.5%
of White students (Bruce et al., 2009). Essentially, closing-the-gap action plans may be a
powerful means to ensure access to high-quality education and its employment correlates
for all students.

Motivational Interviewing and the Transtheoretical Model of Change

Motivational interviewing (MI) and the transtheoretical model (TTM) of change are two
psychological frameworks, which are often used in conjunction, that currently are not

224
widely used among school counselors but may have considerable relevancy in promoting
students’ academic development. Simply defined by Miller and Rollnick (2012, p. 29),
“Motivational interviewing is a collaborative conversation style for strengthening a person’s
own motivation and commitment to change.” The helpee is encouraged to be an active
member in achieving lifestyle change as the helper assumes a collaborative approach,
working “with” and “for” the helpee, enabling him or her to activate their own motivation
and resources for change.
MI embodies elements of person-centered counseling theory (Miller & Rollnick, 2012).
Person-centered theory focuses on the idea that a person is trustworthy and can solve their
own problems, and that people truly want to self-actualize and be the best version of
themselves. Carl Rogers (1954) theorized that a counseling relationship that is rooted in
acceptance but not approval of actions and empathy for a person’s experience promote self-
change. Much like person-centered theory, MI allows this process to happen because the
purpose is to see the world through another person’s eyes and allow the person to set an
agenda for change (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). MI allows a person to see their options for
reaching a goal through the use of conversation to elicit their personal thoughts and
attitudes toward change. MI assumes that a person has the strengths and resources to
achieve his or her goal, and they must overcome their ambivalence about changing.
Another person cannot force someone else to change; they must want it for themselves
(Miller & Rollnick, 2012). MI provides the environment of support and understanding
that a person needs in order to make a commitment to change.
In MI, counselors create an environment that promotes the person’s autonomy and
decision-making skills. Counselors must realize that a person may desire to change a
behavior, or they may be seeking counseling to accept a behavior or condition (Miller &
Rollnick, 2012). MI is often used in conjunction with Prochaska, Norcross, and
DiClemente’s (1994) theory of change. The TTM of Change is effective in eliciting change
of behaviors and acknowledges that change can happen on a continuum. This theory
hypothesizes that people who make significant behavioral changes, such as quitting
smoking or modifying their diet, undergo a series of changes or stages in which they display
changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Prochaska et al. (1994) found that there are
six stages of change people pass through while trying to adjust their habits. The six stages of
change include: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and
termination (Prochaska et al., 1994). Within TTM, the counselor meets the person at his
or her stage of change. A person must be cognizant of his/her stage of change in order to
make progress. TTM allows a person to overcome their ambivalence about change, see their
reasons for certain behaviors, and acknowledge feelings associated with the desire to change.
It is essential to recognize and understand these stages of changes since a person can rotate
and cycle through these stages numerous times before the termination of the behavior
occurs. Table 9.1 provides a brief summary of the six stages of change proposed by
Prochaska et al. (1994) and describes how these stages can be seen in an academic setting.
Table 9.1 Transtheoretical (Stages of Change) Model for Academic Behaviors

225
Stage of Change Characteristic Student Appropriate Sample
Statement Intervention Dialogue
Precontemplation – No intention – “I will be – In a respectful – “What do
of changing, and okay, I’m fine.” manner discuss the you think
avoids discussion – “Grades do possible will likely
of the issue. not count until consequences of happen if
Either sees I get to high continued your grades
situation as school.” academic stay the same
hopeless, or – “Why do underachievement. as they are
denies existence people keep now?”
of the issue. annoying me
about this.”
– “I just have to
be here so they
stop bugging
me.”
Contemplation – Aware of – “I want better – Discuss – “Would
problem and grades but it is advantages and you like to
considering hard to do my disadvantages of explore what
making changes homework every making changes. you see as
but lacks night.” the
commitment. – “I can’t study advantages
May remain in every night for and
this stage for an hour, and my disadvantages
considerable teacher is too of getting
time. busy to help. I better
will try grades?”
something else
next time.”
Preparation – Recognizes – “I really want – Explore the – “It sounds
advantages of to get better student’s like you feel
making changes grades and I perspectives proud about
and thinking have ideas on regarding his or her the changes
about how to how to to do small steps, asking you have
change. May so.” what the student started to
have made small – “Last week in thinks has been take.”
behavioral math when I effective, and what
changes. was frustrated I are additional steps
was able to take the student plans to
a break and take.
come back to – Ask the student if
the problem in a he or she is

226
 little while.” interested in
– “I know I learning about
could improve evidence-based
my math grade strategies, such as
if I organized strategies for note-
my binder, taking, test-taking,
studied every etc.
night for an
hour, asked my
teacher to
explain what I
don’t
understand, or
asked a friend to
help me.”
Action – Actively – “I’m working – Explore the – “What
engaging in steps hard to get student’s self- have you
to change. better grades.” generated strategies learned
– “For the last for improvement, about what
week I’ve been including what he works?”
completing my or she has found to – “What do
homework each be effective, why you plan to
night as soon as the student thinks do more or
I get home from it is effective, what less of?”
school for one the student plans to
week.” increase.
– Explore the
student’s thoughts
and feelings
regarding the
progress he or she
is making in an
attempt to instill in
the student a sense
of pride.
Maintenance – Achieved goals. – “I do not want – Help student – “You are
Student adjusts anything to get identify potential really
his or her in the way of obstacles to committed
behaviors to the changes I’ve maintaining to this, it is
maintain made, as I really changes, and really
commitment to want to get into solutions to address important to
changes/goals. that college.” identified obstacles. you.”

227
 The student may – “It is really
be aware of hard to keep
obstacles to things up when
maintaining I am around
progress, such as some of my
tendency to not friends.”
follow through – “My friends
on plans when don’t have to do
around peers. their homework
right after
school, but I
know if I don’t I
will not
complete it. I
will try to finish
it right after
school or in a
study hall if I
know I want to
do something
with friends
after school.”
Termination – Behavioral – “I’m really – Help student – “You have
changes have into what I’m reflect upon the worked really
been achieved doing. It is hard various changes hard. What
and are to believe that I that he or she has does this say
thoroughly used to struggle made. to you about
integrated into with school.” – Explore how the your ability
the student’s – “I’ve behavioral changes to achieve
daily organized all my the student has your goals?”
functioning. binders and made has resulted
There is little folders so that I in changes
chance of relapse. can easily find regarding the
my work and student’s self-
classroom efficacy/confidence.
materials; I
know that this
takes me only a
few minutes
after class and
has enabled me
to complete my

228
 work on time
and not become
frustrated.”
Modified from: Prochaska, J. O., Norcross, J. C., & DiClemente, C. C. (1994). Changing
for good: The revolutionary program that explains the six stages of change and teaches you
how to free yourself from bad habits. New York: William Morrow.
Many educators assume that students should be fully motivated to learn, and experience
frustration with academically at-risk students. MI and TTM imply that educators must first
understand the student’s desire to change, and not ignore the fact that students may be
ambivalent about academic underachievement and may not regard it as a significant
problem. MI provides teachers with a framework to help students to overcome their
ambivalence and find the motivation to change without demoralizing or forcing a change
to happen.
Strait et al. (2012) found that middle school students who participated in an MI process
were more likely to exhibit increased class participation and positive academic behavior over
time than students who did not participate in the MI process. The study required students
to engage in an MI session with a school or clinical psychology graduate student in which
they completed a self-assessment, received support and feedback, and developed a plan for
change. The researchers believed that the intervention appeared to be successful because it
helped students realize that they possessed the resources for progressing toward their goals.

Use of MI and TTM in Individual Planning and Individual Counseling

School counselors can infuse MI and TTM in individual counseling to promote academic
development. When conducting individual planning or individual counseling, school
counselors must first identify where students are in the stages of change in order to see
where to initiate the MI conversation. Since school counselors often have limited time to
work with students, MI can be applied in one to three quick individual sessions. The
collaborative and conversational nature behind MI can be used to strengthen and develop a
student’s commitment to change (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). Students will be more likely to
invest in this process because they are leading the conversation and their ideas are being
used to solve their own problems, which is likely to increase students’ academic efficacy.
School counselors should follow the four processes of motivational interview engaging,
focusing, evoking, and planning with each student (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). Engagement
establishes the connection between the student and the counselor and enables the student
to begin to connect with someone who supports their ideas about changing. During the
focusing piece of MI, a school counselor focuses on what the student wants to discuss as a
problem. Areas of concern for counselors and students may or may not be the same so a
counselor must maintain a specific direction that will lead to a positive and necessary
change for the student to become successful. Once the counselor and student have
identified a problem, the MI process continues with evoking, and the student actively finds
ideas and reasons for wanting to change their behaviors. Here the counselor is able to assist

229
the student in finding realistic ways to solve a problem and narrow down their options
while helping them to realize they can change and can do it independently. Finally, a
student can develop a plan about how and when to change. Developing a commitment to
change, and creating a specific plan of action to change can be done with the school
counselor’s assistance. The student’s plan can be changed and revisited as new challenges
arise in order to maintain continuous commitment to the plan.
MI suggests that students will be more likely to be academically engaged because they
have selected the goals and are a more active participant in the process of change. An
example of using MI in schools would be for school counselors to enable students to create
their own self-designed behavior contracts. These contracts could be for behaviors that
occur (or do not occur) at school or home to increase appropriate behavior and academic
success. To develop the contract, counselors can start with identifying the behavior that
needs changing and use Miller and Rollnick’s (2012) five beginning questions listed below
to foster the student’s ideas for change (See Box 9.5).

Box 9.5
Miller and Rollnick’s (2012) Five Beginning Questions in Motivational Interviewing (p.
11)
1. “Why would you want to make this change?”
2. “How might you go about it in order to succeed?”
3. “What are the three best reasons for you to do it?”
4. “How important is it for you to make this change, and why?”
5. “So what do you think you will do?”
Source: Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2012). Motivational interviewing: Helping people
change (3rd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

From here, a counselor and the student would begin to develop a contract and plan that the
student could follow. The counselor would be able to use MI in a few brief sessions to
review the student’s plan and progress.

Use of MI and TTM in Consultation with Parents and Teachers

It is important to realize that MI in an academic setting requires the support of teachers
and parents. School counselors are in the unique position to advocate for the student’s
ability for self-directed change and assist parents and teachers in understanding how they
can support students’ continued commitment for academic improvement. School
counselors can encourage parents and teachers to be on the lookout for a student’s
strengths, good steps, and intentions. They should be “accentuating the positives,” meaning
that even small progress should be acknowledged (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). Parents and
teachers need to be aware of the fact that students may be resistant to change, and
constantly focusing on the problem “behaviour” or the student’s “negative attributes” until

230
the student is ready to change his or her behavior will only be detrimental to the process of
change. Change takes time and the process can be frustrating for parents and teachers.
School counselors can help parents and teachers explore how they manage their frustration
when relating to a student regarding academic difficulties.
School counselors can explain the benefits and process of MI with parents and teachers.
They can share with parents and teachers that students may feel angry, defensive,
uncomfortable, and powerless when they are being “told” to change or have realized there is
something they would like to change about themselves (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). Students
can be allowed to experience the natural consequences of what happens if they choose to
continue a behavior that is self-defeating and need to see the benefits of self-directed
change. This is especially true for students in the precontemplative stage as they may not
see their behaviors as a problem and will rarely take responsibility for their actions even if
there is a negative consequence (Prochaska et al., 1994).
School counselors can educate teachers and parents about the stages of change and how
to respond to students at the various stages. They can assist parents with ways to stay
engaged with the student, empower him/her to change, be open to their ideas, and make
sure the student feels understood (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). Again, this can be a
challenging process because many students feel as though they have tried everything
possible or are in denial that the problem exists (Prochaska et al., 1994). For example, if a
student is getting failing grades in math for two straight grading quarters and says he does
not study or try, the school counselor may suggest that parents and teachers use MI
techniques to help the student acknowledge his problem and develop a plan to be more
successful. School counselors can remind parents and teachers to avoid demanding change,
telling the student what he “should” do, or demeaning the student’s efforts to change by
saying they can do “better.” It is important to remember that during the change cycle a
person is doing the best they know how to in order to maintain a behavior or try to change
it (Prochaska et al., 1994). School counselors can train parents and teachers to ask the
student what his process would be to earn higher grades in math, identify what would be
“good grades” from the student’s perspective, and explore with the student how improved
grades might benefit them.

Summary
Although school counselors have not always been perceived as school personnel who can
help to promote students’ academic development, their roles in contributing to students’
academic success at the systems level, such as engaging in school reform activities, and at
the student level, such as teaching study skills and success skills, are both intuitive to their
professional responsibilities and supported by research. School counselors can work to
support students’ academic development through such specific methods as curriculum
mapping, individual student planning, career development activities, encouragement of
school attendance and helping students to avoid dropping out, planning for students to be
tutored or to work as peer tutors, encouraging parent involvement, and constructing close-

231
the-gap action plans. In these ways, school counselors can be as important to students’
academic success as they are to students’ social, emotional, and behavioral development.

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 Chapter Ten
College and Career Readiness

Box 10.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
1.c Models of P-12 comprehensive career development
2.c School counselor roles in relation to college and career readiness
3.e Use of developmentally appropriate career counseling interventions and
assessments
3.j Interventions to promote college and career readiness
3.k Strategies to promote equity in student achievement and college access

The ASCA National Model® (2012) provides school counselors with a framework
intended to guide comprehensive, inclusive, equitable school counseling programs that
address the needs of all students. A robust career and college readiness program is an
integral part of a school counseling program, and can help to engage students in academic
courses if they are aware of the connection the coursework has to their future careers.
Students must be provided with the tools and knowledge to make informed decisions
regarding their current academic plans and future options. In this chapter, multiple
resources and a theoretical framework for engaging students in their own career exploration
journey will be presented. Relevant national organizations that support school counselors’
efforts to promote a career and college-ready workforce will also be discussed. We provide
practical strategies for individual student planning and for supporting students in applying
to college and for financial aid. Finally, we will discuss specific considerations in promoting
the college and career readiness of students with disabilities.
While ASCA provides a framework for school counselors to utilize in the creation of
school counseling programs and curricula, also provided is a definition of the school
counselor’s role in academic and college/career planning (ASCA, 2013a). That definition
includes the following statement:

School counselors understand national, state, and local requirements and programs
that may affect future opportunities for career and college readiness and therefore play
a critical role in academic and career planning. The professional school counselor takes
a proactive role in assisting students, families, and staff as they assess student strengths
and interests and encourage the selection of a rigorous and relevant educational

234
 program supporting all students’ career and college goals. Professional school
counselors provide all students the opportunity to:
• Demonstrate skills needed for school success
• Demonstrate the connection between coursework and life experiences
• Make course selections that allow them the opportunity to choose from a wide
range of postsecondary options
• Explore interests and abilities in relation to knowledge of self and the world of
work
• Identify and apply strategies to achieve future academic and career success
• Demonstrate the skills for successful goal setting and attainment
• Develop a portfolio to highlight strengths and interests

(ASCA, 2013a, para 3)

School counselors are better situated than any other school professional to offer career
and college information to students and parents in the school community (McDonough,
2005), and to facilitate career and college readiness by fostering a climate of support that
encourages postsecondary exploration for all students (Holcomb-McCoy, 2010).

Box 10.2
Did you know?
Although school counselors receive more training in career development than teachers, a
survey of high school graduates revealed that students viewed teachers as offering more
help in exploring college and career options than school counselors (Johnson, Rochkind,
Ott, & DuPont 2010). This finding is likely due to a number of factors, including the
large caseloads of school counselors. One implication of this finding is that school
counselors can train teachers in promoting students’ career development.

Recently, school counselors have been provided with the challenge of better preparing
tomorrow’s workforce before students leave high school to pursue various postsecondary
options. The ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (ASCA, 2014) provide school
counselors with a framework in which to promote the engagement of students in their own
career exploration journey. These “mindsets” and “behaviors” directly correlate with the
domains of the ASCA National Model® (2012) and support professional school counselors’
roles statement regarding academic and college/career planning mentioned earlier in this
chapter. The mindsets and behaviors were designed to help school counselors connect the
school counseling core curriculum to the concrete thoughts and feelings students have
about themselves and their postsecondary options (ASCA, 2014). The direction ASCA has
taken with specific regard to the promotion of career and college planning speaks volumes
as to the importance of developing and delivering a comprehensive career development
program in schools.

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 ASCA’s call for change supports the movement at the national and state levels. In 2010,
President Obama called upon educators to encourage graduates of high school to be career
and college-ready, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, gender, ethnicity, language
background, or ability/disability status (US Department of Education, 2010). First Lady,
Michelle Obama, spearheaded the creation of the Reach Higher Initiative in 2014 to
provide support for school counselors and other educators in helping students obtain
postsecondary education and employment. In her speech to honor the School Counselor of
the Year, she stated that counselors are the people who “track students down who don’t
think they’re college material, or who don’t think they can afford it, and they shake them
up and they tell them, ‘You have what it takes, I believe in you, now fill out those FAFSA
forms and sign up for those AP classes, get started on those college essays’” (Waldo, 2015).
Ostensibly, by helping students find their paths while taking courses in high school, they
will be more likely to graduate from college in fewer years, and with more focus on
preparing for the job market they will enter. Governor John Hickenlooper (D-CO) stated
in a speech to educators that he believed in the valuable work of school counselors to
engage students in the process of finding careers, not just graduating high school, in order
to make an impact on the workforce and expand the postsecondary options for students (J.
Hickenlooper, personal communication, May 16, 2014). The governor believed in this
statement so much so that he signed a bill granting $8 million to Colorado School
Counselor Corps to fund additional school counseling positions in Colorado public
schools.
Other states have answered ASCA’s call by mandating, through legislation, that students
have a career plan in place prior to high school graduation. In the State of Texas, House
Bill 5: The Foundation High School Program was passed in early 2014 and mandated that
all students declare a career pathway, and take specific courses within their designated
pathway, in order to meet the requirements for graduation (Texas Education Association,
2014). This bill required all school counselors to provide information to students and
parents during the middle school years and prior to the start of ninth grade, when the
official declaration of pathways needed to take place. This increased responsibility upon
school counselors to perform career development tasks requires more training and
curriculum revision in order to meet the needs of the students and fulfill the state
requirements. Indeed, the task of increasing the focus of school counseling programs on
career and college readiness may prove challenging, due to the increase in testing
responsibility some school counselors face as a result of the current state of the No Child
Left Behind legislation (Schenck, Anctil, Smith, & Dahir, 2012), and also the challenge of
teachers unwilling to relinquish instructional time in order for school counselors to provide
career guidance (Zunker, 2012).
Despite these obstacles, another important piece of legislation came in the passing of
HR 10, an amendment to the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools
Act, “which gives priority to charter school grant applicants that offer comprehensive career
counseling” (Langevin, 2014, “Langevin and Thompson Continue Push,” para 1). A
movement toward school counselor competency in career counseling may be apparent as

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charter schools feel pressured to create and/or expand their career development programs in
order to meet this new grant priority status (Morgan, Greenwaldt, & Gosselin, 2014). It is
not yet certain whether this action will eventually impact all public schools applying for
federal funding, but it does add to the discussion of the importance of school counselors to
be knowledgeable and comfortable managing career development programs in schools.
Now, more than ever, there is research supporting the need to prepare students at an
earlier age for career and college readiness (ACT, 2013; Arrington, 2000). As stated
previously, Secretary of Education Duncan challenged school counselors with the task of
helping students plan for college, assisting them with creating a path to graduation, and
serving as the bridge for students enrolling in college. According to McDonough (2005),
there is not a school professional more important to a student’s career and college readiness
than the school counselor. In an effort to help guide all school counselors toward
preparedness for this journey, it is necessary to clearly define the meaning of career and
college readiness.

Based on recent reports from American College Testing (ACT) (2008), college and
career readiness means, students will have the knowledge, skills and academic
preparation needed to enroll and succeed in introductory college credit-bearing
courses within an associate- or bachelor-level degree program without the need for
remedial courses. Students need these same attributes and levels of achievement to
enter and succeed in postsecondary workforce education programs or to obtain a job
that offers a living wage and the chance for career advancement.
(ACT, 2008, p. 1)

Utilizing this definition, there is a critical point at which students’ academic skills and
coursework must be on target: the eighth grade (ACT, 2008; Arrington, 2000; College
Board, 2010). If students are not on target in core academic areas by this grade level, they
run the risk of being left behind with limited postsecondary options. Notably, this
predictive power is especially significant for underrepresented youth (ACT, 2013). From
what we know from the research, students of poverty are less likely to have fulfilled the
academic prerequisites for optimal postsecondary options than their counterparts in more
affluent households (Grodsky & Jones, 2007). Encouraging middle school students to take
rigorous coursework is a key component in promoting career and college readiness for these
grade levels.

Professional School Counselors: Advocates for Postsecondary Readiness

At the high school level, rigorous coursework leads to career and college readiness (ACT,
2013, 2008); however, it will not have the desired impact unless there is an increase in
students coming from middle school who have been prepared for such rigor. Current
research supports the fact that only two in ten eighth graders are on track to be able to take
college-level courses by the time they graduate from high school (ACT, 2008). The College
Board (2010) estimates that as many as 86% of high school students want to go to college.

237
If, however, these aspiring students are not on the appropriate course trajectory by the time
they are in the eighth grade, they will be destined to fall short of their aspirations and the
effects may be irreversible (ACT, 2008). Middle school counselors are instrumental in
designing and implementing effective education-career planning systems in middle schools
to help students become intentional in their educational and career development. With the
proper support and resources, school counselors may be the best advocates students have
for reaching postsecondary success. Knowing the right resources to provide and
incorporating a structured career guidance delivery system into a systemic counseling
program is the most effective way to reach the most students.
As Arrington (2000) indicated, the lack of planning for high school can limit
postsecondary options for students when they transition out of high school. The
consequences of failing to develop a four-year academic course plan prior to entry into high
school can ultimately limit or eliminate career choices, and result in lower pay and fewer
career opportunities. While the majority of students indicate a desire to go to college, less
than 32% of students can even identify the classes required to attend college (Hughes,
Karp, Fermin, & Bailey, 2005). Thus, making one of the “key components in a career
guidance system a four or six-year plan of study” is of critical importance (Arrington, 2000,
p. 106). The US Department of Education (2005) suggests that career guidance efforts
have the biggest impact on students in middle school. ACT supports this by stating,
“without sufficient preparation before high school, students cannot maximize the benefits
of high school-level academic enhancements…all students must be prepared to profit from
high school” (ACT, 2008, p. 35). Through proper preparation and a systemic guidance
curriculum, school counselors provide students with what they need to be academically,
socially, emotionally, and career/postsecondary ready. This type of purposeful intervention
strategy requires school counselors to not only advocate for students, but become systemic
leaders within schools.
According to ASCA, school counselors are an important part of the leadership team
within schools (ASCA, 2012). They also have a responsibility to be involved in the
development and implementation of models that impact students’ education process. The
College Board (2011) discovered that school counselors do not believe they are given
adequate training to implement career and college readiness practices into their counseling
programs. Furthermore, if the Common Core Standards, which are based upon career and
college readiness markers for all students, are mandated to be put into practice, school
counselors should be brought into the discussion regarding how the standards will be
addressed and implemented. According to the National Office of School Counselor
Advocacy (Bridgeland & Bruce, 2014, p. 8), “Common Core State Standards aim to raise
standards for all students, regardless of their race, ethnicity or socioeconomic background…
As new training materials are created for teachers, they should be created for counselors as
well.”
In order to empower school counselors to be leaders within schools, they must be
provided the guidelines by which they will work. Through the implementation and use of
the Middle School Career and College Readiness Standards (MS-CCRS; see Appendix D),

238
school counselors who serve the middle grades will have the necessary structure and
accountability tool to effectively perform their roles within the schools. Students will be
provided with information that will prepare them for their transition into high school, and
will be helped to develop a vision of themselves beyond secondary school. While these
standards were developed with middle school students in mind, they may certainly be
modified to meet the developmental needs of elementary as well as early high school
students.

Figure 10.1 School Counselor Assisting Students. Copyright: www.istockphoto.com.

Factors that influence postsecondary readiness

The academic skills necessary for career and college readiness are not only attributed to
earlier course selection, but also to social-emotional learning (Holcomb-McCoy, 2010).
Behaviors and academic discipline constitute a large portion of the necessary markers for
career and college readiness, with these behaviors and discipline patterns developing long
before the high school years (ACT, 2008). As early as the sixth grade, students who have

239
earned an unsatisfactory grade in a core class due to behavior have only a 10 to 20% chance
of graduating from high school on time (ACT, 2008).
Additional predictors of career and college readiness and high school completion include
demographics such as race/ethnicity, language, and socioeconomic status (Deil-Amen &
Tevis, 2010). The research literature reveals that students from lower social economic
families are more likely to overestimate the cost of attending college, underestimate the
availability of financial aid, and exhibit poor knowledge of the academic prerequisites for
college admission, thus making the family as a whole a factor in determining a student’s
readiness for college (Deil-Amen & Tevis, 2010; Grodsky & Jones, 2007). However,
Belasco (2013) stated that seeing a school counselor for career and college information
resulted in a positive move toward readiness for students from low-SES homes. For this
reason, financial literacy was an area representing a need for particular attention, and will
be further discussed in this chapter. If students are aware of the cost of postsecondary
education, their self-efficacy toward attaining their aspirations may become more concrete.
School counselors are in a unique position to educate students, parents, and community
members as to the financial incentives for attending postsecondary institutions and the
long-term reward of pursuing career goals. It is the role of the school counselor to bring the
community together to support students and rally for a successful future (ASCA, 2012).
Results of research studies have demonstrated that parental values and attitudes toward
education, neighborhood norms, and community resources (also known as environmental
expectations) were additional predictors of high school success or potential dropout (Bryan,
Moore-Thomas, Day-Vines, & Holcomb-McCoy, 2011). In Arrington’s (2000) research,
54% of parents began talking to their children about postsecondary options as early as fifth
grade, and 19% began earlier in elementary school. Waiting until a child reaches high
school age to discuss postsecondary options is far too late. While school counselors cannot
change these values and demographics of a student’s life, there are many interventions that
can impact middle school students’ career and college readiness. Some of these include
helping students connect with teachers and counselors within the school in order to create a
career and college-ready school climate.
School counselors play many roles in the lives of students, but the one that might be the
most influential is the one that helps them see themselves within the context of their future.
By offering a variety of postsecondary planning options, students gain the tools and support
they need to overcome the barriers, real or perceived, to reaching career success. School
counselors and other school professionals engage in helping behaviors designed to foster
student academic, social/emotional, and career success, but often their efforts are not
cohesively organized or regularly evaluated. One of the ways in which the career and
postsecondary planning curriculum may be structured is by using a set of standards,
competencies, and indicators to plan the curriculum, implement activity-based
interventions, evaluate student outcomes, and be able to report the necessary data to
stakeholders.

Middle School Career and College Readiness Standards (MS-CCRS)

240
As stated previously, the literature supports the idea of increasing exposure to career
planning at the middle grade level, and with that, a call to school counselors to be the
specific change agents in that process. Given the movement at the national level
(Bridgeland & Bruce, 2014) and the need for further support for middle school counselors
providing postsecondary programming, the Middle School Career and College Readiness
Standards (MS-CCRS) were created (see Appendix D). The specific career and college areas
identified in the standards include: personal awareness, career awareness, postsecondary
aspirations, postsecondary options, environmental expectations, academic planning,
employability skills, and financial literacy. The MS-CCRS were developed to inform school
counselors, administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community stakeholders of the
relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes that middle level students need to attain before
they transition into high school. Each standard, by definition, is outlined below with
specific competency markers and indicators. The competency markers are to serve as a
guide for middle school counselors, or a metaphoric umbrella under which related
indicators further define the ways in which students might meet the standard. The
indicators are not meant to be so specific that school counselors lose their autonomy in the
process, but provide a means by which they might expand their services to provide activities
and learning opportunities for their students.
The development of these standards is a result of information provided by the National
Office for School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA), the National Occupational Information
Coordinating Committee (NOICC), the American School Counselor Association (ASCA),
and information from other relevant research found in the career counseling and education
literature already mentioned in this chapter. The developmental nature of these standards
will help to guide school counselors and other educators in helping to transition middle
school students to become career and college-ready as they enter high school. These
standards (see Appendix D) serve as a “jumping off point” for school districts to engage in
reform that is proactive and on track with the Department of Education’s vision for the
future (Bridgeland & Bruce, 2014). Career and college readiness is a driving force in P-20
education systems, and school counselors will be the leaders in this movement.
These standards represent a set of markers by which school counselors, students,
parents, and community members may measure the progress of students toward career and
postsecondary planning. It is not an all-encompassing list of needs, but provides a
framework from which school counselors may develop their own programs that address the
needs of their particular school community. Many school counseling programs require a
differentiated curriculum in order to meet the needs of all students. Career development
programs are no exception. School counselors’ roles have evolved over the years, from
helping students find “jobs to occupations to careers” (Schenck, Anctil, Smith, & Dahir,
2012, p. 222). While there seemed to be a push for all students to attend college back in
the 1990s and 2000s, a reinvented wave of possibilities is being presented through career
and technical education (CTE) programs that is focusing the attention of law-makers and
school administrators alike.

241
Career and Technical Education as a Resource for Student Success
Throughout our nation’s history, there have been differing views on what the outcomes of
public education should be. According to Schenck et al. (2012), three major themes can be
found in the most recent history of career guidance in schools. The first is the minimal
attention that career counseling has been paid within school counseling programs, the
second is “the role equity, educational access, and social justice played in career guidance”
(p. 223), and the third is the recognition that career decision-making must be an integral
and interrelated component of a comprehensive, equitable school counseling program. The
ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (2014) provide additional support for career
education and guidance within a comprehensive school counseling program. However,
more resources are needed to provide support for the needs of all students. Career guidance
is comprehensive in nature and enhances the opportunities for students and parents to gain
an understanding of what academic and career options are available, but a one-size-fits-all
approach is something of the past, not the future of postsecondary readiness. Alternative
models of career exploration and coursework are necessary to truly provide access and equal
opportunity to a wide range of diverse students. Through career and technical education
coursework, all students have a chance for academic, social/emotional, and career success.
The historical misunderstanding has been that CTE programs have been seen as inferior
in educational arenas and by parents, due to the implications that CTE would lead to jobs
in the workforce before formal college education would occur (Niles & Harris-Bowlsby,
2002). With the advancement in opportunity for students to complete college coursework
while still in high school, the idea of bridging the gap for students to attend college
increased in popularity. In reality, students are gaining the knowledge and skills needed to
be successful in college and in the workplace through the career and technical education
curriculum presented at the middle and high school levels (Association for Career and
Technical Education [ACTE], 2014).
Students who participate in CTE coursework and related student organizations are more
likely to experience academic achievement, career self-efficacy, employability skills,
commitment to education, and postsecondary success. Conversely, students who do not
participate in some form of CTE in high school face lower academic performance,
increased engagement in at-risk behaviors, and higher dropout rates than their CTE
counterparts (Southern Regional Education Board, 2012). In order for school counselors to
engage students in traditional academic offerings and CTE opportunities, it is important to
learn about the various two-year, four-year, and technical college curriculum, and
state/national organizations that support CTE. Through the Association for Career and
Technical Education (www.acteonline.org; ACTE), and the various state divisions, school
counselors can access a plethora of information to better assist their students in pursuing
CTE courses and student organizations as part of their career and college readiness
programs. There are currently 11 Career and Technical Student Organizations (CTSOs)
recognized by the US Department of Education, with state divisions that support various
career pathways in order to provide students with the opportunity to engage in their desired

242
profession while still in high school (see Table 10.1).
Table 10.1 Career and Technical Student Organizations
Business BPA is the leading CTSO (Career and www.ctsos.org/ctsos/business-
Professionals Technical Student Organization) for professionals- of-america/
of America students pursuing careers in business
management, office administration,
information technology, and other related
career fields. BPA has 43,000 members in
over 2,300 chapters in 23 states. BPA is a
co-curricular organization that supports
business and information technology
educators by offering co-curricular
exercises based on national standards.
Distributive DECA prepares emerging leaders and www.ctsos.org/ctsos/deca/
Education entrepreneurs in marketing, finance,
Clubs of hospitality, and management in high
America schools and colleges around the globe.
(DECA) With over a 60-year history, DECA has
impacted the lives of more than ten
million students, educators, school
administrators, and business professionals
since it was founded in 1946. Their
strong connection with our organization
has resonated into a brand that people
identify as a remarkable experience in the
preparation of emerging leaders and
entrepreneurs.
Future Future Business Leaders of America – Phi www.bpa.org/
Business Beta Lambda is a nonprofit 501(c)(3)
Leaders of education association with a quarter of a
America – Phi million students preparing for careers in
Beta Lambda business and business-related fields. The
association has four divisions: Future
Business Leaders of America (FBLA) for
high school students; FBLA-Middle Level
for junior high, middle, and intermediate
school students; Phi Beta Lambda (PBL)
for postsecondary students; and
Professional Division for businesspeople,
FBLA-PBL alumni, educators, and
parents who support the goals of the

243
 association.
Family, FCCLA is the only national career and www.fcclainc.org/
Career and technical student organization with the
Community family as its central focus. Since 1945,
Leaders of FCCLA members have been making a
America difference in their families, careers, and
(FCCLA) communities by addressing important
personal, work, and societal issues
through family and consumer sciences
education, and through the opportunity
to expand their leadership potential and
develop skills for life.
Future FEA is an international student www.futureeducators.org/
Educators organization dedicated to supporting
Association young people interested in education-
related careers. By staying true to its
mission while incorporating the latest in
technology and education research, FEA
continues to help:
• Attract exemplary future educators and
begin averting teacher shortages at a local
level, particularly within the areas of
math, science, and special education;
• Encourage students from diverse
cultural and ethnic backgrounds to enter
the education profession; and
• Elevate the image of teaching and
promote it as a challenging and rewarding
career.
HOSA – HOSA – Future Health Professionals is a www.ctsos.org/ctsos/hosa/
Future Health national student organization recognized
Professionals by the US Department of Education and
the Health Science Education Division of
ACTE. HOSA’s two-fold mission is to
promote career opportunities in the
health care industry and to enhance the
delivery of quality health care to all
people. HOSA’s goal is to encourage all
health occupations instructors and
students to join and be actively involved
in the HSE-HOSA Partnership.
National FFA FFA envisions a future in which all www.ffa.org/Pages/default.aspx

244
Organization agricultural education students will
(Formerly discover their passions and build on that
known as the insight to chart a course for their
Future education, careers, and personal futures.
Farmers of FFA makes a positive difference in the
America) lives of students by developing their
potential for premier leadership, personal
growth, and career success through
agricultural education. FFA is one part of
the three-component model for school-
based agricultural education. The other
two parts of the model include the
agricultural education
classroom/laboratory and supervised
agricultural experience, with hands-on
agricultural programs in every state in the
nation, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin
Islands.
National The National Postsecondary Agricultural www.nationalpas.org/
Postsecondary Student Organization (PAS) is an
Agricultural organization associated with
Student agriculture/agribusiness and natural
(PAS) resources in approved postsecondary
Organization institutions offering baccalaureate degrees,
associate degrees, diplomas, and/or
certificates.
National NYFEA’s purpose is to develop leaders, www.nyfea.org/
Young inspire service, strengthen communities,
Farmer and enhance the success potential for
Educational American agriculture, especially the young
Association and beginning producers and young
(NYFEA) agribusiness professionals.
SkillsUSA SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, www.skillsusa.org/
teachers, and industry working together
to ensure America has a skilled workforce.
SkillsUSA is an applied method of
instruction for preparing America’s high
performance workers in public career and
technical programs. SkillsUSA also
promotes understanding of the free-
enterprise system and involvement in
community service. 130 trade, technical,

245
 and skilled service occupational titles are
represented in the curricula of SkillsUSA
member students, covering the
construction, manufacturing,
transportation, health sciences,
information technology, communications,
personal services, hospitality, public
safety, and engineering technology
industries. The organization has 13,000
school chapters in 54 state and territorial
associations. More than 14,500
instructors and administrators are
professional members of SkillsUSA.
The TSA is a national organization devoted www.tsaweb.org/
Technology exclusively to the needs of students
Student interested in science, technology,
Association engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
(TSA) Open to young people enrolled in – or
who have completed – technology
education courses, TSA’s membership
includes more than 200,000 middle and
high school students in 2,000 schools
spanning 48 states. TSA partners with
universities and other organizations to
promote a variety of STEM competitions
and opportunities for students and
teachers. Members learn through exciting
competitive events, leadership
opportunities, and much more.
With more than 2 million members among the national student career-focused
organizations, CTE students are making an impact upon the way that education is
perceived by this generation of students. According to ACTE (2014), those who
participated in student organizations during tenth grade had higher grade point averages,
and were more likely to be enrolled in college at age 21 than non-participants. School
counselors are in a prime position to educate, inform, and encourage students to become
involved in career-related organizations as a means of fostering a career-ready and college-
attending culture within their school and community.
Other ways in which school counselors are promoting career and college cultures in
their schools are by providing students with alternatives to the traditional “career fair,” in
which students file into the gymnasium or other campus gathering spot and gravitate
toward the table that offers the most enticing “freebies” and not necessarily the information

246
that interested them.

Box 10.3
Did you know?
Career fairs may also have implications for promoting social justice. Kolodinsky et al.
(2006) found that a career fair involving mostly female professionals demonstrating their
professions increased the occupational self-efficacy of 139 predominantly high school-
aged female adolescents, of which more than half identified as a minority.

In Wilmot, WI, professional school counselor, Allen Reynolds offered his students an
alternative to this type of general information session, and instead provided students with
the opportunity to attend targeted panel discussions with local leaders in each profession.
Students were encouraged to attend as many 45-minute panel discussions as they liked,
which were offered at various times throughout the year. Each panel represented a specific
set of career options within each of the 16 clusters outlined in the National Career Clusters®
Framework. Panelists offered information for students interested in entry-level, mid-level,
and professional-level positions and added personal anecdotes to engage students in the
development of their own professional plan. According to Reynolds (2013), 90% of
students reported that the panels had a positive impact on their college and postsecondary
planning, which was a stark improvement over the feedback from previous years’ career
fairs. This innovative approach to addressing the psychoeducational delivery of career-
related information to students would likely drastically diminish students being exposed to
information they deemed as irrelevant.

21st-Century Students in the Global Workforce

The nonprofit think tank, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), was created to
promote and enhance student outcomes in education leading to a workforce capable of
meeting the needs of our ever-changing global economy (Young, 2014). In order to
support student growth toward “global competence,” P21 developed a definition by which
school counselors and other educators might guide students. According to Young (2014,
para 1):

Global competence means being able to work on problems that cut across the world’s
geographical, cultural, and political boundaries; it means being prepared for life in our
increasingly interconnected world. You cannot be considered a true 21st Century
Citizen if you are not globally competent.

School counselors have the opportunity to promote globally competent citizens and future
workers by infusing cultural aspects into their career counseling curriculum and academic
planning efforts. Students with a broad knowledge of jobs and careers that transcend the

247
boundaries of their country will be better prepared to explore career paths that take them
from their families of origin. Creating a dialogue about careers in other areas of the world is
another way to engage students who show an interest in cultural differences or world travel.
Breaking down the barriers of race, ethnicity, and gender through cultural career
exploration within and outside of certain career clusters will only serve to enhance the
school counselors’ “tool box” of intervention strategies to effectively engage more students
into their own career exploration process.
According to ACTE (2014), The National Career Cluster® Framework consists of 16
separate clusters that are grouped by industry to enable educators to enhance student
learning through systemic, purposeful, engagement in career preparation. The 16 clusters
include:

1. Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources

2. Architecture & Construction
3. Arts, A/V Technology & Communications
4. Business, Management & Administration
5. Education & Training
6. Finance
7. Government & Public Administration
8. Health Science
9. Hospitality & Tourism
10. Human Services
11. Information Technology
12. Law, Public Safety & Security
13. Manufacturing
14. Marketing, Sales & Service
15. Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
16. Transportation, Distribution & Logistics
Within each designated industry, there are clusters representing career pathways that are
driven by a student’s plan of study. By breaking down the individual courses a student may
take within the school community into cluster areas, school counselors will be able to
engage students in relevant conversations regarding the workforce jobs or college majors
that may lead to employment within each industry. While this model is not new, many
school counselors are not familiar with the way in which they may use the clusters to foster
student engagement and ultimately impact the sequence of courses students complete that
lead to focused college or career preparedness. The State of Colorado offers a
comprehensive model for identifying career clusters and pathways, in addition to
“Postsecondary & Workforce Readiness” indicators (Colorado Community College
System, 2010). This model also represents the addition of a 17th cluster known as energy
that has become one of the fastest growing industries in the state. Florida and Georgia have
also added “energy” to their career cluster models, and many other states may follow suit,
given the impact this valuable resource has on a state’s economy and workforce. School
counselors provide guidance and information regarding what opportunities are available to

248
students, but in many ways, the economic impacts of industry on the state in which they
live dictates the needs and salary ranges for given occupations. Looking at global options
that may be available in a particular career field may provide students with increased power
in career decision-making after high school. This is just one of the ways in which school
counselors assist students in overcoming real or perceived barriers to career success.
Finding creative ways to provide career and college-ready support for students and
families is a joint effort, with input from multiple entities within every state and
community. The school counselor, however, is the point of contact for programming and
coordination of the information and materials that are made available for student
consumption. Without adequate programming to support the flow of career and college
information, students may lack the knowledge to plan for postsecondary life. In addition to
the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (2014), student standards, and state and
national organizations, school counselors may utilize an array of career assessments and
other tools for assisting students in their journey toward postsecondary readiness. In Box
10.4–10.6 below, several web-based resources are listed that may be utilized by school
counselors in order to help students explore options, learn to calculate the costs of school or
training, or learn about their likes and dislikes in life. These resources are merely a
suggestion and do not represent the entirety of what is currently available for use on free or
for-profit sites.

Box 10.4
Web-based Resources to Support Career and College Readiness
Utah State Office of Education:
www.schools.utah.gov/cte/ccgp
Washington State Career and College Handbook:
www.k12.wa.us/SecondaryEducation/CareerCollegeReadiness/pubdocs/Handbook.pdf
Washington State, Lesson Plans for Career Readiness:
www.k12.wa.us/SecondaryEducation/CareerCollegeReadiness/CareerReady.aspx
Colorado Department of Education, Career and College Readiness:
www.collegeincolorado.org
Individual Career and Academic Plan Resources: Colorado Community College
System:www.coloradostateplan.com/ICAP.htm
Maryland State Department of Education, Career and College Readiness:
www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/careertech/career_technology/index.html
Maryland State College and Career Readiness Standards:
www.mdk12.org/instruction/commoncore/index.html
College and Career Readiness Success Center:
www.ccrscenter.org/about-us
Career Development for Career Guidance
Professionals:http://knowitall.scetv.org/careeraisle/guidance/index.cfm
National Career Development Association – Internet Sites for Career Planning:

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www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sp/resources#list_resources_all-R102-NCDA
National Career Development Association – FREE Resources for School Counselors:
www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/6237/_self/layout_details/true
US Department of Education, National Initiatives in Career and Technical Education:
http://cte.ed.gov/nationalinitiatives/gandctools.cfm?&pass_dis=1
Career Isle:http://knowitall.scetv.org/careeraisle/students/index.cfm
SPARC National has report cards that include Career Development
Outcomes:http://sparc.schoolcounselorcentral.com

Box 10.5
Career Guidance Resources for Students with Disabilities, Colorado Community
College System:
Dual Enrollment Learning Opportunities for Students with
Disabilities:www.coloradostateplan.com/Counseling/SpEdCE_IEPmatrix.docx
Dual Enrollment Options and Students with Disabilities:
www.coloradostateplan.com/Counseling/ConcurrentEd2.docx
Find Your Career Path Abroad:
www.miusa.org/ncde
“How to” Guide for Making College Affordable:
www.affordablecollegesonline.org/college-resource-center/affordable-colleges-for-
students-with-disabilities
Navigating the Path to College:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide.aspx?sid=11
Online Learning for College Students with Disabilities:
www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/best-accredited-colleges-schools-for-
students-with-disabilities
Students with Disabilities College & Career Website:
www.thinkcollege.net

Box 10.6
Video Resources:
JobsMadeReal: www.jobsmadereal.com
Success in the New Economy: http://vimeo.com/67277269
Gigniks: Invent Yourself: www.youtube.com/user/GigniksCareerVideos
EEOC Youth@Work: Harassment and Discrimination: www.youtube.com/watch?
v=LkhvV3g1zA8&feature=youtu.be
Is Your Daughter Safe at Work?: www.pbs.org/now/shows/508
FAFSA Hooray: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2d7IfFgxTs
Next Vista for Learning Careers Videos: www.nextvista.org/collection/light-bulbs/careers

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 ESL Students Work Voices: http://blogs.kqed.org/education/category/post-secondary-
esl/work-voices/page/2
RoadTrip Nation: www.roadtripnation.com
Skills to Pay the Bills: www.dol.gov/dol/media/webcast/20121015-softskills
Your Life, Your Money: www.youtube.com/embed/lpLBvrATSl4

Individual Student Planning

One of the primary activities school counselors use to promote career development is the
use of individual student planning, which is categorized as a direct student service within
the ASCA National Model® (2012). In the ASCA National Model® (2012) individual student
planning is defined as “ongoing systemic activities designed to help students establish
personal goals and develop future plans, such as individual learning plans and graduation
plans” (p. 85). As of 2011, 23 states require districts to develop individualized student
learning plans (Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, 2011).
School counselors typically use classroom lessons and small group activities to present
developmentally relevant career information. They promote students’ awareness of their
abilities through career interest inventories, such as Holland’s (1994) Self-Directed Search
(SDS), career aptitude tests, such as the Differential Aptitude Test (DAT: Bennett, Seashore,
& Wesman, 1975), and Dunn, Dunn, and Price’s (1989) Learning Style Inventory. Lessons
and group activities are used to administer the instruments, or to demonstrate to students
how to complete such instruments that are typically incorporated into the school’s online
career exploration programs. Popular online career exploration programs include Career
Cruising® (http://public.careercruising.com/en), Bridges®
(https://access.bridges.com/auth/login.do), and Naviance® (www.naviance.com). For school
districts that do not purchase online career exploration programs, free online career
exploration programs are available through the College Board® (www.collegeboard.org), and
some state departments of education offer such programs. Lessons and group activities are
used to help students interpret the results of these assessments. School counselors also use
classroom lessons for a variety of career-related information, including promotion
standards, elective options, graduation, college and workforce requirements, workforce
trends, career pathways, financial aid options for postsecondary education and training, etc.
Many schools, particularly at the middle/junior high and high school levels, require
school counselors to meet individually with each student on their caseload every year to
complete the student’s individual student plan. Typically, classroom lessons and group
activities are conducted in the first half of the year to provide career and educational
information to students, and in the second half of the school year the school counselor and
student meet individually, processing the results of the student’s career exploration
activities, in order to select classes that support the student’s career and postsecondary goals.
In such individual meetings, the school counselor has the best opportunity to assess the
student’s career maturity, which may be defined as the degree to which the student’s
selected career path is based upon a thoughtful reflection of the student’s career interests

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and abilities and life goals. There are a number of career development theories that may be
used to assess career maturity. We recommend Marcia’s identity phases to assess career
maturity because it more broadly incorporates the entire student, assessing the student’s
psychosocial maturity, and thus has clearer implications for both career and personal/social
development.

Use of Marcia’s Identity Statuses in Individual Student Planning

Marcia (1966) constructed an expanded framework of Erik Erikson’s (1956) identity vs.
role confusion stage, in which adolescents are tasked with the challenge of developing a
consistent identity. Marcia proposed that individuals in the identity vs. identity confusion
stage may exist within one of four identity statuses: (1) identity diffusion, (2) identity
foreclosure, (3) identity moratorium, and (4) identity achieved. The statuses differ in terms
of whether the person has undergone an exploration of one’s values, worldview, abilities,
interests, etc., which is referred to as a crisis in Marcia’s framework, and whether a person is
committed to a worldview/values. Most early adolescents are either in the identity diffusion
or identity foreclosure status. In the identity diffusion status, the individual is not exploring
his or her worldview/values, nor is the individual committed to a particular
worldview/values. The student in identity diffusion often cannot name a career or
educational pathway beyond high school, and is likely to exhibit anxiety when thinking
about the issue, as the student wishes to avoid thinking about the future. In contrast, in the
identity diffusion status, the individual is committed to a particular worldview/set of values,
which the student has typically simply acquired from his or her parents without a period of
reflection/exploration.
In terms of career development, the student in the identity foreclosed status often can
readily identify a career he or she wishes to pursue, and typically the career the student
identifies is of high status (e.g., doctor, lawyer, engineer), but the student has difficulty
explaining what he or she finds appealing about the profession. In the identity moratorium
status, the student is in the process of exploring his or her worldview; in other words, the
student is within the midst of the identity crisis and is not firmly committed to a
worldview. The student in the identity moratorium status may have a variety of career
interests and have difficulty differentiating among these interests. The identity achieved
student has undergone an exploration of self and has a mostly consistent worldview/set of
values. The student in identity achievement has moved beyond career exploration and has
entered the phase of career decision-making, in which he or she is pursuing a career path
that the student sees as compatible with his or her worldview.
Marcia’s identity statuses have clear implications for individual student planning. For
the student in identity diffusion, the objective is to support the student’s initiation of
career- and self-exploration. The school counselor can promote such self-awareness through
processing the results of career interest inventories, asking the student to describe his or her
ideal picture of him/herself within ten years, what strengths the student thinks others see in
him or her, what school subjects or elective school activities tend to interest the student,
exploring the student’s ideas for how to obtain additional experiences and information, etc.

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The school counselor can manage the student’s anxiety by acknowledging that such an
exploration can be kind of scary, but also exciting, by normalizing the fact that other
students are in a similar position of not being sure of what they want to do, etc. The school
counselor wants students in the identity foreclosed status to think more critically about his
or her career choices, asking such questions as “What do you think of your dad’s
encouragement to become a lawyer. Does that fit with how you see yourself?”, “What do
you think you would like about that career?”, “What do you know about the activities of
lawyers?”
The hope for middle/junior high, and high school students is that they are in the
identity moratorium status, exploring various career options as they learn more about
themselves and are in the process of developing a worldview that is differentiated from their
parents and peers, while being able to also maintain connection with parents and peers.
The school counselor can support students’ self- and career- exploration by helping them
make sense of contrasting thoughts and values. The exploration process involves
uncertainty and anxiety, which may manifest in the student wanting to avoid assuming
responsibility for such large life choices by seeking others who will make decisions for them.
The school counselor should avoid pushing students to make large life decisions without a
student having undergone a considerable process of reflection. The school counselor can
normalize the student’s anxiety, and explore with the student how he or she effectively
balances self-exploration and managing the anxiety associated with such self-exploration.
Self- and career-exploration involve a focus on the future, as the student thinks about the
self he or she wishes to become. However, the student can also be encouraged to think
about how he or she can alternate between thinking about the future and maintaining a
present focus through leisure activities, exercise, relaxation exercises, mindfulness, etc.
Often the primary assistance the student in the achievement status wants from the school
counselor is specific information regarding careers and postsecondary options. The identity
achieved student has resolved important questions about his or her future, and wants
specific information to pursue his or her career vision.

College Applications
A significant portion of time for high school counselors is devoted to assisting students in
the college application process, particularly for districts with a large college-going culture.
In assisting students who are applying to college and other postsecondary options, the
school counselor should seek to maintain a focus on promoting students’ development and
avoid simply serving as a person who processes college applications, as much of such work
can be considered clerical and schools may ultimately decide that a Master’s-level
professional position is not necessary for such work. High school counselors should seek to
manage their time wisely in regards to college applications. Rather than frequent meetings
with individual students to complete college applications, the high school counselor can
conduct school counseling lessons in which they teach students the process for applying for
college, variables to consider in selecting a college, how to use search engines, such as The

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College Board® and Naviance®, to research colleges and scholarships, tips for writing college
admissions essays, etc.; school counselors should provide such information to parents
through informational sessions. Providing such information through classroom lessons and
the school counseling program’s website reduces the amount of time spent responding to
individual students and parents. However, responding individually to students and parents
can never be entirely eliminated given that many parents and students have considerable
anxiety about the next potential chapter of their lives, and thus have difficulty processing
such information in large-group settings. High school counselors can arrange to have recent
high school graduates speak to students about the personal/social process they underwent in
pursuing postsecondary options, and have parents of recent high school graduates speak to
parents whose children are currently undergoing the process. There are a number of new
technological resources that can assist school counselors in effectively managing the time
involved with college applications.

Naviance®
Naviance® (2009) is a college and career readiness program that can interface with the
school’s student information system to allow for ready access to grades and college entrance
examination scores (e.g., SAT, ACT). Students are able to access Naviance® online to
research colleges and careers, manage college applications, construct individualized learning
plans, take a career interest inventory, build a resume, request recommendations from
school personnel, request transcripts, research scholarships, etc. Naviance® provides school
counselors with the annual results of the student bodies’ college acceptance rates, allowing
the school counselor and student to predict the likelihood of acceptance to a particular
college/university based upon previous students’ applications. Many high schools report
that the implementation of Naviance® resulted in an increase in the number of colleges to
which students apply, and an increase in college enrollment. Naviance® also interfaces with
the Common Application (www.commonapp.org), which is a free, electronic admissions
process that is accepted by many colleges and universities.

Financial Aid
Part of creating a college-going culture involves helping students and families understand
the associated costs of postsecondary education and training. To educate students and
parents about financial aid, school counselors should conduct lessons and parent
information sessions and include this information on the school counseling program’s
website. Families must be informed that colleges typically assume that students will have
some responsibility for financing their education, typically through borrowing loans
(Martin, 2013). The student and his or her family should be encouraged to project the
potential costs of the education over the students’ potential to repay the debt depending
upon his or her career aspirations, as student loan debt may impact the student’s ability to
attend graduate school, purchase a home, or start a family. If the student is determined to
enroll in his or her dream school, but the financial aid package the school is offering and

254
the family’s resources are limited, the family may consider the option of the student
attending a lower-cost school, such as a community college, for two years and then
transferring to the student’s ideal school. The family should be encouraged to review The
College Board’s Net Price Calculator (http://netpricecalculator.collegeboard.org) and the
federal government’s College Navigator (https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator) to obtain a
sense of the costs of higher education. In the following section we provide an overview of
financial aid so that persons entering the profession have a basic understanding which they
can expand upon with professional experience.
Financial aid may be divided into two categories: need-based and non-need-based
(Martin, 2013). Need-based and non-need-based funds may be further subdivided into
four types: scholarships, grants, loans, and employment. Most forms of financial aid require
the student to complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
There are several components which are calculated to determine a student’s eligibility
for financial aid (Martin, 2013). First, the college constructs an estimate of a student’s costs
for an academic year, and this estimated cost includes tuition and fees, room and board,
books, computer, and transportation. Second, the student’s expected family contribution
(EFC) is calculated from the demographic and financial information provided by the
student in the FAFSA. The student’s financial aid is calculated by subtracting the estimated
cost of attendance from the EFC. See Box 10.7 for types of federal grants and Box 10.8 for
types of federal loans.

Box 10.7
Types of Federal Grants
Pell: Awarded to the neediest students based on EFC. The maximum amount per year is
$5,755 as of 2015–16.
Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG): Awarded to the
neediest students based on EFC. The maximum amount per year is $4,000 as of 2015–
16.
Teacher Education Assistance for College & Higher Education (TEACH): Available for
students who are willing to teach in a high-need field (e.g., math, science) at a Title I
school after graduation. The maximum amount per year is $4,000 as of 2015–16.
(https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/grants-scholarships)

Box 10.8
Types of Federal Loans
Direct Subsidized: The federal government pays accruing interest (4.29% as of July,
2015) while borrowers are enrolled at least half-time.
Direct Unsubsidized: A non-need-based loan. Interest (4.29% as of July, 2015) accrues
while borrower is enrolled.
PLUS: Borrowed by parents of dependent students to help meet costs not covered by

255
 other forms of financial aid. The maximum amount that may be borrowed per year is
the difference between the student’s cost of attendance and other aid received.
Federal Perkins: A need-based, subsidized loan. The maximum annual amount for
bachelor’s students is $5,550 as of July, 2015. The interest rate is 5% as of July, 2015.
(https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/grants-scholarships)

College and Career Readiness for Students with Disabilities

School counselors seek to promote the college and career readiness of all students, including
students with disabilities whose career development has traditionally received less focus
within schools. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 mandates
that students in special education be provided transition services, which includes the
construction of a transition plan by age 14. While special education teachers typically
coordinate Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), IDEA requires the involvement of
related professionals when appropriate. ASCA recommends school counselor participation
in transition planning, as indicated in ASCA’s (2013b) professional position statement on
Students with Disabilities. However, some studies (e.g., Milsom, 2002) have found that
many school counselors report not participating in the development of transition plans for
students with disabilities. In the following section, we explore how school counselors can
promote both the college and career readiness of students with disabilities, focusing on how
to assist students with disabilities who may be seeking vocational options following high
school, and students who may pursue college.
School counselors can assist the IEP team in developing the transition plan by providing
up-to-date information about the world of work, matching the students’ abilities and
interests to career options, encouraging students to broaden their perspectives as a caution
against changes in the labor market (Wadsworth, Milsom, & Cocco, 2004). They can help
students with disabilities increase their awareness of their interests and abilities through
short-term job tryout experiences and job shadowing, and by examining students’
volunteer, leisure, and daily living activities. School counselors can help the student and the
IEP team identify the students’ career values and pursue exploration activities consistent
with those values. For example, for a student with a moderate intellectual disability (ID),
his or her interest in being a firefighter may be related to having respect by wearing a
uniform and the perceived opportunities to connect with others. Career exploration
activities can be designed to incorporate the student’s values, having the student training as
a fire safety officer, wearing a uniform, and conducting fire safety and fire extinguisher
checks with school staff. For students with ID, the preferred method to assess career
interests and abilities involves an assessment of work behavior; however, there are
inventories that are often used, including the What I Like to Do Inventory (Meyers,
Dringard, & Zinner, 1978) and the Audio-Visual Vocational Preferences Test (Wilgosh,
1994). When conducting career exploration activities with adolescents with ID, school
counselors should first teach the steps of decision-making. Instructional activities can also
be designed to promote the vocational skills of students with ID (Wadsworth et al., 2004).

256
For example, vocational skills that can transfer to various employment opportunities in
clerical and reception jobs may include mechanical skills (e.g., use of office equipment),
social skills (e.g., active listening skills), and hygiene (e.g., expected dress and appearance).
Career exploration activities for the elementary- and middle-school levels can prepare
students with disabilities to make career choices in young adulthood (Wadsworth et al.,
2004). School counselors can assist the IEP team in relating classroom activities such as
decision-making and social skill development with vital aspects of career development.
School counselors may collaborate with teachers to help students with ID to develop career
interests and choose from vocational activities. For example, instructional activities may be
designed to expose students to various job-related skills (e.g., following directions) and
habits (e.g., timeliness). School counseling lessons can expose students with ID to different
job-related environments (e.g., working alone vs. in a group) and patterns (e.g., sporadic
activity vs. repetitive consistency).

College Readiness of Students with Disabilities

There has been an increase in the number of students with disabilities in the US who
attend postsecondary education (US Census Bureau, 2009). For example, whereas in 1990
only 26% students with disabilities enrolled in college within four years of high school
graduation, by 2005 nearly 46% of students with disabilities enrolled in postsecondary
education (Newman, Wagner, Cameto, Knokey, & Shaver, 2010). Federal legislation
provisions, such as the transition planning requirement of IDEA (2004) and Section 504 of
the Rehabilitation Act, which requires that postsecondary institutions which receive federal
funding provide reasonable accommodations for students with a disability, have increased
the postsecondary participation of students with disabilities. Despite the increase in college
attendance among students with disabilities they are still less likely to enroll in college
(Newman et al., 2010), and graduate from college (e.g., Wagner, Newman, Cameto, Garza,
& Levine, 2005). The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD)
asserted “that many students with learning disabilities do not consider postsecondary
education options (2- and 4-year colleges and vocational schools) because they are not
encouraged, assisted, or prepared to do so” (1994, p. 1).
As advocates for all students, school counselors can fulfill vital roles in assisting students
with learning disabilities to transition to college (Milsom & Hartley, 2005). Milsom and
Hartley (2005) recommend that for students with disabilities who are transitioning to
postsecondary institutions, school counselors can promote development in four areas: (1)
Knowledge of Disability; (2) Knowledge of Postsecondary Support Services; (3) Knowledge
of Disability Legislation; and (4) Ability to Self-advocate.
(1) Knowledge of Disability: School counselors can collaborate with special education
teachers in helping students obtain knowledge of their disability, providing small group or
individual sessions to help students understand how their skills and abilities relate to
potential future careers and college majors.
(2) Knowledge of Postsecondary Support Services: When choosing a college, students
with learning disabilities should obtain information about the specific admission

257
requirements for students with disabilities and the availability and process for obtaining
support services. Support services that must be provided by postsecondary institutions
under Section 504 include the use of auxiliary aids such as taped texts, exam readers, and
note takers.
(3) Knowledge of Disability Legislation: Many students are not closely familiar with the
federal legislation concerning students with disabilities and may not realize that the
provisions of IDEA do not apply to postsecondary institutions. Rather, students with
disabilities are eligible for reasonable accommodations under Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act. Section 504 only requires postsecondary institutions to provide services
for students who request them and who provide appropriate documentation; it is vital that
students with disabilities and their families are aware of their legislative rights.
(4) Ability to Self-Advocate: School counselors can work with special educators to help
students with disabilities practice self-advocacy skills. Students with disabilities can be
instructed in the components of assertive communication, which can then be periodically
role-played under the supervision of special educators.

Individual Planning with Students with Disabilities

Wren and Einhorn (2000) provide suggestions for school counselors when conducting
individual planning with students with disabilities. For students with disabilities that have
short attention spans, school counselors may schedule shorter sessions, allow frequent
breaks, remove distracting objects, provide noiseless objects to hold, or allow students to
stand or pace. To increase students’ retention of information, school counselors can use the
beginning and end of sessions to review information, ask a student to clarify his or her
understanding of the information provided, decrease sentence complexity and length, and
slow the pace of sessions. Students with disabilities often lack self-esteem and efficacy, and
school counselors can provide students with skills to manage their anxiety and fear related
to taking on new risks, such as enrolling in more challenging classes and postsecondary
institutions.

Summary
The need exists for school counselors to take an active role in students’ career and
postsecondary planning. By utilizing existing resources and engaging students, parents,
teachers, administrators, and community members in the process of planning for a future
after high school, students will be more readily equipped to navigate the complex world of
work, training, or college life. This chapter contains pertinent information that school
counselors need to know in order to be in the position to provide appropriate services to
students and create a climate of postsecondary readiness in their building. Cultivating a
system of resources for students and parents to use as they navigate the plethora of options
available will increase the likelihood for career and life success for every student. The
resources in this chapter are just a sample of what is continually being offered online for
free or at low cost. By creating a school-specific resource portal for students, with

258
information that is most useful to them, school counselors may have a better chance of
truly supporting all students toward their goals for postsecondary success.

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 Chapter Eleven
Prevention/Auxiliary Programming

Box 11.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
1.e Assessment specific to P-12 education
2.a School counselor roles as leaders, advocates, and systems change agents in P-12
schools
2.d School counselor roles in school leadership and multidisciplinary teams
3.m Strategies for implementing and coordinating peer intervention programs

Traditionally, some of the ways in which school counselors have sought to impact the
entire student population has been through their implementation and coordination of
prevention and peer programs. School counselors have long been involved in both
prevention and peer programming, as indicated by the ASCA position statements on
conflict resolution and bullying/harassment prevention (ASCA, 2011), which were adopted
in 1994 and revised in 2011, and peer helping, which was adopted in 1978 and most
recently revised in 2015 (ASCA, 2015). In the ASCA National Model® (2012), devising clear
guidelines for bullying and harassment is listed as an example of the type of systemic change
that is relevant for school counselors. In this chapter, we review the research regarding the
effectiveness of peer mediation and peer support programs, and violence and bullying
prevention programs, and the school counselor’s role in implementing and coordinating
such programs. In addition, we provide an example of a school counselor’s use of
consultation and individual counseling to assist a student victim of bullying.

School Violence
School counselors have been historically associated with prevention programs that are
aimed at reducing school violence. Some have argued that school counselors contribute to
the academic mission of the school by addressing the social/emotional needs of students,
citing Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory that posits that physical and
psychological safety needs must be satisfied in order for students to attend to the higher
order need of academic learning. Indeed, research studies consistently reveal that school
violence is one of the strongest predictors of academic achievement (e.g., Chen & Weikart,
2008). There is evidence to suggest that school violence has declined in recent years, but

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aggression occurring within schools is still of concern. The percentage of students between
the ages of 12 and 18 who reported being the victim of verbal abuse decreased from 12% in
2001 to 9% in 2011 (US Department of Education, 2014). Between 2007 and 2011, the
percentage of students between the ages of 12 and 18 who reported being bullied decreased
from 32% to 27%. The percentage of students between the ages of 12 and 18 who reported
being afraid of attack or harm at school decreased from 12% in 1995 to 4% in 2011.

Box 11.2
What is School Violence?
School violence is a subset of youth violence, a broader public health problem. Violence
is the intentional use of physical force or power against another person, group, or
community, with the behavior likely to cause physical or psychological harm. Youth
violence typically includes persons between the ages of 10 and 24, although pathways to
youth violence can begin in early childhood.

Examples of violent behavior include:

• bullying
• fighting (e.g., punching, slapping, kicking)
• weapon use
• electronic aggression
• gang violence.

School violence occurs:

• on school property
• on the way to or from school
• during a school-sponsored event
• on the way to or from a school-sponsored event.
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013)

Policymakers’ recognition of the substantial role that school violence and school climate
have on academic achievement is reflected in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB; 2002) Act.
The “Safe and Drug-Free Schools” provision of NCLB requires that state departments of
education identify schools that are unsafe. Schools that have consistently high levels of
violent behavior for two years are designated as “persistently dangerous” and suffer
penalties, such as voluntary student transfers. The fact that school violence is a focus of
NCLB can be used by school counselors in advocating to administrators and parents for the
need for prevention programs.

Risk Factors for School Violence

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Risk factors for youth violence include socialization with delinquent peers, lack of parental
supervision, physical and inconsistent parental discipline, and low socioeconomic status
(Snyder & Sickmund, 1999). Poor study skills, attention problems, negative attitudes
toward school, and alcohol and drugs are also associated with youth violence (Henry,
Tolan, Gorman-Smith, & Schoeny, 2012).

Violence Prevention Programs

There is considerable variation in the assumptions and nature of violence prevention
programs. Some programs focus on tailoring individualized approaches to students who
have been identified as being at risk for aggression. Violence prevention programs that are
labeled as “universal” involve a curriculum that is provided to all students within a school
or grade level. Finally, multiple approach programs seek to involve parents, peers, and/or
the community in addition to the school’s curriculum (Park-Higgerson, Perumean-Chaney,
Bartolucci, Grimley, & Singh, 2008). Some violence prevention programs provide
instruction regarding the causes of violence and strategies for avoiding violence (Hahn et
al., 2007). Such programs assume that students often lack the skills to manage interpersonal
conflict without using aggression, and provide students with conflict resolution skills,
including anger management, active listening, and problem-solving. Other programs
assume that aggressive students lack positive self-esteem, and teach students pro-social skills
and encourage parents and teachers to reinforce students’ exhibition of pro-social behaviors.
For example, in the elementary level PeaceBuilders program, students are rewarded for
demonstrating behaviors consistent with simple behavioral rules, such as “praise people”
and “right wrongs.” Many violence prevention programs are available commercially and
have manuals to increase treatment fidelity.

Effectiveness of Violence Prevention Programs

The research regarding violence prevention is decidedly mixed. Hahn et al.’s (2007) meta-
analysis of 53 studies of universal violence prevention programs revealed that such
programs reduced violence among children at all grade levels, yielding on average a 15%
decrease in the frequency of violence. Interestingly, whereas programs administered by
teachers were found to be effective, programs administered by administrators and school
counselors were not found to be effective. The authors did not speculate about why
teacher-led violence prevention programs were found to be more effective than those led by
school counselors. Perhaps this finding indicates that school counselors must receive better
preparation for conducting instruction? The results of Park-Higgerson et al.’s (2008) meta-
analysis of 26 randomized controlled studies of violence prevention programs differs from
that of Hahn et al. (2007) in some important respects. Park-Higgerson et al. (2008) found
that programs that focused on at-risk children, in comparison to universal programs,
involved students in the fourth grade or higher, and were administered by education
specialists, in comparison to teachers, yielded slightly stronger effects in reducing
aggression.

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School Bullying
Bullying is another form of aggression that is common within schools, and this form of
aggression has received considerable attention from school personnel and researchers in the
past decade. While school personnel may use the terms violence and bullying
interchangeably, bullying is defined as a distinct form of aggression that involves the
following three conditions that distinguish it from violence: (1) a person of greater power
seeks to harm another; (2) the power imbalance can take a variety of forms which may
include physicality, social popularity, intelligence, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnic
status; and (3) the negative actions are repeated (Olweus & Limber, 2010). In summary,
bullying typically differs from other forms of violence between students in that the
perpetrator has greater power than the victim, and the aggressive acts are committed by the
perpetrator over a period of time.
In 2011, approximately 28% of students between the ages of 12–18 reported being
bullied at school during the academic year, and 9% reported experiencing cyberbullying
(US Department of Education, 2014). Bullying behaviors are often categorized by type,
including verbal bullying, which includes being made fun of and called names; physical
bullying, which includes being pushed, shoved, tripped, or the destruction of property; and
relational bullying, which includes being the subject of rumors, manipulation of a child’s
friendships, and social exclusion.

Risk Factors for Bullying Perpetration and Victimization

Cook, Williams, Guerra, Kim, and Sadek (2010) conducted a meta-analysis of the
predictors of bullying perpetrators, those who are victims, and bully-victims. The study
revealed that in comparison to non-violent peers, perpetrators of bullying are more likely to
exhibit externalizing (i.e., defiance, aggression, disruption, and noncompliant responses)
and internalizing behaviors (i.e., withdrawn, depressive, anxious, and avoidant responses), a
lack of social competence, academic difficulties, negative attitudes and beliefs about self and
others, difficulty in resolving problems with others; and experience a family environment
high in conflict, a lack of parental monitoring, and negative influence by peers.
Victims of bullying exhibit internalizing and externalizing behaviors, a lack of social
skills, negative cognitions about self, difficulties in resolving interpersonal conflicts, come
from negative community, family, and school environments, and are rejected and isolated
by peers. Bully-victims share many characteristics with victims and perpetrators. Bully-
victims are more likely than their peers to demonstrate both externalizing and internalizing
behaviors, have negative beliefs about themselves and others, have academic problems, lack
social problem-solving skills, and are negatively influenced by and rejected by peers. Cook
et al. (2010) conclude that the high level of shared predictors support the theory that the
three bully status groups have a common etiology.

Social Information Processing Models and Aggression

Social information processing (SIP) models are probably the most commonly used theory

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to explain youth aggression, including for overt violence and bullying. Crick and Dodge
(1996) assert that SIP involves five mental steps resulting in a behavioral action. Research
generally supports the contention of SIP models that aggressive children exhibit deficits in
social informational processing theory. Aggressive children register fewer and less benign
social cues, either due to deficits in memory or selective attention (step 1), are more likely
to attribute hostile intentions to the actions of others (step 2), are more likely to choose
goals that damage relationships with peers (step 3), generate less pro-social responses (step
4), regard aggressive responses more favorably, expect positive outcomes from aggressive
behavior, and feel confident in engaging in aggression (step 5; Camodeca & Goossens,
2005).

Proactive vs. Reactive Aggression

Another common distinction used to understand aggression in youth is reactive and
proactive aggression (Camodeca & Goossens, 2005). Reactive aggression is a defensive
response to perceived aggression in others and is accompanied by anger. In contrast,
proactive aggression is planned, intentional use of aggression to achieve a goal, and may
invoke pleasure or satisfaction. Camodeca and Goossens’ (2005) review of the research
indicates that perpetrators of bullying exhibit both reactive and proactive aggression, while
bully-victims only show reactive aggression. Crick and Dodge (1996) found that reactively
aggressive children exhibit hostile attribution bias, meaning that they tend to misperceive
others to have aggressive intent, and thus respond with aggression. Proactively aggressive
children regard the use of aggression more positively, viewing it as an effective way to
achieve goals.

Implications of the SIP Model and Proactive and Reactive Aggression for Counseling
Both SIP models and the distinction between proactive and reactive aggression have
implications for working with such students in individual and group counseling. Reactive
and proactive aggressors can be assisted in learning to intentionally examine how they
process social events. They can be taught the foundational principle of cognitive-behavioral
theory, which is that thoughts have a strong influence upon emotions, sensations, and
behaviors. They can be taught to delay their response in order to examine the accuracy of
their thoughts. They can be taught to examine their goals in social situations, pro-social
ways to obtain status, and to “think through” the likely consequences of their actions. For
example, while bullying appears to be a fairly effective way for perpetrators to obtain status
in elementary and middle school, the popularity of bullying perpetrators tends to decline in
high school.

Effectiveness of Bullying Prevention

During the past several decades, many states have enacted legislation requiring schools to
incorporate anti-bullying policies within their student codes of conduct and implement
evidence-based bullying prevention programs. However, until recently, systematic reviews

266
suggested that bullying prevention programs were not effective or produced only modest
results. Thankfully, however, a recent meta-analysis by Ttofi and Farrington (2011) found
that bullying prevention programs on average reduced the frequency of bullying by 20–
23% and the number of students identifying as victims by 17–20%. Specifically, these
researchers found that characteristics of bullying prevention programs that are associated
with effectiveness include the intensity and duration of the program, the use of meetings to
educate parents about bullying and parent-teacher conferences, and enhanced playground
supervision.
Additionally, the use of firm disciplinary methods, such as employing a range of
sanctions, including having teachers and administrators engage in serious talks with
perpetrators, being observed by teachers during recess time, and loss of privileges, are also
associated with effective bullying prevention. Working with peers, in the form of peer
mediation, peer mentoring, and encouraging bystander involvement, was actually
associated with increases in victimization.

Box 11.3
Essential Bullying Intervention Elements (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011)
School-based bullying prevention programs are widely implemented but not always
evaluated. However, research suggests promising program elements include:

• comprehensive programs that are implemented over a long duration

• use of meetings to educate parents about bullying and parent-teacher conferences
• enhanced playground supervision
• use of firm disciplinary methods, including having serious talks with perpetrators,
increased observation during recess, and loss of privileges.

The use of components of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (Olweus & Limber,
2010), which is the most commonly used program both in the United States and other
countries, was also found to be a positive predictor of effectiveness.

Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP: Olweus & Limber, 2010)

The OBPP is a comprehensive, school-wide program that seeks to reduce bullying and
enhance the school climate through the restructuring of the school environment. The
program is based on social learning theory in its encouragement of school personnel to
assume leadership in fostering a sense of community by modeling and showing interest in
students. Other social learning theory tenants include the promotion of adults and, to a
more limited degree, students, reducing opportunities and reinforcement for bullying. The
OBPP principles suggest that school personnel, and ideally parents, (1) demonstrate
warmth and interest in students; (2) establish firm expectations regarding acceptable
behavior; (3) use consistent non-corporal consequences for violation of rules; and (4) serve

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as positive role models for students. These goals and principles are incorporated into
school-level (e.g., coordination committees, training for staff, conducting a survey to
determine frequency and location of bullying), classroom-level (e.g., weekly classroom
lessons on bullying), Individual-level (e.g., increase supervision particularly of problem
areas, individual sessions with victims and perpetrators), and community-level components
(e.g., increase understanding of the issue and program within the community).
School counselors can assume a leadership role in coordinating and implementing such
prevention programs as OBPP. They should be an essential member of the various
planning committees of OBPP, whose responsibilities typically include data coordination,
training of staff and parents, implementation of the curriculum for students, enhancing
supervision for areas of the school where bullying is found to more likely occur, as indicated
by surveying students, educating the larger community, etc. School counselors can
coordinate the data collection for various aspects of implementing such a program. They
can assess students’, teachers’, and parents’ perceptions regarding the frequency of bullying,
and their perceptions of the need for such a program. School counselors also can evaluate
the effectiveness of the specific components of the program, assessing the impact of
classroom lessons on helping students report bullying, more effectively managing their
emotional responses to victimization, including typically rejected/isolated students in
socialization, engaging in safe Internet behaviors, etc. Furthermore, school counselors can
work individually with students who continue to bully even after the implementation of the
program. Young et al. (2009) provide a description of how the school counselors of a
middle school assumed leadership in implementing and evaluating a bullying prevention
program, which eventually resulted in their principal removing their responsibility for test
coordination.

School-wide Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (SWPBIS)

A recent trend in school-based efforts to reduce aggression has been the use of School-wide
Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS is a prevention-
oriented multi-tiered framework for the implementation of evidence-based practices with
high fidelity to promote academic and social behavioral outcomes for all students (Sugai,
Horner, & Algozzine, 2011). SWPBIS is based on a behavioral model, which assumes that
problematic behaviors are the result of students not understanding the behavioral
expectations, lacking the behavioral skill set, and/or receiving environmental reinforcement.
Whereas OBPP recommends assigning negative consequences to students who bully
(Olweus & Limber, 2010), SWPBIS emphasizes the use of reinforcement to promote pro-
social or desirable behaviors and does not recommend the use of punishment to eliminate
bullying behaviors (Sugai et al., 2011). However, it should be noted that the nature of
consequences used in OBPP, which include firm talks with students who bully, increased
supervision, etc., cannot be overly punitive.
The Tier 1 level of intervention involves teachers instructing students in how to behave
in a respectful, pro-social manner through the acquisition of social skills and character
traits, with the expectation that approximately 85–90% of students will respond to the

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universal level of intervention. At Tier 2, students who continue to display problematic
behaviors are provided with additional support in the form of more intensive skills
instruction, enhanced adult monitoring and positive attention, more specific and consistent
feedback regarding students’ behavioral progress, and additional academic supports if
indicated.
Two types of Tier 3 interventions that have received empirical support, and which
school counselors are often involved in implementing, are the Behavior Education Program
(BEP) and the Strong Kids Curriculum Program (SKCP; Mitchell, Stormont, & Gage,
2011). In the BEP, also known as Check-In/Check-Out (CICO), the student is issued a
daily behavior report card (DBRC) to document behavior aligned with school-wide
expectations at Tier 1. Each morning, the student meets with an adult facilitator, then
carries the DBRC to each class and receives feedback and reinforcement from the teacher
using a point system. At the end of the school day, the student checks-out with the BEP
facilitator and takes the form home for a parent’s signature. The Strong Kids Curriculum
seeks to promote socio-emotional competence. The 12-lesson curriculum includes the
topics of identifying feelings in self and others, managing stress and anger, rational
thinking, conflict resolution, and goal setting.
At Tier 3, students who did not respond to Tier 1 and 2 interventions receive even more
intensive support in the way of individually tailored behavioral modification plans, and the
use of mental health services, typically in the form of wraparound services. The assumption
is that through the support of school and mental health personnel, the student’s caregivers
can modify the home environment to remove reinforcers associated with the child’s
aggression.
Students are often identified as in need of Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions through the
use of standardized measurements and assessment procedures. Common assessment screens
include office discipline referrals (ODRs), teacher rating scales, and multiple-gate screening
systems. The Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) is a highly supported
measure for identifying students at risk for internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Lane
et al., 2009). The SSBD is a multiple-gated system, where students’ progress into advanced
gates is based upon specific criteria. At gate one, teachers rank students according to
internalizing and externalizing characteristics. The top three students identified with the
most concern receive further assessment. At gate two, the classroom teacher completes
teacher rating scales for the six identified students. Students who receive scores exceeding
normal expectations move to gate three, which involves behavioral observation in academic
and social settings.
School counselors often have multiple roles to play in the SWPBIS model. They may
assist teachers in implementing the universal social skills and character trait curricula at the
Tier 1 level, or may coordinate the assessment procedures for identifying the necessity of
moving students into Tier 2 and 3 interventions. School counselors also may be the
primary implementer of social skills training at the Tier 2 and 3 levels, or may coordinate
the CICO program. At the Tier 3 level, they may serve as the school liaison who seeks to
increase parent involvement and provides the family with referrals for mental health

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services. The PBIS Center’s website (www.pbis.org) has free and downloadable materials,
including materials related to bullying prevention.

Peer Helping
Peer helping programs are another type of programming used by schools to improve the
school’s climate and promote students’ socio-emotional development. Peer helping can take
a variety of forms. For example, a survey conducted in 2006 found that among public
schools in western New York, 34% offered peer mediation, 34% offered peer tutoring,
19% had a peer leadership program, 15% had a peer mentoring program, and 11% offered
peer counseling (Bogner & Wagner, 2006). We will focus on peer mediation, as school
counselors often coordinate peer mediation programs, and briefly discuss some of the other
types of peer helping programs.

Box 11.4
The Professional School Counselor’s Role in Peer Helping
Did you know?
The school counselor is responsible for determining the needs of the school population
and for implementing a peer support program designed to meet those needs (ASCA,
2015, p. 42).

Training students to assist their peers can be advantageous for the school counseling
program. Many students would prefer to obtain help from a peer rather than an adult. Peer
programs can also extend the outreach of the school counseling program and increase
student awareness of the services offered (ASCA, 2015). Box 11.5 identifies the
responsibilities of professional school counselors in regards to peer helping programs as
indicated in ASCA’s (2015) position statement on peer support programs.

Box 11.5
ASCA’s (2015) Position Statement Regarding the School Counselor’s Role in
Implementing Peer Support Programs
School counselors:

• have unique responsibilities when working with peer helping or student assistance
programs and safeguard the welfare of students participating in peer-to-peer programs
under their direction
• are ultimately responsible for appropriate training and supervision for students
serving as peer support individuals in their school counseling programs (ASCA, 2010;
Latham, 1997)
• create a selection plan for peer helpers reflecting the diversity of the population to be

270
 served
• develop a support system for the program that communicates the program’s goals and
purpose through positive public relations
• monitor, evaluate and adjust the program and training on a continual basis to meet
the assessed needs of the school population the program services
• report results to all school stakeholders (e.g., students, teachers, administrators,
parents, community).

Reproduced with permission from the American School Counselor Association (2015).
Position statement: The school counselor and peer support programs. Available online at
www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/PositionStatements/PS_PeerHelping.pdf
(accessed September 18, 2015).

Peer Mediation
Peer mediation programs involve training students to conduct mediation with students
engaged in conflict. In many peer mediation programs, the trained students conduct formal
mediation sessions with peers who either requested the assistance of a mediator, or were
referred to mediation by a teacher or administrator. Typically, formal mediation sessions
involve two trained mediators and the disputants, and there is a school personnel member
who has also received peer mediation training who oversees the session. However, peer
mediation programs are also used with the presumption that there is a spillover effect
whereby students who are trained in mediation and conflict resolution will utilize these
skills with their peers and family members outside of formal mediation sessions. Therefore,
school counselors hope that the students who participate in the mediation process will
obtain conflict resolution skills that they apply in subsequent conflicts.

Box 11.6
Factors Essential to Making Peer Mediation Work

• Planning: Effective peer mediation programs require advance planning, considering

such issues as how mediators will be chosen, where and when the mediation will
occur, and what types of conflicts peer mediators can address, among others.
• Training: The initial training of peer mediators requires 12–15 hours, in which
students will learn the basic principles of peer mediation, why conflict occurs, etc.
Students will also be taught communication and problem-solving strategies to defuse
conflict. Role-playing and active learning help students to move toward solutions for
all students involved in conflict.
• Ongoing Implementation: Ongoing monitoring of the program is important for its
success, including the extent to which mediators are used, the success of the
mediators, and how the mediators and their peers view the success of the program.
Weekly or bi-weekly training should be planned for mediators, and peer mediation

271
 should be part of a whole-school effort (Skiba & Peterson, 2000).

Empirical support for peer mediation. Research suggests that peer mediation benefits
both students trained to be peer mediators, and the study body as a whole. Peterson and
Skiba (2001) concluded from a review of the research literature that peer mediation
training increased the self-esteem and academic achievement of peer mediators. Other
studies have found that students trained to be peer mediators successfully learned and
retained the steps of conflict resolution for up to at least six months (Johnson & Johnson,
1996). From a review of the research literature, Carruthers and Sweeney (1996) concluded
that peer mediators experience an improvement in their attitudes toward school, and the
parents of mediators reported observing an improvement in their child’s grades and
attitudes toward school.
Johnson and Johnson’s (2004) meta-analytic study of the efficacy of the Teaching
Students to be Peacemakers program (TSP), which includes both conflict resolution and peer
mediation, revealed increased academic achievement and long-term retention of academic
material, and a marked decrease in discipline referrals. Peer mediation also appears to
benefit the students who receive peer mediation. Generally, studies indicate that disputants
reach agreement 80 to 95% of the time (Carruthers & Sweeney, 1996). However, the most
frequent agreement achieved by disputants is to avoid or ignore each other (Johnson &
Johnson, 1996).
Cantrell, Parks-Savage, and Rehfuss (2007) conducted one of the few longitudinal
studies on the effectiveness of a peer mediation program. They found the Peace Pal program
had a number of positive benefits for an elementary school. The program yielded a decrease
in total out-of-school suspensions for each of the three post-program years for both White
and African American students. Nearly all of the disputants reported being satisfied with
the results of the peer mediation sessions. Furthermore, the students who were trained as
peer mediators demonstrated an increase in knowledge concerning conflict resolution and
mediation, and they viewed the program as valuable.
Training/program implementation for peer mediation. While peer mediation training
programs vary, most programs focus on helping students understand the nature of conflict
and its causes, and teaching peer mediators communication, problem-solving, and
negotiation skills (Smith & Daunic, 2002). In addition, much of the training in peer
mediation programs involves teaching students the mediation process. An example of the
steps of mediation can found in Box 11.7.
Implementing a peer mediation program requires considerable planning and resources
(Smith & Daunic, 2002). Some studies have found that it takes two to five years before a
peer mediation program demonstrates positive results, as both students and teachers
gradually accept peer mediation as a legitimate conflict resolution process (e.g., Cameron &
Dupuis, 1991). The school must determine which students and staff will receive training,
when and where mediation will occur, what the referral process will be, and which types of
conflicts mediators will address. School counselors often coordinate the peer mediation

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program and train the peer mediators, given their training in communication skills and
focus on social/emotional development. However, it is recommended that school
counselors collaborate with other school personnel in coordinating the peer mediation
program for a variety of reasons. Training teachers to serve as observers of mediations serves
to extend the reach of the program, and hopefully increases teachers’ investment in the
program, which is essential for the success of the peer mediation program. Furthermore,
involving other, hopefully influential, school personnel increases the likelihood that the
program will transform the school culture, by not only impacting how students resolve
interpersonal conflict, but also by modifying the relationships between students and
teachers.

Box 11.7
Steps of Mediation

• Laying the Ground Rules

“How this works is that both of you will have a chance to explain your concerns,
meaning what is bothering you. While the one person is speaking, the other person is
listening, trying to understand how the other person sees the problem. When the
person is done talking, the listener will explain what he or she heard the other person
saying. Then the listener will have a chance to say how he or she sees things. Once we
think we really understand how the other person sees the problem, then we will talk
about what it is that we want from each other. Finally, we will talk about ideas about
how we can get what we want from each other. Are you each willing to take turns in
talking with each other? Another important rule in here is that you must be
respectful, meaning that you will not make nasty comments or put the other person
down. Are you willing to be respectful toward each other?”

• Understanding Each Other

It is usually best to have the original complainant start speaking first since he or she
has a more clear idea of what is bothering him or her. The mediators should keep
notes to help them identify the students’ issues. Once the complainant is finished, a
mediator can ask the listener, “Tell Jennifer what you heard her saying just now.”
Obviously a potential problem is that the listener interrupts the speaker in an attempt
to defend him or herself. The mediator may remind the listener that he or she will
have a turn soon. Or, the listener may take the offensive and say something nasty, at
which point the mediator can remind him or her about the agreement to be
respectful. Once the listener has stated back to the speaker what he or she heard him
or her saying, the mediator should ask the speaker, “Do you think the listener heard
what you had to say?” If the speaker thinks the listener has not heard him or her, the
mediator should ask the speaker to help the listener to better understand him or her
by pointing out what the listener left out or where he or she is confused. Only once

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 the speaker feels that he or she has been “heard” should the mediators move on to
having the listener talk about how he or she sees it, repeating the process.

• Identifying Wants
An indication that the disputants understand each other is that there is a noticeable
reduction in tension and they have little left to share. Next, the mediator should ask
the students to talk to each other about what it is that they want. The mediators may
have to help the students with identifying their wants, and the mediator can refer to
their notes for comments made earlier by the disputants that imply a want. The
mediator can summarize the disputants’ wants. For example, “Jennifer, what I hear
that you want from Amy is that you want Amy to come to you and tell you if she is
angry with you, rather than saying things to other people. Is that right?” Then you
repeat the process for Jennifer. What would she want the other person to do if she
was angry? Where? When? How?

• Exploring Solutions
Next, the mediators should identify areas of agreement between the students. For
example, “Jennifer and Amy, I hear that both of you want the other to be upfront
about disagreements, meaning if you’re angry with each other, you will share it with
each other. Is that correct?” The mediators may further explore with the disputants
how they plan on carrying out the agreed-upon solution. For example, the mediators
may ask them how they want to interact the next time they see each other. For
younger (below the age of 14) and concrete operational students, you may wish to do
a more formal brainstorming session in which you write down each suggested
solution without evaluation. Once each of the students has identified at least a couple
of solutions, you want to have them evaluate each one and ask if they are willing to
do that suggested solution. Once they’ve identified agreed solutions, you have them
sign the solution page, as if it were a contract.
Source: Adapted from Kolbert, J. B., & Field, J. E. (2004, June). The steps of
mediation for school counselors. The Pennsylvania Counselor, LI(5), 14–16.

Sellman (2011) concluded from his qualitative examination of nine schools that
implemented peer mediation programs in England that successful peer mediation programs
resulted in more egalitarian relationships between students and teachers. He also concluded
that for programs to be effective, the staff needed to concede ownership of the program to
students, and permit students to resolve interpersonal conflict through peer mediation in
contrast to the traditional response of teachers addressing student conflict through their
application of punitive measures.
The training and selection of peer mediators is an ongoing process, as new mediators
must be continually identified as the former peer mediators graduate. Day-Vines, Day-
Hairston, Carruthers, Wall, and Lupton-Smith (1996) recommend that the peer mediators
vary in terms of academic abilities, gender, and cultural background. Such diversity can

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increase the perspective-taking of the mediators, and possibly increase the students’ use of
the peer mediation program if they see peer mediators who are similar to themselves.
Students should also be selected for their communication and problem-solving skills. The
initial training of peer mediators is often a one- to two-day affair, and it is recommended
that this training occur after school or on a weekend to avoid interfering with academic
time. In this initial training, peer mediators gain an understanding of conflict, practice
active listening skills, learn the steps of mediation, and role-play mediation sessions.
Typically, new peer mediators undergo an apprenticeship period in which they observe real
mediation sessions conducted by more experienced peer mediators. Teachers who observe
the mediations should provide immediate feedback to the peer mediators following
sessions, and booster training for both the peer mediators and involved teachers are
required to increase treatment fidelity.

Peer Helping/Support
In peer helping/support, selected students are trained by the school counselor to assist their
peers with slight to moderate problems. McGannon, Carey, and Dimmitt (2005)
concluded from the quite limited literature that peer helpers benefited to a larger degree in
comparison to the students to whom they were providing services. There are also a number
of other concerns with peer helping programs, including how to ensure that the peer
helpers maintain the confidentiality of their peers’ concerns and do not address issues that
are beyond their level of training. School counselors are ethically responsible for the welfare
of both the helper and student receiving help, and thus there must be considerable
investment in the oversight of the peer helping program, and the training of the peer
helpers. The training for peer helpers must include an understanding of the role of the
helper, active listening skills, helping a peer in the process of problem-solving, and
confidentiality and its limitations. Additionally, peer helping programs may consider
providing training in understanding aggression and its various forms, including sexual
harassment, bullying, dating violence, etc. There are many tasks that can be included in a
peer helper program but a word of caution is to not overwhelm the students with too much
information or duties that are developmentally inappropriate. Most peer helpers are
dedicated to assisting others and can become easily overwhelmed themselves with other
students’ life difficulties. Helpers must also be taught how to disengage from others’ pain.

Peer Tutoring
Typically, school counselors do not coordinate programs involving peer tutoring, which is
sometimes also referred to as peer assisted learning. However, school counselors may be
involved in peer tutoring programs in the way of instructing peer tutors in active listening
skills and referring students to the school counselor.

Evaluation of Peer Programs

The National Association of Peer Programs (NAPP) has developed a rubric for evaluation

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and program implementation (Black, Routson, Spight, Tindall, & Wegner, 2007).
Utilizing formative or process data, such as the number of peer helpers, number of
interventions, selection process, types of services, and program activities is helpful in the
evaluation of provided services. However, more importantly, coordinators of the peer
programs must evaluate the impact of the program in terms of behavioral and/or academic
outcomes. Results data will include whether the activities and/or program achieved the
established goals. Assessments can include perception data with surveys, pre-post
assessments, and opinion data. Utilization of achievement-related data such as school-wide
trends in discipline reports or attendance rates may be helpful for demonstrating outcomes.
Another method of results data may include achievement data that is specific to topics
covered within the program, such as the impact of the program on peer helpers’ grade point
average or state achievement test scores.

Social and Emotional Learning Programs (SEL)

A common criticism of some violence and bullying prevention programs is that they
emphasize the elimination of problematic behaviors. In other words, the criticism is that
these programs focus on what students should not be doing rather than instructing students
in pro-social behaviors, meaning what students should be doing. Some educators have even
argued that by focusing on aggression and defining its various forms, etc., such programs
actually have the potential for increasing aggression by teaching children who are prone to
aggression more sophisticated ways of harming others. Certainly, SWPBIS (Sugai et al.,
2011) and violence prevention programs that provide instruction in non-violent conflict
resolution strategies emphasize the acquisition of pro-social behaviors. However, other
types of programs aimed at promoting pro-social behavior are programs that involve social
and emotional learning (SEL).
SEL has been defined as the “process of acquiring core competencies to recognize and
manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspectives of others,
establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle
interpersonal situations constructively” (Elias et al., 1997, p. 5). SEL programs seek to
promote the development of self-awareness, self-regulation/management, social awareness,
relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (Collaborative for Academic, Social,
and Emotional Learning; CASEL, 2005). Over time, theoretically speaking, the
development of these SEL competencies in students results in a shift from being controlled
by external factors to behaving in accordance with one’s internalized values and assuming
responsibility for one’s choices.
SEL school-based programs are comprised of two coordinated sets of strategies (CASEL,
2005). The first involves teaching students to process and selectively apply social and
emotional skills in a developmentally and contextually appropriate fashion through
modeling and practice. Some SEL programs instruct students in applying such skills to
specific problems, including interpersonal violence, bullying, school failure, and substance
use. The second set of strategies involves the establishment of safe, caring learning

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environments through improved classroom management and teaching practices. The
Second Step Violence Prevention Curriculum (Committee for Children, 2004), which is
designed to decrease violence through enhanced empathy and social skills and decreases in
aggressive behaviors, may be the most commonly used social-emotional learning program.
Indeed, the Center for School Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation (CSCORE)
concluded that there is strong empirical support for the Second Step Violence Prevention
Curriculum (Carey, Dimmitt, Hatch, Lapan, & Whiston, 2008).
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning established the
acronym of SAFE for representing best practices in implementing SEL programs. S refers to
Sequencing, meaning that new and complicated skills are divided into smaller components
and sequentially practiced. A stands for Active, which refers to the use of active forms of
learning. F refers to Focus, in that sufficient time and practice must be committed in order
for students to acquire an SEL behavior. Finally, E stands for Explicit, which means that
the learning objectives are very specific.
A meta-analysis provides empirical support for SEL programs (Durlak, Weissberg,
Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011). The results revealed that, in comparison to
controls, students participating in SEL programs acquired the intended social and
emotional skills and exhibited decreases in emotional distress and the frequency of conduct
problems. Moreover, SEL programs resulted in an 11-percentile-point gain in academic
achievement. SEL programs were found to be effective across educational levels
(elementary, middle, and high school) and in rural, suburban, and urban schools. Programs
implemented by school personnel yielded increases in academic achievement, whereas
programs implemented by non-school personnel (e.g., university researchers or outside
consultants) did not.
Programs that were consistent with the best practice SAFE acronym outperformed
programs that did not meet these criteria. Interestingly, programs that included multi-
components, meaning programs that included parent training or school-wide initiatives to
create new policies in addition to classroom instruction, were not as effective as programs
involving classroom instruction alone. The researchers believe that this may have been due
to the fact that multi-component programs were less likely to follow the criteria for best
practices, and experienced more problems with implementation. The researchers
recommended that SEL programs follow best practices as revealed through research. They
also noted that while 59% of schools have programming to promote students’ social and
emotional competence (Foster et al., 2005), many programs do not use evidence-based
programs or implement them with poor fidelity (Ringwalt et al., 2009).

Case Study
Josh, a seventh grade student, is enrolled in the Gifted and Talented Program. During a
meeting of Josh’s team teachers, they express concern for his lack of academic motivation
and negative peer relations. The teachers report that, despite his intelligence, Josh is failing
several of his classes, as he often fails to complete assignments. Furthermore, they note that

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Josh seems excluded by both the regular education and gifted students, and report warning
several students who appeared to be making fun of him. They refer Josh to you, the school
counselor.
Your first impression upon meeting Josh is that he has some of the physical
characteristics associated with children who are frequently bullied. He is short and skinny,
wears glasses, his hair is disheveled, and his clothing is somewhat outdated. Josh states that
he really does not understand why he has been asked to come to your office, as he just
wants to be left alone. You explain that the teachers were concerned about his grades and
the fact that he often seems lonely. Josh quickly retorts that grades are meaningless as
school has not taught him anything, and that he couldn’t care less about having friends
since all the other students in the school are a “bunch of jerks.” Despite Josh’s reassurance
that everything is okay with him, you remain concerned, sensing that he is very unhappy
and negative about many aspects of his life.
In your second meeting, you continue to focus on developing rapport with Josh.
Although he claims he does not want to change anything about his life, he seems to enjoy
meeting with you, and readily shares with you his interest in science fiction. Your
developing sense of Josh is that he is aware of his intelligence, but he is confused and hurt
by the rejection by his peers, particularly his fellow gifted students, although he continues
to deny any interest in developing friendships. He expresses considerable anger toward his
parents, whom he also sees as trying to control him. Josh reports that his father requires
him to play basketball in the local recreational league, and insists that Josh try out for the
school basketball team each year, which so far he has failed to make. He expresses having
no interest in sports. Josh shares that he has tried to explain to his dad that he just wants to
be left alone. Josh grudgingly gives his approval for you to meet with his parents, hoping
that this might get him out of having to play sports.
Upon meeting Josh’s parents, your impression is that they are very concerned about
him, taking an active interest in his grades and encouraging him to make friends through
requiring him to play sports, which they both reported having been heavily involved in
during their childhoods. They express considerable concern, reporting that Josh often
avoids them and spends most of his time at home in his room reading science fiction books.
His father shared that upon returning from school one day Josh seemed furious, stating
that he hated himself and all the kids at school. His parents express feeling helpless and
generally seem open to suggestions. You affirm the appropriateness of their expectation of
wanting Josh to develop social connections. However, you encourage them to grant Josh
more latitude in choosing his social activities, and suggest discussions with him about the
types of activities and people with whom he will feel comfortable. His parents decide to
continue to require Josh to be socially active but explain to him that he can decide what
those activities will be.
You decide to observe Josh in class. You notice that when the teacher asks the students
to form into groups to complete a class assignment, Josh sits passively, staring down at his
desk, seemingly waiting to be picked. The teacher eventually assigns him to a group with
two other students who failed to find a group. During the group interaction, Josh

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frequently makes sarcastic comments about his classmates’ suggestions. One of the group
mates responds with a sarcastic remark, and Josh responds by withdrawing from the group,
pulling a science fiction book out of his desk.
In your third meeting with Josh, you explore his reactions to your meeting with his
parents. Although Josh does not appear pleased that his parents will still require him to be
involved in an extracurricular activity, he seems to like the idea that he can select the
activity. You ask him what activities he has been considering, and he reports that he is
unsure. He agrees to your suggestion that he reviews a list of the school’s student clubs and
organizations. You indicate that you think that Josh’s willingness to consider seeking to
become involved in an organization is courageous, as it takes strength to consider taking
such a risk. Josh admits to feeling somewhat anxious about joining a group. The remainder
of the meeting focuses upon what he has learned about what works and does not work for
him in connecting with other students. He is able to identify several of his strengths,
including his intelligence and interest in science fiction. You take a risk by sharing that you
while you genuinely appreciate Josh’s intelligence, you wonder if other students might be
annoyed or even hurt by his use of sarcasm. Josh appears to accept this perspective, stating
that he notices that sometimes people do seem to get annoyed with him.
Over the course of three additional meetings over the course of a month and a half, Josh
eventually joined the drama productions club. By the end of the seventh grade, Josh had
appeared to make considerable progress. He seemed to enjoy coming to school and his
grades had improved. Although he never seemed to develop friendships among his gifted
and talented peers, he no longer seemed upset by their apparent rejection, and thus his need
to defend himself through sarcasm dissipated.

Case Study Analysis

Josh shares some of the risk factors common to bully-victims, including negative beliefs
about self and others, academic problems, and rejection by peers (Cook et al., 2010), and
he can be considered a reactive aggressor rather than a proactive aggressor (e.g., Camodeca
& Goossens, 2005). While many children who engage in bullying intentionally seek to
harm or embarrass others, Josh appeared to use his sarcastic wit in an attempt to
preemptively manage his expectation that he would be rejected.
The school counselor recognized the discrepancy between Josh’s verbal statements that
he wanted to be left alone, and his actions, which indicated that he enjoyed talking to the
school counselor. The school counselor effectively developed rapport with Josh before
focusing on his parents’ and teachers’ expectations that he should learn to interact more
effectively with others. The establishment of rapport appeared to increase Josh’s willingness
to examine adults’ expectations of him and made him more receptive to the school
counselor’s feedback for Josh regarding how his sarcasm was perceived by other students.
Another factor that likely contributed to the successful outcome was the fact that Josh was
highly intelligent, and merely needed an opportunity to problem-solve about what had
become a fairly charged emotional issue between him and his parents.
Although the school counselor only had one in-person consultation with the parents, it

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most likely made a significant contribution to Josh’s successful outcome. When consulting
with parents, it is helpful to hypothesize about their strengths and potential areas for
improvement. The parents were eager to assist their son and recognized that he needed to
develop his social skills. However, the requirement that he attempt to connect with others
through sports was developmentally inappropriate, as Josh’s parents needed to begin to
allow Josh more power, and to help him identify his strengths and interests. They were
unfortunately applying to Josh what had worked for them, namely, learning to connect
with others through sports.
It is interesting to note that the school counselor did not focus explicitly upon Josh’s
experiences with bullying, nor did the school counselor focus upon Josh’s grades.
Provocative victim is a term that is sometimes used to describe bully-victims, one that
seemed to fit Josh. Other students probably did not like being the brunt of Josh’s sarcasm,
and did not see that he was attempting to defend himself psychologically. Rather than
acquire information about the nature of the bullying incidents Josh had experienced, the
school counselor elected to focus upon helping him to learn to reduce his sarcasm, and
helping him develop his social niche. The school counselor intentionally chose not to focus
upon Josh’s grades because this did not appear to be the most pressing issue to Josh or even
his parents.

Summary
Involvement in prevention and peer helping programs offers school counselors an avenue
for making a broad impact on the school environment. Whereas stakeholders may fail to
identify the subtle improvements generated by individual counseling, involvement in
prevention and peer helping programs may be a concrete indicator to students, parents,
teachers, and administrators that the school counselor is an integral member of the school
staff. As with any activity, school counselors must also weigh the positive impact of
involvement in such programs against the time and resources they require. This is
particularly true for school counselors who coordinate such programs, as the time involved
in effectively implementing such programs can be substantial. Ideally, school counselors
should seek to disperse the responsibilities for implementing such programs by adopting a
team approach in which there are teachers, parents, and at least one administrator who
collaborate in leading the prevention program. A team approach is also probably more
likely to infuse the curriculum throughout the school.

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 Chapter Twelve
Helping Students with
Exceptionalities

Box 12.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
2.d School counselor roles in school leadership and multidisciplinary teams
3.d Interventions to promote academic development
3.e Use of developmentally appropriate career counseling interventions and
assessments
3.g Strategies to facilitate school and postsecondary transitions

The ASCA National Model® (2012) themes of advocacy and social justice indicate that
school counselors should seek to promote the academic, social/emotional, and career
development of all students. Historically, school counselors’ involvement with students
with disabilities has been idiosyncratic, meaning that it has depended upon the formal or
informal role description of the school counselor in a particular school or district. However,
as the school counseling profession has sought to play a more active role in educational
reform, school counselors have been encouraged by the ASCA and the Education Trust to
seek to identify and address achievement gaps of all typically disadvantaged groups,
including students with disabilities.
Activities provided to children with exceptionalities by school counselors often center
around: (a) delivering counseling support as described in Chapter 6; (b) encouraging
increased family involvement in the child’s educational process, such as understanding the
nature of the child’s exceptionality and the supports and adaptations required for improved
school functioning; and (c) consulting and collaborating with other school staff to
comprehensively promote the child’s success, often through 504 plans or Individualized
Education Plans (IEPs), and addressing the unique career development needs of students
with disabilities. It is important to note that ASCA also cautions school counselors to
refrain from engaging in any inappropriate supervisory responsibilities for children receiving
special education services, including oversight regarding the writing or implementation of
the IEP, or serving as the formal district representative (i.e., local educational agent; LEA)
responsible for fiduciary considerations on behalf of the district. Additionally, although
school counselors are considered to be important members of the child study team, they do

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not singularly make decisions about the child’s placement or grade retention (ASCA,
2013a).
In order to identify the best approach for helping students with special needs, it is best
to review a few definitions and the responsibilities required by schools. In this way, school
counselors can feel more surefooted in the decisions they make and approaches used to
engage families. Since 1973, all children – including those with disabilities – have been
guaranteed the right to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE; National Center for
Learning Disabilities, 2014). Appropriate means an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).
Students who do not meet IDEA’s eligibility requirements may not receive special
education services, although they may qualify to receive accommodations within the
general education setting if they meet the conditions set forth by Section 504 of the
Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which requires that students have a “physical or
mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person’s major life
activities and has a record of impairment.” Major life activities include such things as
walking, seeing, hearing, and learning. Conditions for which students typically receive a
504 plan include a temporary (e.g., broken leg) or permanent (e.g., asthma, diabetes,
epilepsy) medical condition, emotional disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, obsessive-
compulsive disorder), etc. In summary, for students who do not meet the eligibility
requirements for an IEP, schools and parents have the option of considering a 504 plan.
IDEA has gone through several reauthorizations, with each review adding to the list of
services required for students with disabilities. For example, IDEA now requires a LEA, also
known as a school, to ensure due process to settle disputes, to provide educational services
to students in the least restrictive environment (LRE) in their home district, and most
recently the definition has been modified to mean the student is included in general
education classes to the greatest extent possible (National Center for Learning Disabilities,
2014). Students with an IEP have a highly defined set of parameters for service provision,
including how they are evaluated (comprehensive evaluation), when they are evaluated
(every three years at a minimum), who must be consulted, timelines for decisions, access to
services that meet their individual needs, LRE, written notification for changes in their
placements, timelines for reviewing the IEP progress, annual reviews about the
appropriateness of IEP goals, and access to an impartial hearing when there are disputes
(DREDF, n.d.) in order to ensure their education program is individualized. There are
strong sanctions for failing to adhere to special education legal requirements (e.g., district
reimbursement for attorney fees; district-funded compensatory education; the Department
of Education can refer noncompliant states to the Department of Justice; the Office of
Special Education Programs (OSEP) can withhold funds in whole or in part from states,
based on the degree of noncompliance found, among other options; Wright & Wright,
n.d.).

Special Education Overview

There are two models for school districts to use in determining a student’s eligibility for

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special education services. For a referral for a learning problem, schools may use the
traditional process, which is referred to as the discrepancy model, which requires the
student to exhibit a significant difference between his or her achievement and intelligence,
as measured by individualized, standardized instruments that measure academic
achievement and intellectual functioning, and ideally are normed on the same sample of
students (e.g., the WISC-IV and the WIAT-III).

Box 12.2
Acceptance for RtI Models May Be Growing
A national sample of practicing school psychologists and members of the National
Association of School Psychologists were surveyed to assess levels of acceptability for the
ability/achievement discrepancy model and the Response to Intervention (RtI) model as
part of the identification process for students with specific learning disabilities.
Significantly higher levels of acceptability were found for the RtI model. Even more
encouraging, as levels of exposure to the RtI model increased, acceptability ratings for
the RtI model increased and ratings for the discrepancy model decreased. Variations in
acceptability ratings for the RtI model were also found to occur in relation to school
psychologists’ school setting. Specifically, school psychologists employed at middle and
high schools demonstrated lower levels of acceptability for the RtI model compared with
those employed at elementary and multiple settings (O’Donnell, 2011).

Additionally, a fairly recent authorization of IDEA provides schools with the option of
using the RtI model. The RtI model involves a tiered intervention system in which focused,
empirically supported interventions are provided to students who are exhibiting below than
expected academic progress. Students may be deemed to be eligible for special education
services if they fail to respond to these tiered interventions. The RtI model will be discussed
in greater depth later in this chapter.

Box 12.3
Did you know?
One of the reasons why the federal government permitted an alternative process for
identifying students’ eligibility for special education services is because of the assertion
that minority students are overidentified as disabled and disproportionately represented
in special education (e.g., Sullivan & Bal, 2013). However, a recent study found that
minority children were less likely than similar White, English-speaking children to be
identified as disabled and thus receive special education services (Morgan et al., 2015).

Both models for identifying eligibility for special education require that a student is
failing to demonstrate adequate academic progress. It is important to note that some

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students may have a medical or mental health diagnosis (e.g., ADHD) but not receive
special education services because there is no educational need. That is, they are learning
and developing at a rate that is commensurate with their age-mates. To elucidate, the
disorder does not significantly interfere with the child’s academic or social-emotional
development. Although school child study teams often look to failing grades as an indicator
of school problems, teams need to be aware that failing grades are not a specific
requirement for special education services; grades are given for many reasons (e.g.,
participation, effort, improvements, etc.) in addition to basic knowledge. Inadequate social-
emotional progress is also a problematic educational outcome (Assistance to States for the
Education of Children With Disabilities and Preschool Grants for Children With
Disabilities, 2006c) and can be a qualifier for special education even if grades are good.
If a student demonstrates minor needs related to a diagnosed disability, a 504 plan may
be used instead of an IEP.

Box 12.4
What is a 504 Plan?
“Section 504 is a federal law designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities
in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the US
Department of Education (ED)…the Section 504 regulations require a school district to
provide a ‘free appropriate public education’ (FAPE) to each qualified student with a
disability who is in the school district’s jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of
the disability. Under Section 504, FAPE consists of the provision of regular or special
education and related aids and services designed to meet the student’s individual
educational needs as adequately as the needs of nondisabled students are met” (US
Department of Education, n.d.-a).

What is a 504 Plan?

For example, a fifth grade student diagnosed with ADHD is earning mostly “B’s” and a few
“C’s” in his classes; his friendships are well developed. Teachers describe him as “hyper”
and complain his homework is often “destroyed” (e.g., folded, crushed, torn, or crumbled)
before it is turned in. Upon inspection, his locker is disorganized and jammed with old
papers, folders, and projects. In this case, a school child study team may use a 504 plan to
help improve the student’s organization skills (e.g., clean the locker, teach him how to use
shelves or drawers so that materials can be reliably located, teach him how to use an
organizer so he can plan for short- and long-term assignments, show him how to manage a
backpack to increase its usefulness) in order to help improve the probability of getting
homework to and from school in better condition.

Box 12.5

286
 “Dear Colleague” Letter for 504 Eligibility
In 2012, the US Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued
guidance regarding the effects of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act
of 2008 on public elementary and secondary programs. In the form of a “Dear
Colleague” letter, school districts were advised to use an expanded definition of and
services for students with disabilities. The recommendation of the letter is that students
who traditionally may not have been identified under Section 504 and Title II under
ADA should be reevaluated and tested under a broadened definition (Wright & Wright,
2012).

Given the student’s satisfactory grades and adequate social-emotional development, it

would be appropriate to argue that while there is a diagnosed disorder (i.e., ADHD), there
is no educational need that could not be addressed by a less intrusive placement or
intervention system. Likely, a 504 plan would be sufficient. Indeed, as long as the student
continues to develop on this trajectory, this is appropriate. The use of a 504 plan becomes
inappropriate when the student’s disorder interferes with his education. Once his
educational outcomes (e.g., social-emotional functioning, academic achievement) are
negatively impacted, a special education eligibility evaluation must then be initiated.
Moreover, when the school is aware that the student has a diagnosis and is aware that he is
not succeeding, the school is required to seek services to help him benefit from his
educational environment; this requirement is called Child Find.
Child Find. Child Find is an IDEA mandate to find and identify all students with a
disability from birth to 21 years of age. This includes all children in the district catchment
area; those who attend private or parochial schools; those who are homeless, migrants,
immigrants; are wards of the State – everyone. States manage to fulfill this requirement in a
variety of ways. Often, infants and toddlers are identified through pediatricians and are
referred either to the district’s early intervention services or to the relevant agency (e.g.,
cystic fibrosis foundation), which coordinates with the district services.

Box 12.6
Child Find (Section 300.111)
(a) General.
(1) The State must have in effect policies and procedures to ensure that
(i) All children with disabilities residing in the State, including children with
disabilities who are homeless children or are wards of the State, and
children with disabilities attending private schools, regardless of the
severity of their disability, and who are in need of special education and
related services, are identified, located, and evaluated; and
(ii) A practical method is developed and implemented to determine which
children are currently receiving needed special education and related

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 services.
(b) Use of term developmental delay. The following provisions apply with respect to
implementing the child find requirements of this section:
(1) A State that adopts a definition of developmental delay under Sec. 300.8(b)
determines whether the term applies to children aged three through nine, or to
a subset of that age range (e.g., ages three through five).
(2) A State may not require an LEA to adopt and use the term developmental
delay for any children within its jurisdiction.
(3) If an LEA uses the term developmental delay for children described in Sec.
300.8(b), the LEA must conform to both the State’s definition of that term
and to the age range that has been adopted by the State.
(4) If a State does not adopt the term developmental delay, an LEA may not
independently use that term as a basis for establishing a child’s eligibility under
this part.
(c) Other children in child find. Child find also must include
(1) Children who are suspected of being a child with a disability under Sec. 300.8
and in need of special education, even though they are advancing from grade
to grade; and
(2) Highly mobile children, including migrant children.
(d) Construction. Nothing in the Act requires that children be classified by their
disability so long as each child who has a disability that is listed in Sec. 300.8 and
who, by reason of that disability, needs special education and related services is
regarded as a child with a disability under Part B of the Act (Authority: 20 U.S.C.
1401(3)); 1412(a)(3); US Department of Education, n.d.-b).

For other children who are not yet school age, many districts set up screening
procedures several times a year advertising widely to all community members to bring their
children in to school or community facilities to ask questions about health concerns,
determine if their development is within normal ranges and, by law, to identify the
presence of a disability. Rotating through each area of development, the child’s health,
vision, hearing, motor abilities (e.g., gross motor skills such as walking, running, jumping,
and fine motor skills including holding a crayon, closing /opening buttons, using zippers),
communication abilities (e.g., listening and comprehension as well as nonverbal and verbal
expression), cognitive development (memory, learning, attention), academic (pre-math,
pre-reading, pre-writing) skills, social skills, and emotional control are reviewed and results
are compared to criterion-referenced age expectations. When delays are present, early
intervention services are provided to children aged three and younger, usually free of charge
or on a sliding scale. When disabilities are present, special education services are required
and provided free of charge by the district or agency designated by the district. Note that
states have the choice to recognize and support the remediation of childhood delays –
problems that are not yet a considered a disability – for children between the ages of three

288
and nine, or any age grouping therein (e.g., three to five years, etc.).
The Child Find requirement to identify students with disabilities extends throughout
the child’s educational experience (i.e., until he or she graduates). Furthermore, the
requirement extends to all children residing in the district even if they attend a different
school (e.g., private, parochial, etc.). Once children are attending school, the teachers,
parents, administrators, and counselors monitor child development and progress and
should work together to find students with disabilities. When a student at a private school
requires a special education evaluation or services, the public and private schools coordinate
in order to meet the child’s needs. Some public schools share their professional staff with
the private school. Other schools may hire independent or statewide services to be
implemented at the private school. However it happens, the home district (e.g., catchment
area where the student lives) ensures that each child has access to the same services as those
that would be provided in their building.
Problems may occur when school personnel fail to understand how to implement the
Child Find process, by confusing the requirement to find students with disabilities to mean
that every child should be considered for special education services even if the school child
study team does not believe that the student needs specialized instruction. That is,
overzealous school child study teams try to show they considered the possibility of a
disability for each child, but are then unprepared when they must justify their declination
to provide a service should a disability later be identified. In this case, the school child study
team is now arguing that there is no need for specialized instruction even though the child
was initially referred for consideration for special education services. This may become
problematic because, although most children who need special education services: (a) have a
disability, and (b) are either failing classes or exhibiting disruptive behavior that are
interfering with learning, neither is an absolute requirement for eligibility. For example, a
student with an anxiety disorder may be earning passing grades in her classes, behaving
appropriately in her classes, but yet be demonstrating impaired social and friendship
development. The child study team who referred her (just in case) is notified that she has a
disability and for the child study team to now conclude that the referral was not based on
an actual educational concern appears unreasonable. Moreover, how and why a student
would be referred for special education consideration without an educational need calls into
question of the judgment of the child study team itself.
School counselors can help school child study teams by reminding them that children
who are referred for special education consideration should, by definition, be showing
problems, and that such a problem cannot be remediated via general education practices or
a 504 plan. Stated simply, there is no reason (need) to refer a child for special education
eligibility consideration if he or she is not having difficulty or if the difficulty can be
resolved with less intensive and intrusive adjustments. School counselors can help children
and families by guiding them through the school’s established evaluation processes
(discussed in detail below). Also, families need to understand some of the limitations of the
law; for example, some disabilities (e.g., nonverbal learning disabilities) are not yet
recognized. Indeed, prior to 1991, ADHD was not recognized as a disabling condition for

289
which children were eligible to receive special education support (Rabiner, 2006). Yet,
families of children with ADHD needed guidance regarding navigating the system in order
to receive help.
In summary, it is appropriate for school personnel and parents to request an evaluation
for special education for children who appear to be having difficulty, either academically,
emotionally, behaviorally, or socially; however, step one of that process is identifying the
need (National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities, 2010). Indeed, the
child’s need for specialized instruction should drive the reason for the request. If the school
identifies such a need, it should be communicated to parents in seeking their permission to
evaluate their child for eligibility for special education services.

Special Education Eligibility

The process for determining if a student is eligible for special education services includes a
comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation that is completed by the school psychologist.
Independent psychological evaluations paid for and provided by parents to the school may
be accepted, in part or in whole, if deemed appropriate by the child study team, including
the school psychologist. Because psychoeducational evaluations are required to cover all
areas of behavioral and educational concern – and outside evaluations may not reference
how a child behaves across various educational settings – additional information likely
needs to be added and considered. Parents may also seek an independent education
evaluation (IEE) if they are in disagreement with the school’s findings in the comprehensive
evaluation; parents may ask the school to pay for the IEE.
The most traditional mechanism to determine if a student has a disability is through the
comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation mentioned above. Such an evaluation
includes input from all relevant stakeholders (e.g., child, parents, teachers, counselors), an
observation of the student in a variety of environments (e.g., large and small group
instruction, independent seat work, unstructured free time between classes or lunch, with
adults and peers, etc.), and a review of the child’s cognitive ability, academic achievement,
and social-emotional status and skills.
However, the referral question (need) drives the manner in which the evaluation is
conducted. For example, if the referral question is to determine the presence of ADHD, the
cognitive processes and behaviors associated with ADHD will specifically be evaluated. The
purpose of the evaluation is not only to determine if ADHD symptoms are present, but
also to determine if there is another cause of the behaviors, instead of an ADHD diagnosis.
For example, the symptoms of irritability and distractibility may be associated with
ADHD, but may also be indicative of depression. Perhaps what is the most important
information for school counselors to know is that many symptoms occur across disorders.
While it is true that attention problems are a core symptom of ADHD, children with other
disorders will show attention difficulties as well. In addition to depression, as noted above,
a child experiencing adjustment difficulties, a grief reaction, a learning disability, an
intellectual disability, or trauma and violence can all have attention problems. Sorting out

290
the etiology of the problem is an essential goal of the examination. Once identified,
evidence-based interventions aimed at the target problem can then be recommended.
Although the special education evaluation process is well known, there are some
controversies regarding best practices. Determining the presence of a learning disability has
long been a source of controversy. This hot button issue has several layers. First,
determining the presence of a learning disability is a common referral question requiring
many hours of services in schools. About 13% of all children between the ages of three and
twenty-one will be identified with a disability, 5% (almost a third) of which are learning
disabled. In comparison, children with speech and language disorders comprise about 2.5%
and all other disability categories represent about 1% each of the disability population (US
Department of Education, 2013). Second, some learning problems are the result of poor
instruction and thus are not the result of a disability. Finally, the solutions offered through
the special education eligibility process are often only available after children have been left
untreated for years and are far behind in skills. In fact, the learning disability controversy
has resulted in the development of a Response to Intervention (RtI) model for identifying
learning problems/disabilities to avoid the delay of intervention to children who are badly
in need of educational assistance
Response to Intervention (RtI). RtI is a three-tiered model (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006)
often depicted in the shape of a triangle. At its base, Tier 1 represents interventions that are
meant for use with all students in a regular education setting. These techniques are
proactive and empirically supported, and designed to prevent problems for students.
Despite such interventions, it is anticipated that approximately 15% of children will require
more intensive support and are served in Tier 2 after failing to respond to interventions in
Tier 1. About 5% of students will require even more intensive instruction in Tier 3 (small
tip of the triangle) after failing to respond at Tier 2. The movement to more intensive
intervention is both to select interventions that are tailored to the specific child, and to
ensure the evidence for the usefulness of the intervention for that child. Given that fewer
children require Tier 2 interventions, and fewer yet require Tier 3 interventions, making
sure that there is evidence for a specific intervention and matching the intervention to the
child’s needs becomes complicated. Indeed, some districts argue that Tier 3 is essentially
individualized instruction, akin to what is provided in special education programming.
Advocates for RtI assert that the tiered system solves the problems listed above (e.g.,
learning disabilities are relatively common, some learning problems are the result of poor
instruction, such problems need to be addressed before children are failing). Specifically,
RtI is designed to prevent learning problems, since all instructional techniques have an
established evidence base in a tiered intervention system, and then allows for a quick
progression to more intensive services given an ongoing need, regardless of disability status.
However, using the RtI system to diagnosis a learning disability is not without criticism,
although these concerns will be reviewed in a later section.

Box 12.7

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 Using RtI to Determine Learning Disabilities in IDEA (2004) Regulations
With regard to identifying children with SLD, the regulations: (1) allow a local
educational agency (LEA) to consider a child’s response to scientific, research-based
intervention as part of the SLD determination process; (2) allow States to use other
alternative research-based procedures for determining whether a child has an SLD; (3)
provide that States may not require the use of a severe discrepancy between intellectual
ability and achievement to determine whether a child has an SLD; and (4) require a
public agency to use the State criteria in determining whether a child has an SLD and
discuss the role that response to scientific research-based interventions plays in a
comprehensive evaluation process (US Department of Education, 2007).

Specific learning disability. The federal law defines a specific learning disability as:
…a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in
understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an
imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical
calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal
brain dysfunction, dyslexia and developmental aphasia.
…the term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of
visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance,
or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
(Assistance to States for the Education of Children With Disabilities and Preschool Grants for Children With
Disabilities, 2006c).

The problem with the definition is that it is unclear regarding the meaning of “an imperfect
ability.” Some disorders are redundantly listed (e.g., reading and dyslexia; deaf, deaf-
blindness and hearing impairment; blindness and visual impairments) while others are
missing (i.e., nonverbal learning disability). Regardless, it is clear that the definition
assumes underlying psychological (neurological) processes resulting in a learning disability,
which is consistent with the findings in the literature (WLD, n.d.).
Historically, a significant difference between the child’s cognitive abilities and academic
performance was required (IQ-achievement discrepancy) to identify a learning disability.
However the IQ-achievement discrepancy requirement was removed in the 2004 IDEA
revision, which ushered in the use of RtI and other assessment approaches (e.g., measuring
the underlying neurological processes associated with cognitive and academic skills but
without concern for the IQ-achievement discrepancy) to identify a learning disability. Yet,
the implementation of these revisions is not uniformly adopted by states and what is
allowed in one state (e.g., relying on RtI data to determine a learning disability) may not be
permissible in another. Furthermore, RtI data alone does not negate the requirement for a
comprehensive evaluation (Assistance to States for the Education of Children With
Disabilities and Preschool Grants for Children With Disabilities, 2006c).
It is important to note that some districts have not yet been able to shown that their
Tier 1 curriculum is appropriate for an increasingly diverse student population, delivered

292
with fidelity, and has an appropriate evidence base for a specific child. As described by
Kovaleski (2012), it is inappropriate to make a decision about a child’s failure to respond,
“R,” if we cannot assure the usefulness of the intervention, “I.” Relatedly, how the school
child study team goes about selecting the interventions for a particular child without
information about the underlying neurological difficulties is unclear. Tier 2 interventions
may be selected from a list of what is most likely to work for children within a specific
content area (e.g., reading), but there is a lack of clarity regarding the selection of Tier 2
interventions if the student does not respond to the Tier 1 interventions. That is, without
the requisite information about the child’s neurocognitive strengths and weaknesses, it is
difficult to know which intervention should work better than the one already tried.
Furthermore, how the use of RtI to identify a learning disability impacts the number of
children served in special education is not yet known (Zirkel, 2010).
The role of the school counselor is to help the school child study team to identify and
gather relevant data regarding the child’s strengths and why the child is not learning
(Geltner & Leibforth, 2008; Ockerman, Mason, & Hollenbeck, 2012). This may include
information about the classroom instruction, previous supports that have been tried, and
where and how progress is made. Also, school counselors are an important point of contact
for the child to express his or her impressions of the classroom, the teacher, instructional
materials, etc. Moreover, school counselors’ connection to the everyday building activities is
an invaluable resource for school child study teams.

Special Education Teams

After the evaluation is complete, the school child study team meets to determine if the child
is a student with a disability, if there is an educational need, and thus, if the child is eligible
for special education services. Parents, a general education teacher, a special education
teacher, a school psychologist (someone qualified to interpret test results), and someone
authorized to represent the school regarding curriculum and financial decisions are all
required to participate on the school child study team; the child, when appropriate, school
counselors, and other community members may join the child study team as needed. Next,
the child study team meets to discuss the child’s needs and write the IEP goals. An
important point here is that the child’s needs drive the IEP. That is, regardless of disability
area, the IEP should be written to ensure that all of the child’s needs are addressed.
Children with ADHD may need reading help or children with autism may need counseling
support, for example. How and when (but at least annually) feedback on IEP goals is
provided should also be established.

IDEA Categories of Eligibility

At present, IDEA recognizes 14 areas of eligibility (see Table 12.1). Prior to reviewing these
in detail, it is important to address some issues that may represent potential points of
confusion for school child study teams. Special education categories do not always match
well with psychological, psychiatric, or developmental disability disorders as described by

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the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Indeed, IDEA
categories are designed to be broad and general. Furthermore, because the school child
study team determines eligibility decisions, a formal diagnosis is not required.
Table 12.1 IDEA Special Education Categories
Autism Multiple disabilities
Deaf-blindness Orthopedic impairment
Deafness Other health impairment
Developmental delay* Specific learning disability
Emotional disturbance Speech or language impairment
Hearing impairment Traumatic brain injury
Intellectual disability Visual impairment, including blindness
Note: * required for children from birth–three years and is allowed, but not required, up to the age of nine.

Although this is meant to allow schools flexibility, it can interfere with selecting
evidence-based interventions. As discussed previously, many symptoms are associated with
numerous disorders; lack of clarity does not help child study teams sort through which
interventions are most likely to be effective. Consequently, it is important that school
counselors encourage child study teams to be specific in describing the nature of the child’s
difficulty and insist on clarity in purpose when providing supports.
Developmental considerations. Children may be identified as eligible for special
education at any age between birth and 21 years. However, there are some general timelines
to observe. Severe deficits (e.g., classic autism, intellectual disabilities) and significant health
issues are typically noticed very early in the child’s development. As discussed previously,
pediatricians often notice problems in infants and toddlers. Learning disabilities often begin
to be noticed in preschool or elementary school age children when academic requirements
increase. In fact, behavior difficulties in an otherwise unremarkable preschooler – that is,
the child has met developmental milestones and is without a history of abuse or neglect –
are more likely an indication of a learning problem than serious emotional disturbance.
Social-emotional disabilities tend to show up in adolescents.
There are many reasons why a learning problem could appear later than expected.
Perhaps, the support given in the general education classroom was enough to mute the
impact of a disability, for example. Unfortunately, it is possible that the diagnosis may have
been missed or the school child study team was slow to act. Adults working with young
children tend to want to wait and see if the children grow out of their difficulties. This
tendency can leave minor problems unattended until they have become major deficits.
School counselors can support teachers and parents in obtaining needed services, which
may or may not include special education level intensity, as soon as possible. It is well
documented that early intervention has the best chance of producing the best outcomes.
Children with minimal differences in their skills in comparison to typical age-mates are
easier to assist than those with significant differences.
It is also true that children who show significant problems at a younger age tend to have
the most difficult time in achieving the performance of their typical peers. Simply put, they

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do not have a bank of skills to fall back on. A good point of comparison is when a person
experiences depression. If that person’s depressive disorder evidences itself when he or she is
38, his or her coping skills are well developed, as he or she has enjoyed good social support
over many years and as such has more to fall back on when stressed. If the person is eight,
however, he or she has only had a short time to develop immature coping skills and the
development of subsequent skills are likely to be affected by this event, even if symptoms
are controlled relatively quickly. In sum, how quickly adults respond to the child’s needs is
of utmost importance. School counselors can help assure nervous parents and teachers that
they are correct in asking for school support.
Direct services with children. School counselors can support children by helping them to
understand their disability in a manner that is developmentally appropriate. Children need
to know about their symptoms and how to manage them. Most importantly, children need
to know that they are not the disorder. A primary reason for using children-first language is
to ensure that adults maintain the perspective that the child has a disability as opposed to
viewing the child as disabled. Respecting the child is adults’ primary concern. By keeping
the disorder or symptoms separate from the child, that allows the child to join with the
teacher, parent, and counselor to combat the symptoms. The message therefore is, “We are
all working together, as a child study team, to manage the…autism,” for example.
Relatedly, helping the child to build assertiveness skills so that he or she is comfortable in
self-advocacy will not only help the child but it also helps parents and teachers hear – from
the child himself or herself – what is needed. Continued communication is essential for
many reasons but most central here is the issue that the child’s needs will change as he or
she ages.
For example, children with autism have deficits in social interactions. A child who may
show limited interest in socializing as an elementary student may become interested in
friendships or even dating as an adolescent. While the disorder may interfere with the
expression of their social contact, their wants and desires can develop alongside the onset of
puberty. Adults can teach the child communication skills which will likely increase the
likelihood that the child can express their changing desires. A change in dating and
intimacy interests for a child with autism may alert the child study team to add social skill
instruction that includes the differences between friends and people you date (e.g., how to
initiate these different relationships, how to pursue a dating interest, actions appropriate
between people who date as compared to those between friends, etc.).
Indirect services with children. School counselors provide indirect services to children by
helping the adults in their lives, with the idea that supported adults are better prepared to
effectively help children. When adults are troubled, they often do not have the attention,
motivation, or energy level to understand the needs of, or to assist, the child. Furthermore,
each may be angry at having to deal with the disability altogether. Parents can be devastated
when they realize their child has a disability. Many feel a sense of loss as they reconcile the
realities of the child they have with the child they planned to have. It is not uncommon to
find parents in all stages of grief; some are in denial, angry, bargaining, or experiencing
feelings of depression, while others accept the disability.

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 The school counselor is an essential individual to bridge the gap between school
personnel and family members in creating a platform to allow for a combined effort on
behalf of the child (Baumberger & Harper, 2007; Milsom, 2007). Alongside the parents,
the school child study team will have a long-term role in supporting the child. Over the
years, school counselors are often the most consistent school child study team member who
works with a child; teachers change by grade, while school counselors are assigned to a
whole building of grades. By forecasting the school counselor’s long-standing support for
the parents, school counselors can help parents move through their grieving more
effectively and comfortably.
Teachers can show similar patterns of frustration with children who have disabilities.
General education teachers are prepared to work with children who are developing
typically. They may not be as well prepared to deal with a child with a disability, although
some states are increasing the special education requirements for regular education teacher
certification. Given that a child with a disability who has an IEP requires individualization
to instruction, teachers often have to modify their teaching practices significantly. There
may be numerous students with IEPs in the general education classroom, magnifying the
demand on teachers’ time and energy. Furthermore, because some teachers may not have
training in accommodating students with special needs in the classroom, this lack of
knowledge may lead to feelings of inadequacy or humiliation. When teachers are unable to
manage the classroom as they planned, feelings of resentment and anger may be outwardly
expressed to the class or directly to the child.
School counselors can help distressed teachers in many ways. First, providing an
empathic ear when teachers need to vent is often helpful. Second, coordinating resources,
such as collaborating with special educators, the reading specialist, or the school
psychologist in order to assist the general education teacher in his or her own skill
development not only will help with the teacher’s immediate frustrations but also will be
good for the education of future children with disabilities in their classroom. School
counselors can also contribute to the professional development planning in their building;
noticing patterns in teacher and parent needs can determine what type of professional
development programming should be delivered. At times, school counselors may
communicate with principals about the teachers’ needs; good principals will find additional
ways to support stressed teachers. For example, rotating highly desirable activities (e.g.,
teaching honors students) or giving a special education teacher a year in general education
to refresh his or her energy are all suggestions that counselors can use with administrators to
support the whole teaching staff.
IDEA definitions. All special education categories carry the qualifier that the problem
conditions interfere with children’s ability to benefit from their educational environment
(Assistance to States for the Education of Children With Disabilities and Preschool Grants
for Children With Disabilities, 2006b). Recall the previous discussion about need; youth
who require special education services need these individualized education programs to
learn. Also, recall that failing grades are not a requirement for eligibility (Assistance to
States for the Education of Children With Disabilities and Preschool Grants for Children

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With Disabilities, 2006b) and that poor social-emotional development may comprise the
majority of the child’s difficulty that is adversely affecting their ability to benefit from their
educational environment. Each category is listed below.
Autism. Autism is a developmental disability (Assistance to States for the Education of
Children With Disabilities and Preschool Grants for Children With Disabilities, 2006b).
In contrast to psychiatric disorders, in which symptoms can diminish, autism is considered
a lifelong disorder. In some high functioning individuals, when adequate treatments are
provided, symptoms can diminish or be well managed. Autism occurs on a spectrum (i.e.,
Autism Spectrum Disorders; ASD), meaning that students will vary in the number and
severity of their symptoms. Symptoms include poor (verbal and nonverbal) communication
skills and social interactions, often evident by the age of three. Although the DSM-V
requires restrictive/repetitive behaviors for a diagnosis of autism, IDEA only considers these
symptoms as sometimes associated.
Because there is such variability in how individuals with ASD behave, this disorder is
especially difficult for parents and teachers to accommodate and treat. For youth with
severe impairments, their deficits are obvious and while requiring intensive interventions,
most adults trained in evidence-based treatment strategies can readily see behavioral
patterns that require interventions. However, for individuals whose symptoms are less
severe, adults often find working with these youth to be very frustrating. In some ways, the
demands of treatment increase with the child’s degree of functioning, because it is less clear
where and when a youth with high functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFA) will fail to
understand how to act. Further, it is hard to predict when children with HFA will fail to
use a skill set that they already hold; teachers and parents alike will comment, “I know he
knows better.” Implied in the comment is that they do not understand why the child failed
to act appropriately given his knowledge.
Also, because stress can worsen symptoms, a muted deficit in a high functioning
individual may not be evident until there is an extreme behavioral response. Consider the
early adolescent who ran away from police when they approached to ask him a question
about a local robbery. The teenager was not originally suspected of wrongdoing until his
response of running away gave the police the impression that he was hiding something.
Indeed, it is likely that their loud and hurried approach contributed to his actions;
apparently lights were flashing as they pulled over and they used a speaker to call his
attention. However, his parents and the youth himself indicated that he knew there was no
reason to run away from the police as they are people “here to keep the community safe.”
Deaf-blindness. This category is meant to acknowledge children who simultaneously
have hearing and visual impairments and require interventions that are beyond those
provided to only the deaf or only the blind – both separate special education eligibility
categories. A hearing impairment is also listed as a disabling condition. This is an example
where there is some redundancy in the law but it is meant to expand care.
Deaf. This is a severe hearing impairment that interferes in processing spoken language.
It covers hearing loss that interferes with education; amplification devices are often
necessary for the child to benefit from classroom instruction, but are not a requirement for

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qualification.
Developmental delay. The term developmental delay, as described by IDEA, is best
understood as below average development but not yet out-of-range to a degree that a
disability is present. As discussed previously, each state can determine what is meant by a
delay in child development that would result in services being provided. The Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (part C) ensures early intervention services for children
from birth to age three, while IDEA (part B) allows for services for children aged three
through nine. Recall that children with disabilities are served through special education.
This educational label should not be confused with formal diagnostic terms used to
describe developmental disabilities (e.g., autism, intellectual disability).
Emotional disturbance. An emotional disturbance (ED) is “a condition exhibiting one
or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree
that adversely affects a child’s educational performance”:

(a) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.
(b) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers
and teachers.
(c) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
(d) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
(e) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school
problems.
The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are
socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.
(IDEA Amendments of 1997; 1999, § 300.7(c)(4)(ii))

This disability category can be highly controversial. It includes children with

internalizing disorders such as anxiety, depression, and somatic disorders (where emotional
distress is experienced as physical pain) as well as externalizing disorders such as conduct
disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, bipolar disorder, in addition to schizophrenia.
However, the criteria are not well defined, they do not match well with DSM descriptions
of psychological disorders and, most significantly, require a distinction for individuals who
are socially maladjusted. Social maladjustment is not defined.
Hearing impairment. Hearing impairment is similar to deafness, which is listed above,
but is meant to apply to children with transient conditions. That is, permanent hearing loss
is not required.
Intellectual disability (ID). An intellectual disability, formerly termed mental
retardation, is an individual of significantly low general intellectual functioning and
adaptive behavior skills which, IDEA notes, occurs “in the developmental period”
associated with school attendance. Although not required, schools often use the
qualifications set by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental
Disabilities (AAIDD), which recognizes the complexity associated with individuals with
ID. For example, AAIDD recognizes that individuals with ID may have some skills (e.g.,

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up to a score of 75) that are above the standard score of 70 that is strictly used by most
states. This may represent an appreciation that tailored interventions can increase an
individual’s skills, scores can change over time, and that there is some error in any score.
The error in a score is often described as how confident we are that the score is an accurate
reflection in the person’s functioning (e.g., we are 90% confident that the score is between
67–73). Using the AAIDD definition is useful because it is the standard most often used by
state agencies providing adult care. Essentially, using the same criteria allows for an easier
transition from child to adult services.
Multiple disabilities. Like deaf-blindness, this category is meant to acknowledge
children who have several disabilities simultaneously. This category reminds school child
study teams that addressing only one problem or providing services in only one setting
cannot meet the child’s needs. It does exclude deaf-blindness, as this condition has its own
category.
Orthopedic impairment. This category is somewhat broad. It includes impairments that
are due to genetic conditions, disease, injury, or other concerns.
Other health impairment (OHI). Often referred to by its initials OHI, this category
includes impairments in “strength, vitality, or alertness,” including issues of heightened
alertness and under arousal. It includes impairments from ADHD in addition to acute and
chronic health problems (e.g., asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia,
lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette
syndrome). Although both ADHD and ADD are listed in the description, ADD is not a
current term used in the DSM. Rather, there are three types of ADHD as recognized by the
DSM-V, ADHD with Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation, ADHD with
Predominantly Inattentive Presentation, and ADHD Combined Presentation.
Specific learning disability. The criteria for learning disabilities were reviewed
previously. Recall that the essential components of an SLD are that underlying
psychological processes result in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write,
spell, or to do mathematical calculations. In practice, this means that students can qualify
for a learning disability in the following eight areas:

• oral expression (explaining thoughts through oral communication)

• listening comprehension (understanding what is heard)
• written expression (communication in writing)
• basic reading skills (the link between letters and their sounds/phonemes)
• reading fluency skills (reading words quickly and easily)
• reading comprehension (understanding what is read)
• mathematical calculation (the link between math symbols and the action required)
• mathematical problem-solving (the process of working through a problem to find a
solution).

A learning disability cannot be the result of cultural factors (e.g., the student’s
background is different than that of the school or larger society; he or she has limited

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experience in the culture, poor acculturation), environmental factors (e.g., the student has
changed schools often, he or she was exposed to traumatic events, he or she is homeless),
economic disadvantage (e.g., exposed to poor nutrition, abused, neglected), or limited
English proficiency.
For students whose primary language is not English, a learning disability is not an
appropriate diagnosis if their English language acquisition skills are not adequate. In short,
a person cannot be considered disabled just because they are unable to speak English.
School psychologists are required to assess a student’s Basic Interpersonal Communication
Skills (BICS), which typically takes about two years to develop, and a student’s Cognitive
Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), which typically takes between five and seven years
to acquire when considering if an English language learner may qualify for a learning
disability. A CALP is required for a student to function effectively in an academic
classroom. Obviously, children who are learning English as a second language will often
have poor performance in their academic courses until their CALP has developed
adequately.
The school child study team must ensure that student failure to learn was not due to
lack of appropriate instruction in reading or math. Furthermore, child study teams must
show that prior to the referral, the child received appropriate instruction in the general
education settings that was delivered by personnel qualified to teach the subject and that
there is documentation that the teacher assessed the student’s performance several times
over a reasonable period of time. Finally, those results were to be shared with parents before
a special education evaluation was initiated.
Speech and language. This category covers voice disorders (e.g., an inability to produce
speech sounds correctly or fluently), which includes stuttering and impaired articulation as
well as language impairment (e.g., delayed language acquisition). Language skill acquisition
includes similar skills to those listed in the specific learning disabilities section (i.e.,
understanding and expressing ideas orally, understanding the sounds associated with letters
with enough speed that word comprehension is possible). Language skills that are included
in this category overlap with the language skills needed for reading. Children who show
early speech and language problems who are not treated successfully are also likely to go on
to developing reading difficulties at school age.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI). This category refers to individuals injured by an external
force (e.g., car accident) to the head. TBI has become an increasing concern for parents and
school personnel as school-sponsored sports teams, intramural sports, and extracurricular
athletic programs have shown an increase in sports-related concussions and accidents
(Halstead & Walter, 2010).
Visual impairment and blindness. Similar to the hearing impairment category listed
above, visual impairment is meant to capture children with transient conditions and
students who have impairment even with visual correction (e.g., eyeglasses, materials that
are magnified, large print). Permanent vision loss is not required.

Transition Services

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Advising students on the transition from high school to the world of work or postsecondary
education is a core activity for school counselors. Although all youth have some similar
needs, transition planning for special education students (Assistance to States for the
Education of Children With Disabilities and Preschool Grants for Children With
Disabilities, 2006a) requires the child study team to address a set of specific skills “in
preparing for adulthood.” The plan must be in place by the time the youth turns 16 and
the child must participate in its development. The goals in the plan must be measurable,
where specific strategies are coordinated.
Transition services (Assistance to States for the Education of Children With Disabilities
and Preschool Grants for Children With Disabilities, 2006a) should articulate what the
child needs to prepare for life after high school. That is, what are the child’s interests and
skills in living independently, participating in the community, employment options, career
plans, and postsecondary education? What academic and functional skills are needed to
facilitate transition? Will the child continue to need services in adulthood? What are the
child’s strengths? Given the child’s strengths, interests, and needs, the IEP should include a
statement of the goals and reflect a plan for how instruction, community experiences, and
related services (e.g., counseling) can come together to develop the child’s employment and
daily living skills.
The school counselor can continue to support parental involvement not only in IEP
discussions about career options but also by supporting the changing family dynamics as
this important milestone approaches. Like all post-high school experiences, there is a time
of adjustment for parents and their children. Parents often face a loss of identity, purpose,
and their right to advocate for their coming-of-age child.
Although not formally part of a transition plan, there is a requirement for students with
IEPs to have an Age of Majority notification. Schools are required to notify the student
about the educational rights he or she has, if any, when maturing into adulthood.
Furthermore, the parents of students with IEPs also need to be notified of the transfer of
educational rights from them to the child. The notification must occur at least one year
before the Age of Majority notification. The transfer of parent rights to the child may vary
across states, and information regarding this transfer may be accessed here:
http://minors.uslegal.com/age-of-majority. In the case in which the child does not have the
ability to provide informed consent (e.g., not competent to act on his or her own behalf),
the parents would retain their rights regarding their child.

Case Study
John, a 12-year-old boy, has been referred to the child study team by his teachers three
months into his sixth grade year. John is receiving mostly “D’s” in his academic subjects,
and the teachers report that he frequently does not submit homework assignments and that
he often appears “lost” in class. In collecting data regarding John’s progress and health
history, the child study team reviews documentation that has been provided by John’s
physician, indicating that John was previously diagnosed with ADHD – Predominantly

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Inattentive Type. John’s student file indicates that in fifth grade he was provided a 504
plan as a result of his ADHD diagnosis. The accommodations listed in the 504 plan
included sitting near the front of the classroom, additional time for testing, receiving tests
in portions to reduce John’s sense of being overwhelmed, and having the teacher check his
agenda planner to ensure that he was accurately recording the assignments.
A child study team meeting is scheduled, at which John’s parents, his two child study
team teachers, a special education teacher, the assistant principal, the school counselor, and
the school psychologist attends. At this meeting, John’s mother forcefully demands that her
son receive an IEP because he is not succeeding in his academic classes. The school
psychologist informs John’s parents of the special education process, explaining that a plan
of accommodations within a general education setting first must be created and John’s
response to the accommodations must be evaluated before it can determined whether a full-
scale evaluation should be conducted to determine John’s eligibility for special education
services. The child study team then decides that a period of intervention in John’s classes
will be implemented, including some of the successful strategies used previously, and self-
monitoring techniques to increase John’s attention to tasks and improve his work
completion, after which the child study team will determine whether the interventions have
been successful.
After a six-week intervention period, the child study team determines that John has not
made a sufficient rate of progress. The supports provided have not resulted in improved
functioning (e.g., academic performance, feelings of being overwhelmed) in the classroom.
Also, the child study team suspects that his ADHD diagnosis is significantly interfering
with his ability to benefit from the instruction provided. Consequently, a multidisciplinary
evaluation is conducted. At the subsequent feedback session, the school psychologist
explains that John continues to meet the criteria for a diagnosis of Attention-
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder – Predominantly Inattentive Type and that his scores on a
measurement of emotional functioning indicate that he meets the criteria for an Anxiety
Disorder. Based upon this assessment data, the child study team determines that John
qualifies for special education services under the criteria outlined in the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); specifically, he qualifies under the educational category
of OHI and ED. Although John’s mother agrees that he is not progressing academically,
she indicates she has reservations about the conclusions of the child study team. The child
study team informs her that she is free to disagree with the conclusions of the child study
team; she may express her disagreement in writing, and attach this to the report. An
additional meeting is scheduled to develop John’s IEP, in which the child study team will
discuss with John’s parents the form, duration, and location of the specially designed
instruction that will be used to address his educational needs.
At the IEP meeting, the child study team suggests that John receive push-in special
education services, so that he can receive accommodations in real-time in the general
education classroom, in addition to twice weekly counseling sessions conducted by the
school counselor. In response to this proposal, John’s mother forcefully disagrees,
explaining that she knows her son has a learning disability. She demands that the school do

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more, in particular, that they send John to a special school for students with ADHD.
John’s father attempts to express a different opinion, but John’s mother ignores him. John’s
mother becomes angry, and storms out of the meeting before its conclusion. Her husband
sits looking dejected, and eventually also leaves the meeting.

Stimulus Questions
1. What should be the next course of action for the school counselor?
2. How could the school counselor work to connect with John’s parents to reconcile their
wishes regarding John’s education in light of the proposal made by the child study
team?
3. What supplemental support could the school counselor provide to John’s teachers to
help him adjust to special education supports delivered in the general education
classroom?

Gifted and Talented Students

In addition to helping children with psychological disorders who are placed in special
education, school child study teams also concern themselves with children who show other
exceptionalities, such those identified as gifted and talented (GT). Some states require that
schools identify and provide differentiated educational programs for GT students, while
others do not. Schools manage gifted education in a variety of ways. Because gifted
education does not mandate inclusion or the least restrictive environment (LRE) in the way
that special education does, many schools use pull-out (exclusion) classes to deliver gifted
content. Some districts allow for talent development in specialized schools (e.g., performing
arts, engineering, science). Some schools use online courses. Advanced Placement classes
(AP) are common in high school, as is allowing students to take college coursework.
However, the most successful GT school programs use differentiated instruction to enrich
the learning of intellectually advanced students alongside their peers.

Box 12.8
ASCA’s Position on Gifted and Talented Programs
The professional school counselor delivers a comprehensive school counseling program
as an integral component of the school’s efforts to meet the academic and developmental
needs of all students. Gifted and talented students have unique and diverse needs that
are addressed by professional school counselors within the scope of the comprehensive
school counseling program and in collaboration with other educators and stakeholders
(ASCA, 2013b).
Used with permission by ASCA.

Current research shows that giftedness is best thought of as a confluence of events. Yes,
children are bright; in some states, “bright” is explicitly defined, such as having an IQ of

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130 or above (i.e., performing at or better than 98% of the population), along with teacher
and parent recommendations of support. Yet giftedness is also about the child’s attitude,
passion, commitment, and motivation to succeed (Pfeiffer, 2014). In fact, for a child whose
skill level exceeds the standard curriculum, who shows an intense interest in learning a
particular topic, and is able to persist in their work effort, enrichment may be appropriate
in either a pull-out or inclusion model.
The issue that school counselors need to be sensitive to is the myth that giftedness is a
stable trait. In fact, cognitive skills fluctuate as children age, as do their interests and
opportunities. When these match well, much success is possible. When they do not match,
then the experience is not positive. Enrichment in a subject that is not of interest to a child
is simply extra work and is not likely to be a positive experience. Furthermore, it is
important for children who are gifted to understand that effort, attitude, and persistence
matter – gifted education is not about sliding by because you are already smart. Moreover,
for youth who were nearly eligible but did not require enrichment, they should be retested,
as their skills can improve and when matched with their interest, such students can flourish
in enrichment programming. School counselors should attend to the interests of gifted and
very bright students so that they can aid them in finding opportunities to excel.
Opportunities matched with interests provide a sense of accomplishment and support
positive social-emotional development (Elijah, 2011).
Greene (2006) provides interventions for school counselors to address the unique career
needs of GT students. GT students are more likely to experience multipotentiality, which
refers to the ability for a high level of competency for a variety of tasks. This apparent
strength can be problematic for GT students in that it can result in frustration with having
to let go of some interests. Multipotentiality is associated with frequent changing of a major
focus of study, delayed decision-making, and premature choices (Stewart, 1999). Often,
GT students are directed toward prestigious occupations, such as becoming a doctor,
lawyer, or engineer. Greene (2006) recommends that GT students should be encouraged to
explore their various interests, including their values, life goals, and leisure activities. Also,
GT students and their parents should be made aware that a career decision made at the end
of high school is merely one of many potential choices.
GT students are also more likely than their non-gifted peers to exhibit early career
emergence, showing unusually strong talents and intense interest as early as elementary
school (Greene, 2006). Too much encouragement from parents and teachers may diminish
the child’s interest, but requiring diversification may reduce the child’s passion. Greene
recommends that school counselors encourage the parents and teachers of GT students to
seek to achieve a balance between encouraging and challenging the child’s pursuit of his or
her interest while also encouraging the child to engage in novel experiences.
GT students have a greater tendency toward perfectionism and social responsibility than
their non-GT peers (Greene, 2006). The overly perfectionistic GT student may manage his
or her anxiety with making the “wrong” decision by avoiding a decision or acquiescing to
an adult. Because GT students often have a heightened sense of sensitivity and
commitment to social justice, Greene (2006) recommends that school counselors explore

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with GT students the importance of selecting a career that is compatible with their values
and interests, versus focusing strictly on abilities given that GT students have abilities
which they are not necessarily interested in pursuing.

Summary
School counselors today enjoy a supportive role in working with children and families
facing significant educational challenges. In particular, school counselors are in a unique
position to maintain a stable relationship with families that feel vulnerable because of a
child’s difficulty in his or her educational progress. Whether faced with a struggling
student, a student with a disability, or a student with an exceptionality, the communication
provided by school counselors can help parents, teachers, and administrators solve
immediate and short-term educational problems, access general education supports (e.g.,
school-wide anti-bullying programs), participate in the development of 504 plans (e.g.,
adjustments, modifications, and/or enrichments to the curriculum), or navigate the special
education eligibility process.

References
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online at https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/home/position%20statements/PS_Gifted.pdf (accessed
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Disabilities, 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c)(1)(i)-(ii) (2006b).
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Disabilities, 71 Fed. Reg. 156, 46648 (codified at 34 C.F.R. pts. 300.304, 300.304(b), and 300.305) (2006c).
Baumberger, J. P., & Harper, R. E. (2007). Assisting students with disabilities: A handbook for school counselors (2nd ed.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (n.d.). A comparison of ADA, IDEA, and Section 504. Available online at
http://dredf.org/advocacy/comparison.html (accessed November 11, 2014).
Elijah, K. (2011). Meeting the guidance and counseling needs of gifted students in school settings. Journal of School
Counseling, 9, 1–19. Available online at http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ933180 (accessed October 13, 2014).
Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L. S. (2006). Introduction to response to intervention: What, why, and how valid is it? Reading
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Geltner, J. A., & Leibforth, T. N. (2008). Advocacy in the IEP process: Strengths-based school counseling in action.
Professional School Counseling, 12, 162–165.
Greene, M. J. (2006). Helping build lives: Career and life development of gifted and talented Students. Professional
School Counselor, 10, 34–42.
Halstead, M. E., & Walter, K. D. (2010). Sport-related concussion in children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 126, 597–
615.
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Kovaleski, J. (2012). RTI and SLD identification in Pennsylvania. Available online at http://rtinetwork.org/rti-
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Zirkel, P. A. (2010). The legal meaning of specific learning disability for special education eligibility. Teaching
Exceptional Children, 42, 62–67.

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 Chapter Thirteen
Crisis Intervention, Response, and
Recovery

Box 13.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
2.d School counselor roles in school leadership and multidisciplinary teams
2.e School counselor roles and responsibilities in relation to the school emergency
management plans, and crises, disasters, and trauma
2.g Characteristics, risk factors, and warning signs of students at risk for mental health
and behavioral disorders
2.k Community resources and referral resources

News reports highlighting school violence have understandably focused our collective
attention on the manner in which schools are prepared to help children and their families
when unexpected events occur. The very unlikely event of a school shooting as well as the
more common acts of school violence, such as childhood bullying, have resulted in the
need for school-wide crisis training. Specifically, today’s school teams need to be prepared
to prevent, intervene, and recover from crisis situations. Common problems in crisis
preparedness are a lack of basic knowledge about how people react and the appropriate
timing for the implementation of intervention strategies. While many students and staff
feel confident in the fact that their school has a crisis plan, often, they do not do not know
the expected roles for students and staff and when the plan should be implemented, because
such plans are not regularly practiced (Heath, Sheen, Annandale, & Lyman, 2005). This
chapter provides an overview of the best practices for crisis prevention, intervention, and
response, and discusses the school counselor’s role in preventing and managing crises.

What Counts as a Crisis?

A crisis often refers to a sudden and unexpected set of events, which is associated with
emotional, social, or cognitive instability. In schools, there is a sense of disruption of
students’ or staffs’ feelings of psychological well-being and/or the learning environment
(Brock et al., 2009). A crisis can result from experiencing acts of war and terrorism,
disasters (natural or human-caused), threatened or actual violent injury or death, among
other causes.

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 Adults and children can experience a variety of symptoms after a crisis event. It is typical
for 80–85% of individuals exposed to a crisis incident to show a noticeable symptom
within 24 hours; about half of these individuals can continue to be affected for three or
more weeks (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, n.d.). Symptom
intensity tends to be associated with the severity of the incident, but not always. Symptoms
that may be observed in children and adults include:

• anxiety, fear, and worry about safety of self and others

• guilt
• mistrust, withdrawal from others or activities
• irritability, anger
• decreased attention and/or concentration
• increase in impulsivity, risk-taking behavior, hyperactivity
• over- or under-reaction to noises, physical contact, sudden movements
• heightened difficulty with authority, redirection, or criticism
• re-experiencing the trauma (e.g., nightmares or disturbing memories)
• hyperarousal (e.g., sleep disturbance, tendency to be easily startled)
• avoidance behaviors (e.g., resisting going to places that remind them of the event)
• emotional numbing (e.g., seeming to have no feeling about the event).

There are four variables that contribute to the experience of traumatization in a crisis:
the event predictability, intensity, duration, and consequences (Brock et al., 2009).
Although individuals vary in their sensitivities, as a general rule, human-caused, violent
events tend to be more traumatizing than natural disasters. It is not uncommon for
students to experience drops in academic performance, increases in behavioral difficulties,
increases in absenteeism and tardiness, as well as a worsening of previous problems.
There is no right or wrong way for an individual to cope with a crisis event. Most
people, including those showing the symptoms identified above, recover without further
difficulty. However, there are some students and staff who will require extra support. It is
important for the school team to monitor how people are functioning. At times, schools
can be so focused on students that they are slow to notice staff who also require support; it
is important to assess and monitor all student and staff responses.
School counselors can assist in crisis preparedness by educating parents, students, and
staff about typical responses and coping (Crepeau-Hobson, Sievering, Armstrong, &
Stonis, 2012). Pamphlets and brochures are an excellent way for students to take home this
information. Ensuring educational information is available in the languages spoken by the
district’s population is essential for good home-school communications.

School Counselor’s Role in Crisis Prevention, Intervention, and Response

ASCA’s position statement (2013) on safe schools and crisis response states that one way
school counselors demonstrate leadership is through involvement in safe school initiatives
and critical response preparation and intervention. The position statement lists specific

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crisis prevention and response practices for school counselors, which are listed in Table
13.1.
Table 13.1 ASCA’s Crisis Prevention and Response Preparedness Practices
• individual and group counseling
• advocacy for student safety
• interventions for students at risk of dropping out or harming self or others
• peer mediation training, conflict resolution programs and anti-bullying programs
• support of student initiated programs such as Students Against Violence Everywhere
• family, faculty and staff education programs
• facilitation of open communication between students and caring adults
• defusing critical incidents and providing related stress debriefing
• district and school response team planning and practices
• partnering with community resources
This excerpt from ASCA’s position statement is reprinted here with kind permission.
American School Counselor Association (2013). The professional school counselor and crisis/critical incident response in the
schools. Available online at www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/PositionStatements/PS_SafeSchools.pdf
(accessed May 18, 2015).

ASCA’s position statement references Fein’s (2003) seminal work regarding the impact
of school shootings upon school leaders, and Fein, Carlisle, and Isaacson’s (2008)
identification of the implications for school counselors. Fein et al. (2008) identified several
implications for school counselors in responding to any serious crisis. Fein’s (2003) study of
school leaders at four schools which experienced a school shooting revealed that school
counselors often assumed a leadership position in the aftermath of a school shooting, even
though they did not necessarily have a formal role in the school’s crisis response plan. Fein
urged school counselors to seek formal roles on the school’s crisis response team given that
their training and skill set prepares them for leadership in response to a crisis. He
recommended that school leaders and counselors be certified in critical incident stress
debriefing (CISD) methods in order to serve others and understand how to engage in self-
care. CISD will be described in the next section.
Fein (2003) found that in addition to the stress of secondary trauma, school counselors
reported stress in dealing with the additional responsibilities that interfered with their other
duties, and the role conflict associated with providing a leadership role in responding to the
crisis. He recommended that schools establish co-leaders in order to disperse the
responsibilities. Fein encouraged school counselors and administrators to understand that
role ambiguity may occur, as leaders of the crisis response team may outrank an
administrator during the implementation of a school’s response to a crisis. Fein (2003)
found that formal school leaders were reluctant to formally pursue help from others, but
school counselors reported that they often provided informal help to school administrators,
allowing an administrator to ventilate feelings. Finally, Fein et al. (2008) encouraged school
counselors to take care of themselves by limiting their critical response shift to 3–4 hours
and obtain debriefing from a trained personnel member.

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Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD)
CISD is a group-based, seven-stage, crisis intervention process for persons who are exposed
to trauma, and persons who assist those exposed to trauma, who are often referred to as
victims of “secondary trauma” (Mitchell, 1983). The group process gradually engages
persons exposed to trauma in exploration of their reactions and feelings to the traumatic
event, which are processed within a group experience. In the fact-gathering stage, victims
are encouraged to report the facts of what they encountered. The debriefer does not
encourage victims to express their feelings, but acknowledges any feelings expressed. In the
thought stage, the debriefer asks victims to recall the thoughts they had during the
traumatic incident. In the reaction stage, victims are encouraged to share their reactions to
the incident, as the leader may ask such a question as “What was the worst part about
seeing Jennifer attacked?” In the symptom stage, the leaders ask the group to share any
physical or cognitive symptoms they have experienced since the incident, and the leader
seeks to normalize the symptoms, asking group members to raise their hand if they have
experienced the symptoms of other group members. In the teaching stage, the leader
educates the group about the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),
identifying common immediate (e.g., anxiety, sleep disturbances) and delayed reactions
(e.g., limited range of emotions, frequent dreams of being attacked) to experiencing a
traumatic event. The leader will also have the group members discuss how they have coped
with the event and how their support network has assisted them.
While Fein et al. (2008) recommend that school counselors receive formal training in
CISD, it should be noted that there are questions about the effectiveness of the approach.
Based upon a review of the research literature, Wei, Szumilas, and Kutcher (2010)
concluded that there is limited research on the use of CISD in schools, and the available
research even suggests that the approach may be ineffective or even harmful.

What is a Good Crisis Plan?

The US Department of Education (2013) recommends that schools develop a school
Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) addressing the areas of concern before, during, and
after an incident. Prevention, Mitigation, Protection, Response, and Recovery contexts are
described in the Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans
(US Department of Education, 2013) and are summarized below.

Prevention
Prevention describes the actions taken by a school to avoid an incident occurring.
Prevention activities in the school can address targeted or known risks associated with crime
or violence such as bullying or suicide prevention programs. Programs aimed at increasing
school connectedness are associated with violence prevention efforts (Tillery, Varjas, Roach,
Kuperminc, & Meyers, 2013), including responsible reporting of safety concerns
(Catalano, Oesterle, Fleming, & Hawkins, 2004).

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Mitigation
Mitigation means the capacity to eliminate or reduce the loss of life and property damage
by lessening the impact of the emergency. In the school setting, this includes how the
buildings are managed (e.g., the setup of monitored entry points, visitor screenings) and
maintained (e.g., anchoring large bookshelves to walls, property fencing designating
boundaries; Sorensen, Hayes, & Atlas, 2013; US Department of Education, 2008).

Protection
Protection means the ability to protect students, staff, property, and visitors from hazards
or potential threats. School safeguards such as video monitoring, metal detectors, and
surveillance around school entrance and exit areas are associated with school protection
(Reeves et al., 2012).

Response
Response refers to the capability to stabilize an emergency situation once it has begun or it
is clear that it cannot be prevented. Response means establishing a safe and secure
environment and facilitating recovery. When responding to a crisis, school teams enact
their (previously written) emergency management plans in order to ensure the physical and
psychological safety of the students and staff.

Recovery
This involves the actions implemented to restore the learning environment. It is important
to note that as the school system returns to its typical functioning, the whole school crisis
team should be properly debriefed. The implementation team’s care needs to be an
intentional part of the recovery process (Brock, 2011).

How to Build a Good Crisis Plan

A good crisis plan is developed through dialogues within the school, as well as with the
community at large. Various school personnel need to be included in planning meetings, as
well as relevant community partners. Diverse cultural and linguistic groups in the
community also need to be present.
School participants for the school safety and school crisis teams should include
administrators, teachers, facility staff, mental health professionals (e.g., school counselors,
psychologists, and social workers), parents, and students; all provide different and
important perspectives. Community members should include first responders and
community agencies involved in emergency management (e.g., shelters, Red Cross, etc.),
community mental health services, spiritual leaders, and immigrant community contacts
that can help address the needs of cultural and linguistic groups represented in the building.
The school safety team focuses on identifying potential hazards (e.g., prevention needs
relevant to the school’s population) as well as known strengths and weaknesses specific to

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the building that would impact the school’s ability to protect or mitigate the impact of an
emergency. The school crisis team, which may include some or all of the members of the
safety team, focuses on the implementation procedures for mitigating and responding to a
crisis. The school crisis team also plans the implementation of the recovery strategies.
The US Department of Education (2013) identifies several assessment strategies used to
determine the risk and vulnerability that should be considered by the school safety team.
The considerations are discussed in the following section.

Site Assessment
This assessment focuses on identifying the risks and vulnerability of the building(s) and the
school grounds. It is designed to provide information about potential hazards and areas that
are vulnerable as well as identify which areas provide a safe, accessible shelter where
students, staff, emergency responders, and volunteers can gather.

Culture and Climate Assessment

This assessment focuses both on the students’ and staffs’ perceptions of physical safety and
psychological well-being in the building. Its purpose is to identify problematic behaviors or
practices that would interfere with a healthy school culture (e.g., where students and staff
are free to report concerns). For example, a school where bullying is rampant and
unaddressed by the school staff would not promote good communications between
students or between students and staff. Bullying is also thought to diminish feelings of
connectedness between students and their school (Skues, Cunningham, & Pokharel, 2005).
Results from the culture and climate assessment could indicate a need for a bullying
prevention program in order to increase students’ sense of psychological safety. Results
could suggest a need to improve the school’s awareness of the different cultural and
linguistic populations represented in the district, the coping strategies preferred by different
groups, and the resources these groups can bring to support the school’s efforts (Heath et
al., 2005). Reeves et al. (2011) provide an example of a physical and psychological safety
vulnerability assessment.

School Threat Assessment

A threat assessment is used to identify if communications or behaviors exhibited by a
student, staff member, or other individual may pose a threat. The purpose of the
assessment is to prevent the incident and refer the individual(s) for support and services, if
appropriate.

Box 13.2
Did you know?
An investigation by the US Secret Service and US Department of Education revealed
that of the 41 school shootings that occurred between 1974–2000, 71% of the school

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 shooters were victims of bullying (Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum, & Modzeleski,
2004).

The threat assessment team should include school mental health personnel (e.g., school
counselors, psychologists, or social workers) with appropriate training in the methods of
assessment, school personnel familiar with the individual and the context, as well as
relevant community agency personnel (e.g., law enforcement, mental health personnel).
Given the need to consider the mental status of the individual at the time of the threat, this
team is necessarily different than the school safety team and crisis response teams; however,
membership from the crisis response team may overlap. Cornell and Sheras (2006) have
developed an evidence-based threat assessment guideline (National Registry of Evidence-
Based Programs and Practices [NREPP], 2013) that has been shown to be used effectively
by school teams (Strong & Cornell, 2008). It is important to note, however, that some
threats may require ongoing assessment and intervention from the school team.

Capacity Assessment
This assessment identifies the available resources for responding to both evacuation and in-
place crisis responses, and includes material resources (e.g., equipment and supplies) and
staff assets (e.g., who is trained in CPR, who can assist individuals with disabilities, who can
assist with various cultural groups including English language learners and their families,
etc.).
The US Department of Homeland Security (2013) has published a document titled K-
12 School Security Checklist that helps schools assess many of the areas listed above and
includes psychological safety (www.illinois.gov/ready/SiteCollectionDocuments/K-
12SchoolSecurityPracticesChecklist.pdf). The National Association of School Psychologists
(NASP) provide resources and the rationale for the processes and practices needed to ensure
school safety
(www.nasponline.org/resources/handouts/Framework_for_Safe_and_Successful_School_Environments.pd

How to Prevent a Crisis

School counselors play an important role in delivering the support services that can prevent
or mitigate a crisis. This is because the school counselor is often aware of which students
and families are in distress and can help school teams direct support services toward those
in need. Also, school counselors are aware of the cultural and linguistic diversity in the
building and can help districts to incorporate diversity needs into the programs provided.
As such, most school counselors are likely to find themselves on the crisis and threat
assessment teams charged with addressing the psychological safety of students and staff.
Psychological safety initiatives focus on a person’s emotional and behavioral well-being
(Brock et al., 2009; Reeves et al., 2011; Reeves et al., 2012). Programs tend to be multi-
tiered, where universal supports are provided to all students, targeted interventions are
provided for those who are at risk, and intensive interventions are aimed at those who are

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experiencing extreme distress. Common multi-tiered programs include:

• academic support through Response to Intervention (RtI; see Chapter 12 for a full
description);
• positive behavior support (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, n.d.) which
uses the RtI model for behavioral improvement;
• a social-emotional learning curriculum that addresses safety, school climate, and anti-
bullying more directly (Safe and Civil Schools, n.d.);
• programs aimed at improving home-school partnerships.

Durlak, Dymnicki, Taylor, and Schellinger (2011) conducted a meta-analysis that revealed
that schools using evidence-based programs with a high level of fidelity at the universal level
of intervention demonstrated a positive impact upon student behavior. The researchers
concluded that high expectations for academic success, engaging teaching practices, caring
student-teacher relationships, and a safe and orderly classroom environment were essential
for effectiveness at the universal level of intervention.
School counselors have several roles within the tiered framework of crisis intervention.
At the universal level of intervention, school counselors can lead home-school partnership
activities, support teachers in implementing programs with fidelity, or provide direct
instruction on the problem-solving portions of these programs. For the targeted and
intensive intervention levels, the school counselor ensures good communication between
team members. Effective communication is necessary because as targeted and intensive
interventions are paired and added onto the universal support, those new team members
will require a bridge to what has already been done, where the child continues to show
challenges, and access to how the counselor has approached the parent or guardian. The
school’s vulnerability assessments and academic and behavioral data should drive the
selection of targeted interventions.

Responding to a Crisis as it Happens

Responding to a crisis is a complex matter that requires everyone in the building to know
their role and to implement it in coordination. The school counselor is likely to serve as a
conduit between the school crisis team, which is managing the system, and the teachers,
who are in more immediate contact with students. The perspective of the school crisis team
and the teachers are presented below.

In the Classroom
Well-informed teachers, prepared for clear communications, who are able to remain calm
during uncertainty, are key assets in managing a crisis. All school staff require in-service
instruction and practice regarding crisis responding. Individual teacher responses need to be
understood in the context of the system response.
The first priority in crisis communications is to reassure all children that they are safe.

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Children require an honest explanation about what is happening. In low trust school
environments, that honesty may need to be explicitly stated, “I will tell you all that I know,
as soon as I know it.” In linguistically diverse environments, that communication needs to
be delivered in a manner that is understood by the children in the class. Explanations need
to be developmentally appropriate to best meet the needs of students (National Association
of School Psychologists, 2007).

• Elementary children require a brief statement with concrete reassurance about their
safety. Teachers should point out locked doors, how the school has practiced fire drills,
and how adults are always making sure children are safe (e.g., in the cafeteria, on the
playground, on the bus).
• Older elementary and some middle school children will often wonder how the teacher
can know if they are really safe. This group needs help sorting reality from fantasy.
Teachers can provide reassurances, such as the school has a safety plan, and the police
and fire department respond within three minutes when we practice for an emergency
situation.
• Middle and high school students often wonder if society is really safe, if a school can
really protect anyone. This group should be encouraged to give their suggestions for
school safety improvements and prompted to use the strategies in place for responsible
reporting of safety concerns. They often need to talk about the differences between
gossiping, tattling, and responsible reporting. What are appropriate (e.g., talking with
friends and family) and inappropriate (e.g., use of violence, drugs, alcohol) ways to solve
problems? Who else in the community is dedicated to helping others: doctors,
policeman, faith leaders, etc.? What is the possibility vs. the probability of a violent act
at school? Adolescents can be informed that schools are one of the safest places for
children, and they are safer now than they have been in 20 years (Robers, Kemp, &
Truman, 2013).

All children should be encouraged but not forced to talk. Listening to children’s
thoughts and feelings will help the school crisis team know who may require additional
support. Teachers need to be explicitly told that the school counselor wants to know whom
they are concerned about and why; teachers need to know not to wait a couple of weeks to
let the counselor, or other members of the school crisis team, know how the children are
responding. Some example statements for teachers in such discussions include:

• Reassuring statements: We are in a safe place. We have followed the plan; everyone
(police, fire department, your parents) knows where to come and find us when it’s time.
We are here together; we can help each other while we wait.
• Explanations: The principal has told us there was a fire. The principal has called for
help. Help is on the way/already here.
• Listen: Your thoughts are important. Tell me more about how you are thinking/feeling.
I can see how you might think of it that way.
• Talk about it: Lots of people have more thoughts or feelings as time goes by; we can talk

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 about that if it comes up for you.

While open communication is encouraged, returning to routines is also important. If

students are to remain in their classroom, returning to classroom-like activities may
facilitate a sense of normalcy. This does not necessarily mean that the scheduled test should
resume as planned during a lockdown, but rather that educational activities can help pass
the time and reinforce that the students are safe, the plan is being carried out, and school
routines can resume. At times, however, students will be evacuated to another location, and
teachers may be pressed to be creative. One French teacher employed a French version of
Simon Says during an hour outside to help pass the time and keep track of wandering
teenagers (Heath, Sheen, Annandale, & Lyman, 2005). To the extent that students and
staff know what to do, more rapid recovery is more likely.

Box 13.3
Tips for parents and school personnel can be found here:
www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/terror_general.aspx

Box 13.4
Tips for helping students with disabilities can be found here:
www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/specpop_general.aspx

At the Building Level

The National Education Association (NEA, n.d.) provides a comprehensive overview, along
with checklists, of the types of considerations that need to be addressed when the crisis is
happening in the publication, School crisis guide: Help and healing in a time of crisis. As
stated, school teams should have roles delegated (who is doing what and when) along with
redundant checks to make sure that all of the responses are covered during the crisis event.
No detail is too small. An excellent resource, the NEA lists nine priorities to complete in
the first hour (please see Table 13.2).
Table 13.2 Being Responsive During a Crisis: Day One – First Hour
Assess the crisis
• What must be done immediately to protect lives? Should the school go on lockdown,
evacuate or close off areas of the building or grounds?
• Are people injured?
• Is medical attention needed?
Call for assistance
• Contact police and fire/rescue agencies.
• Contact leadership and crisis team at district central office.
Mobilize the site
• Initiate site-based emergency plan.

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 • Activate incident command team and protocols. Call for school buses, if needed.
• Determine if actions (e.g., lockdown) must be taken at neighboring schools.
Manage media relations
• Establish a media briefing area.
• Work with law enforcement to set a designated area and perimeter for media.
• Identify the spokesperson (site-based or district official).
• Develop an initial media release. (See Appendix E.)
• Provide school and district fact sheets. (See Appendix F.)
• Hold a press briefing in conjunction with law enforcement.
• Control rumors by getting facts out as soon as information is verified.
• Take into account that personal communication tools, such as cell phones and text
messaging, allow students to contact media and others directly.
Establish network to account for missing and injured
• Determine who is safe and who is not accounted for.
• Establish a liaison with local hospitals, if necessary.
Contact mental health support
• Request counselors and other trained professionals from neighboring schools.
• Contract district crisis response team.
• Contact local mental health agencies or centers.
• Contact state and national agencies who can provide immediate support to students
and staff.
The NEA’s model is reprinted here with kind permission.
National Education Association: Health Information Network (n.d.). School crisis guide: Help and healing in a time of
crisis. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://neahealthyfutures.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/schoolcrisisguide.pdf

In addition to the initial response, the NEA provides a detailed list of the
steps/functions that need to be addressed in the first day of the crisis. Included are
implementing the established operating procedures as well as communication plans and use
of volunteer support (please see Tables 13.3 and 13.4). The NEA also provides guidance on
how to manage Day Two and the First Week of a crisis. School counselors may wish to
review the School crisis guide: Help and healing in a time of crisis at the beginning of each
school year in order to refresh their knowledge and to participate in discussions about their
role on any of the school teams (e.g., school safety, school crisis, threat assessment) as the
academic year begins.
Table 13.3 Being Responsive During a Crisis: Day One – First 12 Hours
Plan for communications command center to be operational in the next day or two.
• Determine best location based on crisis site. Consult with school principal, facilities
manager, security and law enforcement.
• Develop a list of supplies that will be needed at the command post. (See Appendix
G.)
• Assign a volunteer coordinator who will solicit communications experts and

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 volunteers from local, state and national sources, if needed. (See Appendix H.)
• Establish communications channels for internal and external audiences.
• Initiate phone tree and email to staff, students and parents. Carefully craft a script
with what is known and not known to share with students and families.
• Create a recorded message on the district voice messaging system and update
regularly as new information becomes available. Include a phone number where
people with questions can reach a “real” person.
• Update the district and school Web sites with information about the crisis. Cross-
reference hotline numbers and provide links to other resources, such as mental health
support.
• Set up an information hotline staffed by central office personnel or trained volunteers
from the teacher’s association, retired administrators, etc. Provide a script and answers
to frequently asked questions. Have operators log calls and keep track of new
questions that arise.
• Develop fact sheet template to be used throughout the crisis. Send fact sheet
electronically to internal and external audiences daily at a set time, such as 10 a.m.
(See Appendix I.)
• Send group email. Send an email to staff at the affected site and all other central and
school sites in the district with the latest information about what happened and what
is being done. Provide information on how to get updates through the Web site and
hotline.
• Deal with rumors. Make sure all central and school-based staffs have accurate
information that they can share in the community to squelch rumors. Recognize how
technology – such as cell phones and text messaging – can accelerate the spreading of
rumors.
• Provide scripts for office personnel on answering questions or giving directions to
staging area or other locations.
Prioritize stakeholders. Take care of internal audiences first, such as:
• Staff at the affected site, other schools, central office, substitutes and retired staff.
• Students and parents at the affected site.
• Students and parents at neighboring schools.
• Families district wide.
• Key community leaders such as school board members, other elected officials and
clergy.
• Media. Provide service to local media first, then national and international.
Continue meeting priority needs. These issues include facilities and people management.
• Reunite families. Have a list of all students and check them off when they are picked
up by parents or legal guardian.
• Contact local hospitals. Establish a liaison between the school district and the
hospitals to get ongoing reports of victims’ conditions.
• Secure building and grounds. Work with law enforcement to secure perimeter of
school.

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 • Get top district officials to the scene. The superintendent and/or top administrators,
along with key communications department staff, should tour the scene as soon as
possible. Decide whether the superintendent will make a media statement.
Manage media relations. The media will want ongoing information. Be available, open
and honest.
• Designate a spokesperson who can serve throughout the crisis. If the school district
has a communications office, it’s ideal for the director to serve as spokesperson.
Determine carefully whether the principal, superintendent or school board members
will make public statements and who is most appropriate.
• Consider:
• Is the official emotionally ready and able to give a statement?
• Does the community/media expect a high-level official to take an active, visible
communications role?
• What are the legal considerations and long-term implications?
• Which official is appropriate: Who has the most information and represents the
district best in the public arena?
• Prepare officials for their roles:
• Provide talking points in writing.
• Prepare a list of frequently asked questions and answers.
• Practice, including asking difficult questions.
• Determine a specific length of time for the interview or media conference. Begin
and end on time.
• Put the communications director in charge to introduce the spokesperson,
manage the question-and-answer period and decide when the interview should
end.
• Meet with media spokespersons from law enforcement and the fire/rescue
agencies to determine how you will coordinate release of information.
• Develop a call log and track media calls, news agency and reporter names, and
questions asked.
• Set up a regular schedule of press briefings. During the first few hours, as the
incident is unfolding, hourly press briefings may be required, even if there is
nothing new to report. That frequency can decrease as the situation stabilizes.
NEA provides advice on how to deal with the media at:
http://neahealthyfutures.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/schoolcrisisguide.pdf
• Discuss how the identity of victims will be released. Names should not be released
until they are verified. Law enforcement, fire and rescue, hospitals and families
should be involved in this decision.
• Provide information about evacuation. The media is very helpful in getting
information out quickly, so families know where their children are and how to be
reunited.
• Express sympathy and acknowledge pain and grief suffered by victims, their
families and the community. Connect on a human level. Grant permission to feel

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 the range of feelings associated with a crisis.
• Thank individuals and agencies. Acknowledge the good work of school staff, first
responders and community agencies.
Take care of staff. Set up a staff meeting as soon as practical to talk with staff and express
support and caring. Practice active listening, allowing staff to safely vent and be heard.
Make decision about classes the next day at affected schools as well as other schools in the
district. Release information about the following day as soon as possible.
The NEA’s model is reprinted here with kind permission.
National Education Association: Health Information Network (n.d.). School crisis guide: Help and healing in a time of
crisis. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://neahealthyfutures.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/schoolcrisisguide.pdf

Table 13.4 Being Responsive During a Crisis: Day One – Evening

Meet with first responders and school/district crisis team.
• Discuss what worked and what didn’t. Talk about the next steps and how the
agencies will work together over the next few days. Determine where and when the
agency representatives will next meet. Establish a process to coordinate media
response.
• Hold meeting with school incident command team, school/district crisis team and
communications team to address the following issues:
• What worked well: Did we follow our emergency plan? Did it work as expected?
How did we communicate? Did we do everything we could to ensure safety?
• What must we improve: What parts of the plan didn’t work? Were responses
prompt and appropriate?
• What lies ahead: What can we expect tomorrow? How will we communicate to
key stakeholders?
Plan for the next day for issues that affect students and school staff.
• Will school be open?
• Where will students and staff gather?
• What actions must we take immediately regarding mental health, safety and security,
internal communications and media?
• Whom do we need to contact in our community, such as elected officials, former
board members, hospitals, first responders, opinion leaders, district leadership,
principals, staff, parents, attorneys, etc.?
• What help do we need, such as volunteers for hotline, phone banks, media relations,
family liaisons, etc.?
The NEA’s model is reprinted here with kind permission.
National Education Association: Health Information Network (n.d.). School crisis guide: Help and healing in a time of
crisis. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://neahealthyfutures.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/schoolcrisisguide.pdf

Crisis Recovery
The response after the crisis is as important as the response during the event. School

320
counselors will find that they are needed to provide support to students and staff as well to
help ensure the delivery of the response plan. Accordingly, the NEA provides a back to
school checklist that school counselors may find helpful to review (please see Table 13.5).
Table 13.5 Being Responsive During a Crisis: Back to School – When Students and Staff
Return
Support students and families to help them feel safe; promote healing and a sense of normalcy.
• Develop a re-entry plan, such as tours of the building, where students and their parents can return to s
short time and feel comfortable.
• Help people feel safe. Make sure parents and students know about the presence of new adults in the b
police, mental health counselors, and volunteer door and hall monitors. Encourage parents to be in the
volunteer support, door monitors, etc.
• Decide on the first-day schedule. Do you want to have a half or full day of classes? Some schools begin
students meet and talk with the teacher whose class they were in when the tragedy struck. Schools also
mental health professionals available.
• Provide meaningful opportunities to mark the occasion. Consider whether you want to start the day w
of silence. Students might write letters to those injured or thank-you notes to the first responders.
• Offer the option of homeschooling to those who can’t return to school.
• Develop routines that make students feel secure, such as rules about leaving the building, student mov
hallways and staircases, and reporting suspicious incidents.
Provide support for staff so they feel capable of being caregivers and educators.
• Actively listen to staff concerns and issues. Reflect concerns back to staff, providing support and answe
• Have a meeting with all staff, administrators and mental health professionals before school starts to dis
curriculum and talking points. NEA’s examples are found here: http://neahealthyfutures.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/schoolcrisisguide.pdf
• NASP provides examples in English, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, French, Amharic, Chinese, Portug
Arabic and Kurdish here: www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/
• Ensure office staff know the latest developments and have a script for answering phone calls.
• Set up a “safe room” where staff can go for a break or to seek guidance from a mental health profession
• Have substitute teachers available to take over classes if teachers need a break.
• Make mental health support available in the classroom and throughout the building.
Provide classroom activities for teachers to use with students.
• The NEA provides examples here: http://crisisguide.neahin.org/crisisguide/tools/p4_4.html
• Schoolsecurity.org provides examples here:
www.schoolsecurity.org/resources/Practical%20Suggestions%20for%20Crisis%20Debriefing%20for%
Take care of the community by inviting first responders to visit the school and serve them a “thank-you” lu
students are not present.
Consider operational issues that make staff and students feel more comfortable. For example, think about c
sounds of the fire and emergency alarms. Also consider changing the “look” of affected parts of the building
rooms where violence, injuries or death occurred; and visually block off damaged areas.
Manage media coverage of the first day back.
• Establish policies regarding media presence on school grounds and in the building.

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 • Establish a perimeter for photographers and satellite trucks.
• Set guidelines on still and video cameras in the building.
• Consider holding a meeting or conference call with the media prior to the first day back to set the ton
parameters for the day.
• Remember the goal is to establish a normal routine, heal and foster a sense of safety.
• Host a media tour when students are NOT in school, so reporters have footage to use later. The NEA
at http://crisisguide.neahin.org/crisisguide/tools/p2_3.html.
The NEA’s model is reprinted here with kind permission.
National Education Association: Health Informa\tion Network (n.d.). School crisis guide: Help and healing in a time of
crisis. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://neahealthyfutures.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/schoolcrisisguide.pdf

Crisis Preparedness is Essential

No school can prevent every crisis; some events are simply unstoppable. However, it is clear
that schools are required to be prepared for a crisis; the No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
legislation requires schools to develop safety and crisis plans (2002). Child safety remains a
high priority as noted in the 2013 White House Now is the Time initiative, which provides
strategies and funding recommendations regarding making schools safer as well as how to
increase access to mental health services.

Counseling Victims of Trauma

Many students who are exposed to trauma, either as the result of a crisis occurring in a
school or community, or through other forms of trauma (e.g., victims of sexual, physical, or
emotional abuse, witnessing domestic violence, etc.) can benefit from more intensive,
ongoing support. A meta-analysis of evidence-based counseling approaches for treating
youth who have been exposed to traumatic events found that interventions generally
produce positive but modest reductions in post-traumatic stress, depressive symptoms,
anxiety symptoms, and externalizing behavioral problems (Silverman et al., 2008). The
study also revealed that cognitive-behavioral theory (CBT) interventions were more
effective than non-CBT approaches. The authors concluded that there are common
elements of effective counseling interventions for youth who have been exposed to trauma.
These common elements include educating youth about common reactions to trauma,
providing them with skills to manage anxiety and other emotions, learning to label and
process thoughts and emotions associated with trauma, discussing and organizing one’s
memory of the traumatic event, and problem-solving regarding safety and relationships.
The approaches indicated for children who have experienced trauma are grounded in
Beck’s cognitive theory (Beck & Emery, 1985). Beck found that trauma significantly
modifies a person’s worldview, and leads children to view themselves as less capable, fearful
of the environment, and to believe that they will not be successful in life and that their life
will be shortened. Students who have experienced trauma are likely to display a number of
specific cognitive distortions. Traumatized children may display dichotomous thinking,
believing that situations are completely safe or unsafe. They may magnify negative

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information or minimize positive information. Such children may overgeneralize, believing
that one negative event, such as a fight in the hallway, means that the school is completely
unsafe. Or, they may personalize, thinking that uncontrollable events are their fault. The
three primary goals in the cognitive therapy approach to counseling traumatized children
are to provide strategies for controlling intrusive thoughts, teaching skills to manage the
physical symptoms (e.g., tense muscles), and to increase children’s confidence that they
function effectively in environments that provoke anxiety. Brown (1996) describes how
elementary school counselors can identify and counsel children who have been traumatized.
Most of the studies examined in the previously mentioned meta-analysis conducted by
Silverman et al. (2008) involved non-school-based interventions. However, the Group
Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) has also received empirical
support (Jaycox et al., 2009). CBITS seeks to reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress,
anxiety, and depression, and in ten weekly group (5–8 students) sessions, each covering one
class period. Students learn about the symptoms of common reactions to trauma, are
gradually encouraged to explore their thoughts and feelings regarding the trauma through
writing and/or drawing, receive cognitive (e.g., thought stopping), and coping skills
training (e.g., relaxation), and social skills training.
Support for Students Exposed to Trauma (SSET) is an adapted form of CBITS which is
designed to be delivered by paraprofessionals and teachers within classroom and small
group settings. The SSET has been shown to decrease students’ levels of PTSD and
trauma-related anxiety (Jaycox et al., 2009). The SSET manual can be downloaded for free
at the following link: www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2009/RAND_TR675.pdf.
CBITS, which is available through Sopris West Publishers, and the SSET include detailed
lessons and worksheets that can be easily implemented in schools. Both SSET and CBITS
have been found to be effective with students of diverse economic, religious, and
ethnic/cultural backgrounds, and non-English speaking students.

Suicide Postvention and Prevention

The crisis response and recovery activities detailed earlier are applicable to various types of
crises, but it is important to note that the response and recovery activities that are
implemented should be adapted to the specific form of crisis. Suicide by a student may
require modification of the crisis response and recovery, and efforts to decrease the
likelihood of subsequent suicide attempts by students have been termed suicide
postvention. The goals of school-based suicide postvention efforts are to (1) provide
emotional support to survivors, (2) decrease the likelihood of additional imitation or cluster
suicides, and (3) assist the school in returning to normal routines (Fineran, 2012). In the
following section, we provide a synopsis of Fineran’s (2012) review of the literature
regarding aspects of crisis response and recovery efforts that are specific to crisis response
and recovery regarding a student suicide.

Box 13.5

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 Common Misbeliefs of School Professionals Regarding Suicide (Granello & Granello,
2007)
1. Talking about suicide increases the likelihood students will attempt suicide.
2. Schools may be sued if they have a suicide prevention program.
3. Suicide prevention programs lead to what is referred to as “copycat suicides.”

After a Student Completes Suicide

A meeting before school with all personnel may be organized to inform the staff of the
incident, provide basic facts while remaining sensitive to the family’s privacy, and announce
any changes to the school’s schedule (Fineran, 2012). School personnel should address the
death directly and honestly with students as ignoring may undervalue students’ distress.
Students should be informed of the death in simultaneous small group settings rather than
making a school-wide announcement. Parents should be notified in a written letter or
individual phone calls. A school counselor should contact the parents/guardians of the
deceased child to determine their preferences for disclosure, obtain information on funeral
arrangements, inform them of the school’s postvention response, identify siblings and
friends who may be in need of more intense assistance, and offer support, including
references for mental health agencies and survivor support groups. School counselors
should develop a plan to include school counselors from other buildings and external
mental health professionals in order to sufficiently staff crisis centers (Fineran, 2012).
School counselors may need to intentionally pursue students who may be particularly
affected by the suicide, given that many students are reluctant to ask for assistance.
School counselors should conduct small, postvention groups for students who may be
potentially at risk following a student’s suicide. School counselors may find that following
the initial shock and denial regarding the student’s suicide, students may experience a wide
variety of responses, including significant guilt, anger, and cognitive distortions (Fineran,
2012). School counselors can emphasize that there is no particular right way to feel
following a suicide. Survivors should be encouraged to identify and express feelings, and
learn to distinguish between less effective and effective coping mechanisms, including how
students can obtain assistance from their support network. The leader should encourage
students not to focus on the specific student suicide, and should discuss suicide in general.
Also, students should be encouraged to focus on their memories of the life of the deceased
student, as opposed to dwelling on the circumstances surrounding his or her death.
School counselors may also consider conducting school counseling classroom lessons,
particularly if a large segment of the student population appears to be affected by a
student’s suicide. Research suggests that a suicide curriculum should consist of at least three
classes of 40–45 minutes or a semester-long class, as these formats have been shown to
decrease suicidal ideation, depression, and hopelessness (Kalafat & Elias, 1994). In contrast,
having one lesson on suicide prevention has been found to be ineffective (e.g., Kalafat,
2003). The curriculum should focus on protective factors, including social competence,
problem-solving, coping strategies, social support, and decision-making, as this type of

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curriculum has been found to decrease suicidal thoughts and plans (e.g., Evans, Smith,
Hill, Albers, & Neufeld, 1996). In addition, Capuzzi (2009) recommends that students be
provided with a realistic understanding of suicide, including the impact upon family and
friends, the ability to recognize symptoms in themselves and friends, knowledge of school
and community resources, and learn about the myths about suicide. The stress model,
which implies that suicide is a normal response to stress, should be avoided as it has been
found to be potentially harmful as it appears to “normalize” suicide (e.g., Hayden & Lauer,
2000). Also, media portrayals should be avoided as they appear to glamorize suicide
(Kalafat, 2003).

Special Considerations in Suicide Postvention

Memorials. There is disagreement among experts regarding how to honor the deceased
student (Fineran, 2012). In general, it is recommended that schools avoid memorial
services or shrines within the school as this may encourage students’ suicidal ideation. More
appropriate memorial activities include a small tribute such as a yearbook photo, suicide
prevention fundraiser, a moment of silence, or creating a memorial scholarship fund.
Media. Only the deceased student’s school activities and facts about the suicide should
be reported, and speculation about the student’s motivation for committing suicide should
be avoided (Fineran, 2012). All statements to the media should be approved by the family
of the student. To avoid imitation suicides, the method or location of the suicide should
not be revealed. The media should be encouraged to emphasize the impact of suicide and
provide the contact information of local mental health agencies for those in need.
Ongoing care. Generally it is recommended that schools return to the routine schedule
as soon as possible, while recognizing that students may take months to years to recover.
Attention should be paid to students’ emotional status, particularly students who were close
to the deceased, have mental health issues, have attempted suicide, or those who are
identified by parents and staff. Staff and parents can be encouraged to watch for students
who appear disoriented, confused, impatient, sad, inattentive, or disruptive. School
counselors can monitor attendance patterns and changes in social and academic behavior. It
is recommended that students’ reactions be closely monitored for six months following a
suicide, and less intense monitoring should be conducted for one to two years thereafter.
Monitoring may include checking in with particularly at-risk students, soliciting the
perspectives of staff and parents, and conducting school-wide depression and suicide
screenings.

Suicide Prevention and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ)
Students
A review of the literature found that LGBTQ youth are between two and seven times more
likely than straight youth to attempt suicide (Haas et al., 2011). Although there are no
studies regarding the effectiveness of suicide prevention programs that are specifically
designed for LGBTQ youth, LGBTQ students in schools with a Gay-Straight Alliance

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(GSA) have fewer suicide attempts than schools without GSAs, and GSAs have also been
found to be associated with less truancy, substance use, and sex with casual partners
(Poteat, Sinclair, DiGiovanni, Koenig, & Russell, 2013). GSAs are based on a youth
empowerment model in which youth assume leadership roles, with adult support, to engage
in collaborative efforts to increase school safety and address inequality in schools. They also
offer youth peer support to deal with homophobic victimization and parental rejection and
provide opportunities to socialize. ASCA’s (2014) position statement regarding LGBTQ
youth encourages school counselors to advocate for the creation of safe spaces for LGBTQ
students such as GSAs. The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN)
provides a free guide for establishing a GSA on their website.

Suicide Intervention
School counselors frequently conduct informal assessments of a student’s potential for
suicide, to determine the level of intent and the possible need for referral for a formal
mental health evaluation and services (Dass-Brailsford, 2007). In situations in which the
school counselor believes that a student poses a significant risk for suicide, the school
counselor should contact the school’s mental health liaison and request that he or she come
to the school to conduct a formal mental health evaluation. Most school districts have an
arrangement with a local community mental health agency to conduct such evaluations.
According to Dass-Brailsford, suicidal intent can be assessed by examining suicidal thoughts
and the ability to control them and determining if the student has a plan, the presence of
which increases the suicide potential, and assessing the lethality of the plan. Other high or
severe risk indicators include the following behaviors: a long period of having suicidal
thoughts or depressive symptoms, isolation from peers and family, contact with other
suicidal persons, high emotional sensitivity, self-injury, drug use, aggressive behaviors,
bipolar disorder, psychosis, and sudden behavioral changes (Hays, Craigen, Knight, Healey,
& Sikes, 2009). See Box 13.6 for recommended questions for assessing a student’s suicidal
intent.

Box 13.6
Questions to Assess a Student’s Suicidal Intent (Capuzzi, 2009)
1. What are the things in your life that are bothering you?
2. Are you thinking about attempting suicide?
3. How long have you been thinking of suicide?
4. Do you have a plan to commit suicide?
5. Do you know someone who has committed suicide?
6. Have you attempted suicide in the past?
7. Do you use alcohol or other drugs?
8. Have you lost people close to you in the past year, or before this past year that you
never talked about?

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 Interventions for students with suicidal ideation is both short- and long-term. Short-
term interventions involve the counselors’ response in the course of assessing for suicide,
and are listed in Box 13.7:

Box 13.7
Short-term Interventions When Assessing Suicidal Intent (Dollarhide & Saginak, 2012)
1. Remain with the student.
2. Ask direct questions to assess the risk.
3. Encourage the student to identify his or her feelings.
4. Focus on the present, vs. the past or future.
5. Express genuine concern for the student.
6. Encourage the student to identify alternatives to suicide without minimizing the
student’s concerns.
7. Use active listening skills and accept the student’s perspectives unconditionally.
8. Implement your school’s crisis plan and notify the crisis team in the building.
9. Contact and inform the student’s parents/guardians.
10. Refer the student to a mental health agency.

The most effective approach for suicidal students involves wraparound care which includes
family support, community resources, and school monitoring for support and safety (e.g.,
Capuzzi, 2009). School counselors support suicidal students who are currently in treatment
or who have recently returned to school from treatment by periodically checking in with
the student to reinforce the student’s use of coping mechanisms to deal with the stressors
related to the student’s suicidal intent, and the potential negative attention from peers if the
student’s suicidal ideation became known (e.g., Capuzzi, 2009).

Summary
Being prepared is essential for adequately serving students, and in reducing the district’s
legal risk. If there is a failure to make a good faith effort to create safe schools, especially if
the risk was obvious and foreseeable (Taylor, 2001), the school district may be vulnerable
to a lawsuit for negligence (US Department of Education, 2007). As such, the call to action
regarding crisis preparedness continues. School counselors have the training and skill set to
significantly contribute to crisis efforts, and should seek to assume a formal role and
leadership position in preventing and responding to crises.

References
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American School Counselor Association (2014). Position statement: The school counselor and LGBTQ youth. Available
online at www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/PositionStatements/PS_LGBTQ.pdf (accessed September 17,
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 Chapter Fourteen
Legal and Ethical Concerns in
School Counseling

Box 14.1
2016 CACREP School Counseling Specialty Area Standards
2.b School counselor roles in consultation with families, P-12 and postsecondary
school personnel, and community agencies
2.g Characteristics, risk factors, and warning signs of students at risk for mental and
behavioral disorders
2.n Legal and ethical considerations specific to school counseling

What do I do if my principal wants me to disclose what I hear during a counseling

session? If a parent asks do I have to tell him or her what his or her child said to me? What
records do I keep and how do I maintain them in a confidential manner? When do I call a
parent about a child who is cutting him- or herself?
Unfortunately, there are seldom clear answers to the questions in the preceding
paragraph, as the correct response will often depend upon the specifics of the situation.
Furthermore, the ambiguity in discerning the right answer may be heightened because of
the presence of competing principles. For example, the first question regarding the
principal’s request for disclosure of information provided by a student in a counseling
session may involve the maintenance of the school’s safety versus the student’s right to
privacy. Moreover, the difficulties encountered in ethical decision-making are often referred
to as “ethical dilemmas.”
In order to answer the questions presented in the first paragraph, school counselors must
be familiar with a variety of sources pertaining to the practice of school counseling. The
primary sources that influence the ethical practice of school counseling include ethical
standards, federal and state laws and regulations, case law, and school district policies.

Box 14.2
The primary sources that influence ethical practice include:

• ethical standards
• federal and state laws and regulations

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 • case law
• school district policies.

In this chapter, we will focus upon what we consider to be the foundational aspects of the
Ethical Standards for School Counselors (ASCA, 2010), and discuss laws and regulations
associated with these Standards. In order to obtain a more detailed understanding of all of
ASCA’s Ethical Standards, we highly recommend that school counseling students download
this document, which can be obtained for free on ASCA’s website.

Negligence and Malpractice

Professionals as a whole seek to practice ethically and in a manner consistent with the law as
it benefits consumers and promotes the profession as a whole. Furthermore, school
counselors want to practice in an ethical manner because they can be found civilly liable if
they fail to exercise “due care” in meeting their professional responsibilities (Stone, 2013).
While school counselors are rarely sued, and in most states employees are protected from
personal liability as long as they are not acting in a willful or wanton manner (Euben,
2003), it is important that school counselors understand how to decrease the likelihood of
being sued.
School counselors can be found to be negligent if they “owed a duty,” or in other words,
failed to act, and their failure results in an injury or damage. An example of negligence
would be a school counselor who did not report suspicions of child abuse (Linde, 2007).
Most courts have ruled that school counselors did not owe a duty to provide accurate
academic advice, prevent suicide, or inform parents when their child is considering
abortion (Stone, 2013).
School counselors are more likely to be accused of malpractice than negligence.
Malpractice is defined as “professional misconduct or any unreasonable lack of skill in the
performance of professional duties” (Lovett, as cited in Hopkins & Anderson, 1990, p. 48).
A finding of malpractice requires that a student experienced harm as a result of the school
counselor’s lack of skill or appropriate behavior (Linde, 2007). An example of malpractice
would be if a school counselor conducted eye movement desensitization and reprocessing
(EMDR) with a student who suffered sexual abuse, when the school counselor had not
received the necessary training to use EMDR.

Box 14.3
Negligence – failing to act when a student is “owed a duty” (aka – failing to act).
Malpractice – professional misconduct or any unreasonable lack of skill in the
performance of professional duty (aka – acting in a manner inconsistent with your
training).

The standard of practice is used in any court proceeding to determine if the school

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counselor’s conduct was within accepted practice (Stone, 2013). Often, the testimony of a
witness who is considered to be an expert within the profession is used to determine
whether or not the professional met the acceptable standard of care. Other sources used by
the courts to determine the appropriate standard of care include the counselor’s
involvement and adherence to the requirements of credentialing bodies, the ethical
standards of the respective professional organizations, involvement in continuing education,
and school board policies. School counselors are most likely to experience legal troubles for
failing to follow or violating school board policies (Linde, 2007). This highlights the
importance for school counselors to know the communities they serve. For example, a
school counselor who worked in a district in which there was a large percentage of Latino
or Asian American families should understand that encouraging students to follow their
career aspirations regardless of their family expectations might conflict with the more
communal worldview of the students and their families.
The first thing a school counselor should do if confronted with a legal action is contact a
lawyer and then inform his or her supervisor (Linde, 2007). The school counselor should
not attempt to resolve the conflict with the student, the student’s parents, or the family’s
lawyer without the advice of a lawyer. Also, the school counselor should not discuss the case
with anyone other than his or her lawyer or supervisor.

Laws, Regulations, and District Policies

As mentioned previously, in addition to ethical standards, school counselors must also
understand laws, regulations, and school district policies when engaging in ethical decision-
making. As we review some of the more important Ethical Standards for School Counselors
(ASCA, 2010), we will refer to these other sources that influence the practice of school
counseling when pertinent. First, we will provide an overview of these legal sources.
The common law tradition of the United States involves the continual emergence of
new legislation. Laws that are enacted by state and national legislatures are referred to as
statutory law.

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 Figure 14.1 Types of laws affecting school counselors.

Government agencies, such as state departments of education, are established by state and
national legislatures to develop what is referred to as regulatory law in order to implement
the intent of legal statutes. Case law represents rulings from judicial proceedings that
interpret either the legality or intent of statutory laws.
Local school board policies and regulations tend to have more influence than laws upon
the day-to-day practice of school counselors. For example, school districts may adopt
policies regarding the role of school counselors, such as if parents should be notified if their
child is receiving individual or group counseling, etc. In contrast to larger school districts,
which are more likely to have an identified director specifically for the school counseling
program and official policies and procedures governing school counselors, it is not
uncommon for smaller districts to lack policies specific to school counselors. Also, in
smaller school districts, while administrators may assert that the ethical policies and
procedures governing teachers are the same for school counselors, this is not necessarily the
case. Most school counselors adhere to the ethical codes of professional counseling
organizations, and not professional organizations associated with teaching.
School districts also cannot implement policies and procedures that are inconsistent
with state laws and regulations (Schmidt, 2014). For example, if a state statute designates
communications between a student and his or her school counselor to be of a privileged
nature (an issue we will discuss later in this chapter), then school districts cannot deny
privileged communication status. It is not uncommon for districts and/or administrators to

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want school counselors to engage in practices that may conflict with state laws or ethical
standards. School officials may not be aware of regulations specific to school counseling,
and thus school counselors must be knowledgeable about the laws, regulations, and ethics
that govern the profession, and seek to resolve potential conflicts, which usually involves
first speaking with an administrator or the supervisor of the school counseling program.

Ethical Standards for School Counselors (ASCA, 2010)

Most school counselors abide by ASCA’s Ethical Standards for School Counselors (2010).
The Ethical Standards for School Counselors, like most ethical standards, are aspirational in
nature, identifying what generally is considered ideal or best practice. They do not always
indicate the clear choices that school counselors should make to avoid conflict and legal
involvement and address the needs for the involved parties. The Ethical Standards
acknowledge that its members must also be “knowledgeable of laws, regulations and
policies relating to students” (A.1.d).
School counselors operate in a broad contextual field and have obligations to various
stakeholders. Possibly in recognition of the different populations served by school
counselors, the Ethical Standards for School Counselors (ASCA, 2010) are divided according
to the school counselor’s responsibilities to students, parents/guardians, other professionals,
the school and community, the school counseling profession, and maintenance of the
standards. While the Ethical Standards acknowledge that school counselors have
responsibilities to various stakeholders, the standards recognize that school counselors “have
a primary obligation to students…” (A.1.a). A primary way in which school counselors
fulfill this obligation to students is through seeking to implement and maintain a school
counseling program which promotes “the educational, academic, career, personal, and
social needs and encourage the maximum development of every student” (A.1.b). We
believe that the most foundational aspects of the Ethical Standards are mostly contained in
the section on Responsibilities, including the sections regarding Confidentiality (A.2) and
Danger to Self or Others (A.7). However, we will also examine the section regarding the
Responsibilities to Parents/Guardians (B), and Maintenance of Standards (G).

Confidentiality
The importance of confidentiality to the school counseling profession is highlighted by the
fact that it is cited as one of the five basic tenets enumerated in the Preamble of the Ethical
Standards (ASCA, 2010), and within the Responsibilities to Students there is an entire
section devoted to it.

Box 14.5
Confidentiality – each person’s right to privacy within a counseling relationship.

Confidentiality can be considered the most vital aspect of a school counselor’s relationship

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with students, and yet it is also the most difficult ethical issue to negotiate. Confidentiality
refers to each person’s right to privacy within a counseling relationship. It is based upon the
ethical principle that the counseling relationship fosters autonomy by providing a secure
environment in which students can explore their thoughts, feelings, actions, and goals to
develop the insight essential for improving one’s decision-making capabilities. The notion
is that if students believed that information that they share within a counseling relationship
might be communicated to teachers, administrators, or their parents, they would not
engage in free exploration. In other words, without the assurance of confidentiality, many
students may not come to the school counselor, or self-disclose difficult issues (Ford,
Milstein, Halpern-Felsher, & Irwin, 1997).
Although all educators like to believe that every child comes to school ready to learn,
unfortunately, there are many issues that interfere with children’s realization of their
academic potential. Assisting a child in managing personal issues in a confidential setting
can enable children to actualize their academic potential. One of the most important roles
of a school counselor, who can be considered the professional most qualified to help
students with socio-emotional issues, is to help children manage personal obstacles that
interfere with their learning. Ledyard (1998, p. 172) states, “If confidentiality is not
established through an educated source such as the school counselor, students may
unwittingly confide in unreliable or ill-informed sources for help with their problems.” The
school counselor’s training in promoting social/emotional development is an area of
expertise that sets these professionals apart from other education professionals.
When initiating a relationship with a student, school counselors are expected to obtain
informed consent, meaning that they communicate to the student the purposes, goals,
techniques, and procedures of counseling, and the potential limitations of confidentiality
(A.2), which are explained in greater depth later in this chapter.

Box 14.6
Informed Consent – an individual must be deemed competent (e.g., able to make
decisions regarding his or her own well-being) and be made aware of the purposes, goals,
techniques, and procedures of counseling, as well as the potential limits to
confidentiality, before counselors can ethically begin a therapeutic relationship.

The Ethical Standards require that the student has the developmental capacity to
understand the limits of confidentiality (A.2.a), but it does not provide the criteria for
determining a student’s capacity for providing informed consent. A further complication is
that some courts have ruled that that minors lack the capacity to understand and enter into
confidential relationships (Schmidt, 2014).
The legal status of minors is highly ambiguous (Stone, 2013). For example, there is
considerable variation between state regulations in regards to when students can drive,
marry, engage in sexual relations, enter contracts, and consent to medical services. Eighteen
is commonly considered the legal age of majority unless otherwise specified in state statutes.

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Minors generally are not able to make decisions on their own behalf. Rather, the Supreme
Court has ruled that parents have a legal right to make critical decisions about their
children (Isaacs & Stone, 1999), and as a consequence, parents are considered to have a
legal right to information shared by their children in counseling sessions. Some courts have
also ruled that minors cannot legally enter into counseling without parental consent
because it is considered a contractual relationship (Remley & Herlihy, 2013).
State statutes often can provide school counselors with some guidance in making a
determination of minor status and a child’s capacity for informed consent. In some states,
there are statutes identifying the age at which children can consent to mental health services
without parental permission. For example, in Pennsylvania, at the age of 14, an individual
has the right to enter or decline mental health services. Therefore, it can implied from this
statute that in Pennsylvania, students who are at least 14 years old and do not have any
cognitive limitations that might impair their reasoning, may give informed consent.

Privileged Communication
Whereas confidentiality is an ethical principle, privileged communication is a legal term,
meaning that communication revealed to a professional is protected from having to be
revealed in a court of law. State laws vary considerably in regards to privileged
communication. In some states, privilege is granted to clients in counseling relationships
(Remley & Herlihy, 2013), while in other states, there are specific statutes that provide
privilege to communications between a student and a school counselor. The right of
privilege may be waived, meaning that if granted permission by the student, the school
counselor is required to share this information in a court proceeding. States vary in regards
to whether the right of privilege belongs to the student or the parent. Stone (2013) found
that almost half of school counselors were not aware if their state granted privilege. Not
knowing this important legality can be considered ethical negligence.

Box 14.7
Privileged Communication – a legal (not ethical) term indicating which types of
conversations and interactions are not required to be revealed in a court of law.

Courts typically have ruled that communications beyond two people are not privileged
(Schmidt, 2013). Thus, the Ethical Standards indicate that school counselors explain to
students that “confidentiality in group counseling cannot be guaranteed” (A.6.c).

Limitations to Confidentiality
Parents’ rights and confidentiality. One of the most important limitations to
confidentiality is the recognition enunciated in the Ethical Standards of “parents’/guardians’
legal and inherent rights to be the guiding voice in their children’s lives, especially in value-
laden issues” (A.2.d). Also, court rulings usually are more likely to recognize parents’ legal

336
right to information related to their child’s counseling (Herlihy & Corey, 2006). Herein
lies the essential dilemma. The profession regards confidentiality as the cornerstone of
counseling, and yet this principle is not always recognized by courts.
School counselors must favor parents’ rights over the student’s rights when students may
be a threat to self or others. Most notably, the Ethical Standards state that school counselors
must “inform parents/guardians and/or appropriate authorities when a student poses a
danger to self or others” (A.7.a). School counselors are required to breach confidentiality to
“prevent serious and foreseeable harm to the student” (A.2.c). The Ethical Standards
provide some guidelines for school counselors in negotiating the delicate balance between
students’ and parents’ rights. The Ethical Standards indicate that the age of the child and
consideration of the “circumstances requiring the breach” are essential factors when
considering violating confidentiality and sharing information with parents (A.2.e). The
discussion regarding the “circumstances requiring the breach” go on to mention the phrase
“value-laden issues,” which can be inferred to include such issues as abortion, sexual
activity, contraceptive services, etc., and situations in which a child may be at risk of harm
to self and others.
The fact that the Ethical Standards require school counselors to “Report risk assessments
to parents” (A.7.b) obviously implies that school counselors are expected to assess the
child’s potential for harming self or others. The Ethical Standards and laws do not provide
operational definitions for the terms “foreseeable” and “harm.” School counselors are
expected to receive training and be familiar with the current literature regarding some of
the self-destructive behaviors (e.g., depression, suicide, self-injury, eating disorders) and
forms of interpersonal violence (e.g., bullying and dating violence) in which some youth
engage. Hays et al. (2009) provide comprehensive risk assessment guidelines for these
common behaviors of concern, and this document can be available to download for free in
the archives of the Journal of School Counseling.
Danger to self or others. The terms used within the Ethical Standards of “serious and
foreseeable harm” are not clearly defined within the Ethical Standards or by law.
Foreseeable, as defined by the American Heritage dictionary (1985), means “to see or know
beforehand.” Use of the term “foreseeable” means that the behavior in question is in
regards to a future and not a past action.

Box 14.8
Foreseeable – implies that school counselors are required to break confidentiality only if
there are reasons to suggest that the student will be a danger to self or others in the
future.

In other words, school counselors are generally not required to inform parents and/or
authorities of actions that have occurred in the past only in as much as they may be
indicators of the potential for future harm. For example, as surprising as this may sound, in
the absence of state statutes or district policies, a school counselor may not have to break

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confidentiality in situations in which a student has committed a violent act, stolen
property, or used illicit substances unless that data suggests that the student represents a
threat to self or others in the future.
The term “serious” is also not easily defined. While a school counselor may be
concerned about an adolescent’s future use of alcohol or drugs, the adolescent’s use must
rise to the level of “serious harm” in order to justify a breach of confidentiality. Most likely,
a high school student who reports that he or she plans to imbibe alcohol or smoke
marijuana during a weekend party does not rise to the level of “serious.” However, an
adolescent who reports that he or she plans to use cocaine or heroin could constitute a
situation involving “serious harm” given the potential for single-use lethality with these
drugs. Although a future act may be illegal, such as in the case of underage drinking, using
cigarettes, shoplifting, prostitution, etc., if it does not necessarily entail serious harm to self
or others, school counselors are not required by law to report a crime that has already been
committed (Fischer & Sorenson, 1996).
However, the school counselor must still consider the degree to which the parents
should be involved in a situation in which a child is engaging in an illegal act (Stone,
2013). Stone provides the example of a 16-year-old girl who informs her school counselor
that she has shoplifted on a consistent basis. The school counselor can help the girl
understand the potential ramifications of her behavior, and may consider referring the girl
to a community agency so that she can develop insight regarding her behavior. While the
school counselor may decide to involve the girl’s parents in the counseling process, the
school counselor does not necessarily need to reveal that the girl admitted to shoplifting.
The best course of action is for the school counselor to encourage the girl to voluntarily
involve her parents in the counseling process, and the school counselor can offer to meet
with the girl and her parents to explore the issue together.
Remley and Herlihy (2013) assert that the most effective way for school counselors to
justify their ethical decision-making is to act in accordance with the way a reasonable
counselor would act in a similar situation. Thus, it can be helpful to know how professional
school counselors reason about violating confidentiality when confronted with risk-taking
behaviors among students. A national survey found that professional school counselors
report being more likely to breach confidentiality when behaviors are more intense (e.g.,
ranging from a small to large amount of alcohol use) and of greater frequency/duration
(e.g., ranging from once several months ago to monthly for several months; Moyer &
Sullivan, 2008). There is considerable agreement among school counselors, however, that it
is ethical to violate confidentiality when students are engaging in suicidal behaviors, even at
the lowest levels of frequency/duration and intensity. School counselors were also likely to
favor breaching confidentiality for behaviors involving self-mutilation, substance use, and
antisocial acts, but the level of agreement for these acts did not reach the level of
consistency demonstrated by school counselors when asked about reporting students’
suicidal behaviors. For sexual behaviors and alcohol use, school counselors generally only
recommended breaching confidentiality for higher levels of frequency and intensity, and
were very unlikely to favor breaking confidentiality for any level of smoking.

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 Many school counselors tend to side in favor of parents’ rights when assessing a child’s
risk potential, and this tendency would most likely be supported by many school
administrators and courts. However, school counselors must remember that the Ethical
Standards emphasize a student’s right to privacy and confidentiality. School counselors are
urged to remember that they have a special role in helping students. The role of the school
counselor is somewhat different from that of teachers and administrators, who are expected
to uphold and maintain school rules and student codes of conduct. The specialized training
of school counselors provides them with the skills to help students address socio-emotional
issues that contribute to their engagement in self-destructive behaviors and interpersonal
violence. In other words, school counselors can help some students learn to meet their
needs in more effective, socially acceptable ways. If students believe that the school
counselor would breach confidentiality for any sensitive topic, students are likely to cease
sharing information that could be vital to the counseling process. The importance of
maintaining confidentiality is further supported by the fact that the Ethical Standards
require that confidentiality is only breached “after deliberation and consultation with other
counseling professionals” (A.7.a).
Suicide. While suicidal ideation would certainly seem to meet the definition of
“serious,” it is not uncommon for adolescents to contemplate suicide, which raises the issue
of whether a student admitting to suicide ideation constitutes “foreseeability.” School
counselors can assess the degree of risk for suicide by asking about the frequency of the
student’s suicidal thoughts, whether he or she has a plan for completing the act,
determining the potential lethality of the plan, and whether the student has attempted
suicide in the past, etc.
The courts have yielded contradictory rulings regarding the school counselor’s
responsibility in breaching confidentiality in regards to a student’s suicidal threats (Stone,
2013). In the case of Eisel v. Montgomery County Board of Education (1991), the Maryland
Court of Appeals ruled that school counselors had a duty to notify the parents of a 13-year-
old student named Nicole Eisel who informed peers that she intended to kill herself.
Several of Nicole’s friends informed their school counselor about Nicole’s suicidal threats,
and their school counselor informed Nicole’s school counselor. The two school counselors
questioned Nicole but she denied making any such threats. The school counselors did not
inform Nicole’s parents or the administrators about the suicidal statements. Soon after,
Nicole and a friend committed suicide.
The Maryland Court of Appeals cited the loco parentis doctrine which states that
educators legally serve in the role of parents. Furthermore, the Court ruled that school
counselors have a special duty to engage in reasonable care to protect a student from harm,
defining reasonable care to include attempting to prevent a suicide when informed of a
student’s suicidal intent. Thus, in Maryland, school counselors must warn both a parent
and administrator of suicidal threats made by a student to a school counselor. This includes
even indirect threats, such as rumors that a student has threatened suicide, regardless of the
perceived seriousness of the threat. Since the Eisel ruling, courts in some states have ruled
that school counselors are liable for failing to notify parents of a student whom has written

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or talked to others about killing themselves, whereas other state courts have yielded
opposite rulings (Stone, 2013).
Sexual activity and abortion. As mentioned earlier, ASCA’s Ethical Standards (2010)
indicate that school counselors must recognize that parents have a right to provide guidance
to their children, “especially in value-laden issues” (A.2.d). Few topics can be more value-
laden than those regarding sexuality. School boards have the right to adopt policies
restricting school counselors’ discussion of specified topics with students, and some school
boards have forbidden school counselors from discussing sexual activity and abortion
(Stone, 2013). In considering whether to breach confidentiality, school counselors must be
familiar with their state’s laws regarding whether minors may seek contraceptive services
and obtain an abortion or prenatal care without parental consent.

Box 14.9
Contraceptive Service: Twenty-six states allow minors (12 and older) to obtain
contraceptive services without parental consent, while 20 states permit only certain
categories of minors.
Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Service: All states permit minors to consent to STI
services.
Abortion: The majority of states require parental involvement in a minor having an
abortion.
Prenatal Care: Thirty-two states permit all minors to consent to prenatal care
(Guttmacher Institute, 2015).

There is considerable variation between states in regards to the lawful age of consent for
sexual activity (Stone, 2013). In some states, is it illegal for two persons under the age of 18
to engage in sexual relations. The age of consent is as young as 14 in some states, and as old
as 17 in other states. A related issue is statutory rape, which is defined as an adult who
engages in a sexual relationship with a minor. States, again, have different laws regarding
the age difference to qualify as statutory rape. To determine if a situation may be defined as
statutory rape, school counselors can consult with the district’s legal counsel or contact the
Child Protective Services or police department.
Sexually transmitted diseases. One topic upon which the ASCA Ethical Standards
(2010) is extremely explicit is in regards to situations in which a student is engaging in
sexual activity and has a disease that is communicable and fatal (A.2.f). In such situations,
the school counselor may breach confidentiality by informing a third party if the student
who has the disease does not notify his or her partner and cease engaging in behaviors that
put a third party at risk.
Child abuse. Obviously, while parents have a right to information in situations in
which there is the potential for “foreseeable and serious harm” to their child, a school
counselor should not inform parents when he or she suspects that a parent or a caregiver
has committed child abuse or neglect (42 USCS 5101). The term child abuse refers to a

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range of behaviors that includes physical, emotional/psychological, and sexual abuse,
neglect, and inadequate supervision. Federal law designates all educators as mandated
reporters, which requires that they must report suspected abuse or neglect, usually within
24 to 72 hours of first “having reason to suspect.” Reporters are free from liability for
reporting suspected child abuse/neglect, even if a subsequent investigation determines that
there is no evidence of abuse/neglect, as long as the report was made without malice,
meaning that the school counselor was not personally motivated to harm the alleged
perpetrator. Most states have serious penalties for failing to report suspected child
abuse/neglect. Mandated reporters are only responsible for reporting suspected abuse to
Child Protective Services, who are responsible for investigating reported cases.
Duty to warn. Although the term “duty to warn” is not explicitly stated, the Ethical
Standards (ASCA, 2010) imply that school counselors have a “duty to warn,” which means
that they must consider breaching a student’s confidentiality by warning the intended
target if the student poses a danger to others. The basis for the duty to warn standard stems
from the Tarasoff v. Board of Regents of California case (1976; Stone, 2013). In this case, the
client, a graduate student, informed his psychologist that he intended to kill a girl, whose
last name was Tarasoff, and who had rejected his advances. The psychologist informed the
police, who arrested but then released the client who, soon after, murdered Tarasoff. The
California Supreme Court ruled that the psychologist had a duty not only to protect but to
also warn the intended victim and her parents, as the relationship between a psychologist
and parents is special and outweighed the psychologist’s obligation to protect the client’s
privacy.
Since the Tarasoff ruling, some state courts have extended the duty to warn standard
while others have limited this obligation (Stone, 2013). Generally, a duty to warn is
required in situations where potential victims can be identified. Courts have generally ruled
that foreseeability is an essential condition for a duty to warn. If a school counselor was
informed that a child was a potential danger and failed to take action, the school counselor
could be considered negligent.
Duty to protect. Some courts have ruled that school counselors, within the school
setting, also have a duty to protect. The case of Gammon v. Edwardsville Community Unit
School District (1980) illustrates an example in which a school counselor was ruled to have
failed to meet his or her duty to protect a child (Stone, 2013). An eighth grade student
informed her school counselor that other students told the girl that another girl made
physical threats toward her. The school counselor, who had worked closely with the girl
who allegedly had been making threats, conducted an unsuccessful mediation with the two
girls. Subsequently, the school counselor met individually with the student making the
threats, warning her that she would be suspended if she engaged in physical aggression. The
school counselor also met privately with the apprehensive student and encouraged her to
avoid the girl making the threats. The school counselor did not inform an administrator or
notify the recess supervisors who were supervising the girls later that day. During recess, the
aggressor punched the victim, which resulted in a skull fracture that required surgery. The
Court ruled that the school counselor violated in loco parentis by failing to attempt to

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protect the child, and that the school counselor had sufficient proof of the potential for
harm. However, other courts in cases involving similar circumstances, such as in the case of
Sugg v. Albuquerque Pub. Sch. Dis. (1999), have not ruled that the school counselor has a
duty to protect.
Bullying. While school counselors may decide to breach confidentiality in situations in
which there is the potential for a student to direct physical violence toward another student,
the issue of whether to violate confidentiality in regards to bullying incidents is often more
ambiguous. In addition to acts of overt physical aggression, bullying also encompasses more
indirect forms of aggression, including verbal aggression, relational/social aggression, and
cyberbullying. It is not clear whether school counselors have a duty to protect in cases of
bullying. In some states, such as New Hampshire, school counselors are required by statute
to break confidentiality in situations involving bullying (New Hampshire Regulatory
Statutes, 2004). However, the courts have generally ruled that school personnel and schools
are not liable for failing to intervene in cases of bullying (Stone, 2013). It can be argued
that some forms of verbal and relational/social aggression and cyberbullying represent forms
of free speech, which is protected within the US Constitution. However, the US Supreme
Court has ruled that certain types of speech, including fighting words, obscenities,
defamation, and true threats are not protected forms of speech.
Recommendations for dealing with student violence and bullying. Ideally, school
counselors should use collaboration, advocacy, and leadership in order to increase school
safety, and thus decrease the need to consider breaching confidentiality for situations
involving violence and bullying between students.

Box 14.10
Reasons to ALWAYS break confidentiality:

• student is a danger to self (e.g., suicidal thoughts and actions)

• student is a danger to others → danger must be “foreseeable” and “serious”
• student reports experiencing abuse
• student has been diagnosed with a communicable disease and is exposing a partner to
the disease
• whenever federal or state law, or district policy mandates reporting.
• (Confidentiality regulations vary by state)

Reasons to (strongly) CONSIDER breaking confidentiality:

• drug or alcohol use (especially at elevated rates of intensity and frequency)

• sexual activity
• pregnancy/abortion
• self-harm
• bullying.

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Comprehensive strategies for improving the school climate and decreasing school violence
are explored in Chapter 11: Prevention/Auxiliary Programming. However, school
counselors in any school are likely to encounter situations in which they must consider
breaching confidentiality to protect other students. Stone (2013) recommends that school
counselors report all bullying incidents to an administrator and collaborate with the
administrator in determining whether further investigation and involvement of school
personnel is warranted. For example, a student who has demonstrated a pattern of
aggression may indicate a need for further involvement. Stone (2013) also asserts that
courts will most likely apply the principle of in loco parentis and rule that school counselors
have a duty to protect students.

Strategies for Balancing Students’ and Parents’ Rights

Probably the most effective way that school counselors can manage the ambiguity regarding
confidentiality is to be proactive in educating students and parents about the importance of
confidentiality and its limitations. The Ethical Standards (ASCA, 2010) indicate that school
counselors should explain the importance and limits of confidentiality through school
counseling lessons, the student handbook, brochure, and school website, in addition to
informing students orally (A.2.b). School counselors must “endeavor to establish, as
appropriate, a collaborative relationship with parents/guardians to facilitate students’
maximum development” (B.1.a). School counselors can establish such collaborative
relationships with parents by proactively informing parents about confidentiality, the
Ethical Standards (ASCA, 2010), informed consent, and the nature of a school counseling
program. Many parental concerns can be allayed through presentations about the school
counseling curriculum and professional responsibilities. Reassuring parents that the school
counselor will definitely contact them at any time they feel their child might be in danger
to themselves or others may go a long way to assuage concerns.
When working with individual parents, empathic and non-judgmental communication
can bridge a gap between school personnel, the student, and the parents. Sometimes
allowing parents to vent while validating their concerns may be all that is necessary to quell
a conflict. Who better to offer the emotional support needed and be able to provide a
forum in which exasperated parents can share their frustrations than the professional school
counselor, who has honed those mediation skills (Kaplan, 1995)?
McCurdy and Murray (2003) suggest using effective professional judgment for deciding
on “appropriate” inclusion of parents. Most certainly, it is not the school counselor’s job to
become “the informant” for the parents. In order to avoid this role, it may be helpful to
simply ask the parents what they wish to know. Likewise, asking the child what he or she
wants to share has value and may eliminate the problem. When a parent’s request for
disclosure of his or her child’s counseling sessions arises, it may offer a teaching
opportunity. This may open the door to a discussion between the parent and school
counselor about the value of the support being offered to the child, while also modeling
effective communication. Another effective strategy may be to offer the school counselor’s

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office as a venue for a discussion between parent and child. School counselors can also
suggest that the parent directly asks the child about the content of the counseling sessions
because, in many cases, the child wants to share his or her feelings with their parents, but
lacks the necessary skills. In many ways, confidentiality is not about keeping someone’s
secrets as much as it is about helping someone learn how to effectively share them
(Williams, 2009).
A parent’s request to learn about the content of a counseling session can also be handled
by reinforcing to the parent the importance of his or her child’s developmental growth that
is necessary for independent thinking (Mitchell, Disque, & Robertson, 2002). The school
counselor’s intention is to help the child practice talking about his or her feelings so they
can effectively share information with his or her parents. This knowledge may help
minimize parental skepticism, especially when they understand that the counseling office is
a safe place to practice the child’s communication skills. Additionally, educating parents
about the value of a trusting relationship in the school setting is as important as helping
them understand how a breach of confidentiality may harm the child and inhibit his or her
willingness to share information honestly. This simple information sharing may mitigate
the parent’s request to breach confidentiality.
Courts have generally ruled that parents have a right to know the information shared by
their child within counseling sessions, but that does not mean that parents have a right to
all of the information shared by the child. School counselors still have a responsibility to
serve and protect the students with whom they work, and, therefore, school counselors
need to be mindful of the information shared with the parent that is above and beyond
what the parent is asking for, or what the counselor is required to share by law. For
example, children may have expressed negative feelings toward a parent, and sharing such
information will only increase the tension between the student and his or her parent. When
breaking the student’s confidentiality in sharing information with the parent, the school
counselor should first seek to only share that information that may be helpful to the parent.
The school counselor may provide suggestions that could improve the parent’s relationship
with their child. For example, rather than divulge that a student has stated that he or she
hates his or her mother, the school counselor can share ideas about how the parent can hear
and understand his or her child’s anger.

Confidentiality and School Administration

The ASCA (2010) Ethical Standards require school counselors to inform school officials of
activities that “may be potentially disruptive or damaging to the school’s mission,
personnel, and property while honoring the confidentiality between the student and the
school counselor” (D.1.b). Unlike the obligation to inform parents of potential risk-taking
behavior, school counselors in the vast majority of states are not legally required to breach
confidentiality and inform administrators of students’ risk-taking behaviors (Glosoff &
Pate, 2002). Neither laws nor the Ethical Standards provide an operational definition of
what may be considered potentially disruptive or damaging behavior. A national survey

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revealed that school counselors thought it was more ethical to reveal private information
shared by students to administrators when the behaviors were directly observed versus
behaviors that were reported by students, and when the behaviors occurred on school
grounds during school hours (Moyer, Sullivan, & Growcock, 2012).

Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA)

In regards to maintaining the confidentiality of student records, the ASCA’s Ethical
Standards for School Counselors (2010) require that school counselors adhere to school
policies and state and federal laws, including the laws within the Family Educational Rights
and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA).

Box 14.11
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) – federal legislation that
describes how all written information, including educational records, should be handled
and maintained within schools. It also states that parents must have access to their
child’s educational records.

FERPA is federal legislation that regulates educational records and outlines how all written
information concerning a student must be handled and distributed in order to protect the
student and her or his family (Stone, 2013). Ideally, school counselors are not responsible
for managing educational records, but they should have a deep understanding of FERPA
guidelines in order to advocate for students’ and parents’ rights. FERPA grants parents of
minor students the right to access their child’s official school records, which includes
cumulative folders, test data, academic reports, attendance and discipline records, health
information, family background, etc. Parents’ rights to review, seek to amend, and disclose
education records are transferred to the student once he or she reaches 18 years of age.
However, once a student turns 18, parents may still have access to their child’s education
record if the child is still financially dependent. FERPA grants non-custodial parents all the
same rights as custodial parents to their child’s education record as long as there is not a
court order explicitly prohibiting the non-custodial parent’s access (Alexander & Alexander,
2009). Step-parents have the same rights as custodial parents if he or she resides in the same
residence as the child.
Parents and eligible students have the right to challenge the accuracy of information. If a
school refuses to amend an education record, parents or the eligible student may request a
hearing. If the school continues to refuse to amend the educational records, parents or the
eligible student may add a statement of disagreement which the school is required to
disclose when sharing records with other institutions/persons.
Under FERPA guidelines, schools must have written permission from parents or the
eligible student before releasing information from a student’s educational record.
Universities, military and employment recruiters, and class ring and yearbook companies
frequently request directory information. FERPA does permit districts to disseminate

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“directory information,” which includes students’ contact information, without the consent
of parents of eligible students. If a district elects to make student directory information
available, parents have the right of opting their child out of the information dissemination.
Schools may use a variety of ways to inform parents of their rights under FERPA, including
the student handbook, special letters, emails, etc. If a district decides to make directory
information available, they cannot discriminate between groups of requestors. In other
words, they cannot provide directory information to one university, but deny it to another.
Exceptions within FERPA. FERPA indicates that educators who have a “legitimate
educational interest” may have access to a student’s educational records without parental
permission. Legitimate educational interest means that a teacher or other school
professional may review an educational record for the purposes of performing tasks within
the professionals’ job descriptions. The information gathered through a record review may
be related to a student’s educational progress, discipline referrals, or may provide
information regarding a service related to the student or to the student’s family, such as
counseling. School counselors have a legitimate educational interest in performing tasks
associated with the position, but may not access a student’s record out of curiosity. School
districts must establish procedures to ensure that school officials, including outside service
providers, only access educational records for which they have legitimate educational
interests. FERPA allows school officials to disclose information from a student’s
educational record in an emergency in order to protect the health or safety of students or
other individuals. In such situations, school officials may release information and records to
appropriate parties, which may include law enforcement, public health officials, and
medical personnel.

School Counselors’ Notes

Although time does not allow for school counselors to engage in extensive note-taking, it is
considered best practice for a school counselor to document his or her time on task. These
notes may merely include first names or initials of the student and a brief comment
regarding the topic of discussion. The comments may be as generic as:

Student: AF
Topic: Family issues.

This documentation can be used as data regarding time on task without breaking
confidentiality. On the other hand, it is imperative to maintain the safety and
confidentiality of school counseling records that may require more documentation.
Ethically, it is important to keep school counseling records, but it is also important to keep
these records separate from the student’s cumulative file, which is considered an
educational record (A.8.b). FERPA designates that “sole possession records” are not
considered educational records, thus they are not subject to the disclosure accorded by
FERPA. The criteria for a school counselor’s notes to be considered sole possession notes

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are:
1. They serve as memory aids.
2. They are not accessible or shared verbally or in written form with others.
3. They are created solely for the person possessing them.
4. They include only observation and professional opinions.
Sole possession notes are best kept in a personal and secured manner. The notes should
be put in a locked place when not in use.
(Stone, 2013)

Box 14.12
Sole Possession Notes – a school counselor’s case documentation that consists of brief
memory aids intended only for the school counselor and are not added to a student’s
educational file and, therefore, are not covered under FERPA.

If the school counselor’s notes are kept on a school-owned computer, they are considered
the possession of the school. School counselors must also establish and follow a consistent
policy for the purging of their notes. For example, the school counselor may destroy their
notes for all students who have graduated from the school, or are no longer assigned to the
school counselor. School counselors cannot destroy their notes on a discriminate basis. For
example, it is unethical to destroy one’s notes for a specific child for fear that the notes
would reveal sensitive information about the child or call into question the school
counselor’s ethical decisions.
When the occasion occurs that more extensive documentation is necessary for the
difficult cases such as suicidal threats, self-mutilation, child abuse, etc., case notes must be
handled in a thorough and professional manner. Included in these notes are only objective
observations and procedures. It is not appropriate to include personal commentary,
judgments, or thoughts in these extensive notes. It is wise practice to include in the notes
lists of school professionals with whom the school counselor consulted, what decision was
made, and why a decision occurred when documenting a difficult situation. Always
consider that a court may subpoena the school counselor to make his or her notes available.
In the time of continuous new technology, confidential record-keeping can be more
tenuous and vulnerable.

Subpoenas
A survey of school counselors revealed that one third of the respondents reported that they
had been asked to testify in court (Stone, 2013). The vast majority of the school counselor
testimony requests concerned custody issues and child abuse. School counselors frequently
receive subpoenas, and commonly these subpoenas are either a request for documentation
or to testify in court. Upon receiving a subpoena, a school counselor should contract the
school district’s lawyer to review his or her options. Lawyers for defendants or plaintiffs
frequently submit such subpoenas, but the school counselor does not necessarily need to

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comply with the subpoena. In contrast, a subpoena from a judge typically requires
compliance.

Case Study
Madison is a highly motivated, 13-year-old, seventh grade student who receives mostly
“A’s.” Her teachers regard her as the model student, frequently providing assistance to
teachers and performing beyond their expectations. The teachers report that Madison is a
particularly skilled writer, and that she enjoys sharing her “emotionally deep” poetry with
them. However, Madison’s teachers report that she frequently appears “down” in that she
rarely smiles or appears happy, and they have referred Madison to you, the school
counselor.
In your first meeting with Madison, you explain that her teachers were concerned that
she often seemed “down.” She readily shares that she often feels rejected by other students,
stating “I just don’t get people. I try to be friendly, but they act like I don’t exist. What is
wrong with me?” In exploring Madison’s sadness on a 10-point scale, she reports feeling at
about a “3.” In response to your question, “Have you ever thought about hurting
yourself?”, Madison, after some hesitation, says no, but her nonverbal reactions indicate to
you that she may have had such thoughts as she appears uncomfortable but she isn’t
necessarily angry or upset with you asking such questions. You explain to her that it is not
uncommon for people to think about hurting themselves. You state that you understand
that she might feel uncomfortable telling you, but that you would like to help her if she is
having such thoughts. She states that she doesn’t want to talk about it. You ask her again,
but she denies attempting to hurt herself and she changes the subject, complaining that no
one likes her. While Madison’s thinking in general appears irrational, she readily generates
and comprehends abstract thought. She agrees to meet with you again in several days.
Madison initiates the second meeting by stating that she recently intentionally scalded
herself in the shower and in previous weeks she had made scratches on her arm with a
needle which drew blood. When asked if her parents know that she has hurt herself,
Madison does not want them to know, believing that her mother would probably say
something like, “That is a really stupid thing to do.” In the past two weeks, she also reports
several incidents where she thought her heart was racing, felt dizzy, and thought, “I’m
going to die.” When she mentioned one of these episodes to her mother, her mother’s
response was, “Don’t worry about it, it will go away.”
You remind Madison that you are obligated to notify those that can help her if she is a
threat to hurt herself. You explain that you’re concerned about her and want to help. In
order to do that, her parents need to know about the problems she is having, because you
believe that they know her the best, and are the ones who are most likely to be able to help
her. You inform her that you will be contacting her parents later that day, asking them to
meet about some problems that Madison has been having. She declines to be present as she
fears that they will be angry at her for sharing her problems with someone outside of the
family. You tell Madison that you will tell her parents specifically about her self-injury and

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possible panic attacks.
When you reach Madison’s mother, Mrs. Smith, she seems confused but reluctantly
agrees to bring along her husband for a meeting later that day. Mr. and Mrs. Smith readily
admit that they are aware of Madison engaging in several incidents of self-injurious
behavior during the past year, and that Madison’s pediatrician encouraged them to seek
counseling for her. However, Mr. and Mrs. Smith seem to be strongly united in seeing
Madison as “dramatic,” and believe that she will “grow out of it.” You share with the
Smiths what the research literature indicates about some of the potential dangers of self-
injury, but this seems to only further harden their position that there is no need for
concern. You switch tactics, asking them to identify what would indicate to them that
Madison is having a problem, and while they do not identify any specific behaviors, their
responses seem to be a bit more thoughtful, suggesting that they are thinking differently
about the problem. When asked what they would like Madison to develop at this point in
her life, they indicate that they would like her to have more friends. They ask for your help
in assisting Madison with making friends, and you agree to include Madison in a social
skills group. You also explain how that you cannot, however, focus exclusively upon
Madison’s self-injurious behaviors. You conclude the session by reiterating your concern
that Madison is at risk of harming herself, and you provide the parents with the contact
information for three mental health agencies in the area which provide counseling services
to children and their families.
Over the next several months you assist Madison in developing friendships. She attends
a six-week social skills group, and you meet with her every other week for individual
counseling. Madison demonstrates progress in making friends. She develops awareness that
she tends to over-pursue very popular girls who are not interested in becoming friends with
her. She begins to seek out girls and boys who have similar interests, and are receptive to
being friends with her. Madison also learns skills to manage her anxiety when connecting
with peers.
Madison reports that her parents never pursued the referrals you provided them. During
your individual counseling sessions, Madison reports being angry and confused with her
parents, particularly her mother, whom she describes as suffocating. Through individual
counseling, eventually she comes to realize that her mother and father have difficulty
hearing about Madison’s emotions. She realizes that it is acceptable for her to have strong
feelings, including toward her parents, but she concludes that she must be thoughtful about
how she manages her emotions in a constructive way, which she does through her poetry,
and she must be careful about how she shares her thoughts and feelings with her parents.
You occasionally check in with her about her attempts at self-injury, but she appears to be
truthful in reporting that she has not acted upon any urges to hurt herself.

Analysis of Case Study

Madison’s presenting problems indicate that she and her family are in need of services that
would be more appropriately provided within an agency vs. a school setting, and the school
counselor correctly provided the parents with appropriate referrals (A.5.a). The school

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counselor effectively handled breaching confidentiality by informing Madison of the limits
of confidentiality, conducting an informal risk assessment, and offering her options for how
to inform her parents. The fact that Madison’s parents are not interested in pursuing a
referral, which unfortunately is a fairly common response among parents, presents a
dilemma for the school counselor. The role of the school counselor dictates that they seek
to assist all students, and thus are not able to provide long-term counseling. However, the
school counselor also had an ethical obligation to assist Madison, and the school counselor
appeared to achieve an effective compromise in respecting the parents’ right to make
decisions for Madison, while also attempting to assist Madison in at least a more limited
fashion.

Summary
Because of the complexity of ethical decision-making when working in a school setting with
minors, professional school counselors should utilize a specific ethical decision-making
model. Stone’s Solutions to Ethical Problems (STEPS) for ethical decision-making have
actually been incorporated within the ASCA (2010) Ethical Standards (G.3). Consultation
with other seasoned professionals is an important and necessary ethical expectation and an
important system of support. Reaching out to other professionals for the benefit of your
career and the benefit of the children you serve is an ethical mandate. Involvement within
the state school counseling professional association can be extremely beneficial, as often
professional school counselors who participate in state professional associations are the most
knowledgeable about the regulations within the state. Finally, documenting all steps taken
in the ethical decision-making process is essential.

References
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Euben, D. R. (2003). Educational malpractice: Faculty beware? Academe, 89, 102–107.
Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, 20 U.S.C. $1232g (1974).
Fischer, L., & Sorenson, P. (1996). School law for counselors, psychologists, and social workers. White Plains, NY:
Longman.
Ford, C. A., Milstein, S. G., Halpern-Felsher, B. L., & Irwin, C. E., Jr. (1997). Influence of physician confidentiality
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Guttmacher Institute (2015, January). State policies in brief: An overview of minors’ consent law. Available online at
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destructive behaviors and interpersonal violence. Journal of School Counseling, 7, 1–30.
Herlihy, B., & Corey, G. (2006). Confidentiality. In B. Herlihy & G. Corey (Eds.), American Counseling Association
ethical standards casebook (6th ed.; pp. 205–217). Alexandra, VA: American Counselor Association.
Hopkins, B. R., & Anderson, B. S. (1990). The counselor and the law (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling
Association.
Houghton Mifflin. (1985). The American heritage dictionary (2nd college edition). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Isaacs, M. L., & Stone, C. (1999). School counselors and confidentiality: Factors affecting professional choices.

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Kaplan, L. S. (1995). Principals versus counselors: Resolving tensions from different practice models. School Counselor,
42, 261–267.
Ledyard, P. (1998). Counseling minors: Ethical and legal issues. Counseling and Values, 42, 171–177.
Linde, L. E. (2007). Ethical, legal, and professional issues in school counseling. In B. T. Erford (Ed.), Transforming the
school counseling profession (pp. 51–73). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
McCurdy, K. G., & Murray, K. C. (2003). Confidentiality issues when minor children disclose family secrets in family
counseling. The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families, 11, 393–398.
Mitchell, C. W., Disque, J. G., & Robertson, P. (2002). When parents want to know: Responding to parental demands
for confidential information. Professional School Counselor, 6, 156–161.
Moyer, M., & Sullivan, J. (2008). Student risk-taking behaviors: When do school counselors break confidentiality?
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Remley, T. P., Jr., & Herlihy, B. (Eds.). (2013). Ethical, legal, and professional issues in counseling (4th ed.). Upper
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 APPENDIX A
Group Counseling Parent Consent
Letter: English Language Version

August 15th, 2014

Dear Parent/Guardian,
Your daughter has shown interest or has been nominated by her teachers to join
“Smart-Girl”. “Smart-Girl” is an enrichment program designed to teach young girls
skills they will need for success during their adolescent years. Girls will discuss issues
such as critical thinking, mood management, refusal skills, body image, leadership and
bullying, among others. Girls also participate in activities such as role playing, journal
writing, art projects, and many other fun activities.
The “Smart-Girl” group will meet every Thursday from 3:15 pm to 4:30 pm, from
September 11, 2014 until November 20, 2014. The groups will be led by Erika
Serrano (ELL teacher), Brenda Fritzler (teacher in Green pod), and Kris Goen
(resource teacher). Matthew McClain, Baker Central School Counselor, will serve as
program manager.
Due to the overwhelming interest and nature of the program, participants must be
able to attend most sessions. Former sessions proved to be quite successful with many
of the girls finding it valuable and applicable to their lives. It is our hope that this
group will empower our young girls with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to face
the challenges of the upcoming years. We hope you will allow your student to
participate in this wonderful and exciting group! Please return this permission slip,
and attached form (portions of the attached form are optional, and information is
used by the Smart Girl program office – no personal information is published) to
school no later than Friday, September 5th, 2014. Your daughter will be notified if
she is attending this session by Wednesday, September 10th, 2014. Our first “Smart-
Girl” session will start on Thursday, September 11th, 2014.
If you have any questions regarding “Smart-Girl”, you can visit the website
www.smart-girl.org or please feel free to contact Matthew McClain.
Sincerely,
Erika Serrano, Brenda Fritzler and Kris Goen

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Matthew McClain 867–8422 Ext. 44218
*********************************************************************
____________ Yes, I would like my daughter to be a part of the Smart-Girl group at
Baker on Thursdays from 3:15 pm to 4:30 pm. I will make sure I have made
arrangements for her to walk home or for someone to pick her up at 4:30 pm (if
transportation is a concern, please contact Mr. McClain)
____________ No, I would not like my daughter to be a part of the Smart-Girl
group at Baker.
______________ _______________
Print Daughter’s Name Print Parent’s Name
______________ _______________
Daughter’s Signature Parent’s Signature

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 APPENDIX B
Group Counseling Parent Consent
Letter: Spanish Language Version

15 de Agosto de 2014

Estimado Padre/Guardián,
Su hija ha mostrado interés o ha sido nombrado por sus maestros para unir “Smart-
Girl”. “Smart-Girl” es un programa de enriquecimiento de diseñó para enseñar chicas
jóvenes habilidades que necesitarán para el éxito durante sus años adolescentes. Las
chicas discutirán asuntos como pensamiento crítico, gestión de humor, habilidades de
negativa, imagen de cuerpo, el liderazgo e intimidar, entre otros. Las chicas también
toman parte en actividades como el juego de roles, como escritura de diario, como
proyectos de arte, y como muchas otras actividades divertidas.
El grupo de las “Smart-Girl” se encontrará todos los jueves de 3:15 P.M. a 4:30 P.M.,
del 11 de Septiembre de 2014 hasta el 20 de Noviembre de 2014. “Smart-Girl” no
encontrarán sobre interrupción de primavera. Las sesiones serán dirigidas por Erika
Serrano (Maestra del ELL), Brenda Friztler (Maestra del equipo Verde), y Kris Goen
(Maestra del recursos). Matthew McClain, Consejero de Escuela de Baker Central,
servirá como Director de Programa.
Debido al interés y la naturaleza abrumadores del programa, los participantes
necesitan asistir la mayoría de las sesiones. Las sesiones anteriores resultaron bastante
exitosas con muchas de las chicas que encuentran valioso y aplicable a sus vidas. Es
nuestra esperanza que este grupo autorizará a nuestras jóvenes chicas con el
conocimiento, las habilidades, y la confianza a encarar los desafíos de los años
próximos. ¡Esperamos que permita a su estudiante tomar parte en este grupo
maravilloso y emocionante! Regrese por favor este permiso y forma conectada
(porciones de la forma conectada son opcionales, y la información es utilizada por la
oficina del programa de “Smart-Girl” – ninguna información personal es publicada) al
escuela no mas tarde que el Viernes, el 5 de Septiembre de 2014. Su hija será
notificada si asiste esta sesión para el Miércoles, 10 de Septiembre de 2014. Nuestra
primera sesión de “Smart-Girl” comenzará el Jueves, 11 de Septiembre de 2014.
Si tiene cualquier pregunta con respecto a “Smart-Girl”, puede visitar el sitio web
www.smart-girl.org o sentirse por favor libre contactar a Matthew McClain.
Sinceramente,

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Erika Serrano, Brenda Fritzler and Kris Goen
Matthew McClain 867–8422 Ext. 44218
*********************************************************************
____________ Si, Quiero que mi hija sea una parte del grupo de “Smart-Girl” en
Baker los Jueves de las 3:15 a 4:30 de la tarde. Me aseguraré de que he hecho arreglos
para ella que ande a casa o que alguien la recoja a las 4:30 de la tarde (si transporte es
una preocupación, contacte por favor a Sr. McClain).
__________ No, yo no quiero que mi hija sea una parte del grupo de las “Smart-
Girl”, en Baker.
_____________ ___________
Imprima el Nombre de Hija Imprima el Nombre de Padre
_____________ ___________
Firma de Hija Firma de Padre

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 APPENDIX C
The ASCA National Model® (2012)
Group Counseling Student
SMART Goals Worksheet

Specific Student A: I hope to be able to talk to my mom without

What is the specific issue you fighting. I hope to learn a better way to get my point across
hope to address in this group? to her without getting angry.
Measurable Student A: I would like to not fight with her every day, but
How will we measure your understand that this will be hard, so I will try not fight
growth? with her for 5 days out of the week.
Attainable Student A: I think this goal is realistic, because we used to
What outcome would be never fight, so I think this is possible.
realistic to expect, given the
timeline for the group?
Results-Oriented Student A: My mom and I will communicate without yelling
What is the result you hope or slamming doors. I will not get grounded for yelling at my
to achieve? (the change you mom.
will see).
Time Bound Student A: I will try to accomplish my goal within the next 8
When will your goal be weeks, the time of my group meetings.
accomplished?
Student:___________Semester/Year:___________
School Counselor(s):_________________________
Based on the information above, write a single goal statement sentence
Example: By the end of the semester, the number of times I am absent will decrease by 50%
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Modified from the ASCA National Model®. Templates available online at
www.schoolcounselor.org/school-counselors-members/asca-national-model/asca-national-
model-templates.

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 APPENDIX D
Middle School Career and College
Readiness Standards (MS-CCRS)

Standards Competencies Indicators

Standard #1: Competency 1: Indicator-1 Each student
Self-Awareness Students will will participate in self-
An understanding of how one’s unique demonstrate discovery
interests, talents, and aspirations play a knowledge, exercises/assessments in
role in decision-making and understanding, and order to begin the
interpersonal relationships. Individual personal awareness process of uncovering
thoughts and feelings that get students of her/his individual potentially hidden
excited about life and learning, and the talents, interests, talents, interests, and
ability to articulate passions and hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
dreams; including recognizing passions. Indicator-2 Each
challenges and potential barriers to student will begin to
attaining goals, and how healthy identify the unique
lifestyles contribute to personal and characteristics and
professional success. attributes that set
her/him apart from
other people and allow
them to express
themselves as
individuals.
Indicator-3 Each
student will begin to
articulate, through
written essay or other
creative work, how
her/his unique attributes
may contribute to or
possibly hinder their
academic and/or career
success.
Competency 2: Indicator-1 Each student
Students will will begin to develop

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demonstrate appropriate critical
personal thinking skills to make
understanding of informed, ethical, and
how their mindsets socially responsible
and behaviors decisions regarding their
impact their personal wants, needs,
personal learning and aspirations in
styles, self- relation to her/his
management, and academic and/or
social skills. postsecondary goals.
Indicator-2 Each
student will begin to
develop effective
collaboration and
cooperation skills by
engaging in
extracurricular activities
with others who share
the same interests,
passions, or personal
goals for success.
Indicator-3 Each
student will learn the
importance of self-
determination and self-
discipline and how to
apply it to learning in
order to enhance her/his
aptitude and self-
confidence when faced
with difficult tasks.
Indicator-4 Each student
will begin to develop
her/his ability to work
independently toward
achieving an academic or
personal goal.
Indicator-5 Each
student will understand
the importance of
balancing academic,
personal, and

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 community activities in
order to achieve a
holistic sense of wellness.
Competency 3: Indicator-1 Each student
Students will will learn how to
demonstrate develop a
personal awareness personal/professional
and social maturity network of adult
through the mentors that she/he may
development of access for guidance and
positive support when
relationships with developing career or
peers, teachers, and postsecondary goals.
other adults. Indicator-2 Each
student will participate
in specific assessments
that identify unique,
individual, leadership
qualities. Those
leadership qualities may
be developed and
enhanced through
practice and self-
reflection.
Indicator-3 Each
student will learn to
identify the types of
individuals (peers or
adults) upon whom
she/he may rely for
support in order to
effectively transition
through challenging
situations at home,
school, or within her/his
community.
Indicator-4 Each
student will begin to
develop and practice
self-advocacy skills and
be able to assert
herself/himself through

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 the use of appropriate
oral and written
communication.
Standard #2:
Career Awareness Competency 1: Indicator-1 Students will
Knowing the difference between jobs, Students will determine their career
occupations, and careers. Being aware demonstrate pathway, and identify at
of a wide range of local regional, knowledge and least three jobs within
national, and global career pathways awareness about that pathway that they
and opportunities while giving career pathways in would consider upon
consideration to economic, cultural local, regional, obtaining the necessary
influences, and the impact of national, and global training or education.
stereotypes on career choice. arenas as evidenced Indicator-2 Students
by the relevant will select a career
indicators. pathway of interest to
them, and take courses
within that pathway.
Competency 2: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will be identify a stereotype that
able to explain the causes barriers to a career
influences of culture pathway that they are
and stereotypes on interested in, and be able
their own career to state three ways to
options, as overcome those obstacles
evidenced by the or challenges to their
relevant indicators. success.
Indicator-2 Students
can explain how their
own family and/or
community culture may
impact their career goals.
Competency 3: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will be be able to identify how
able to understand the average salary of a
the economic particular career choice
influences and influences lifestyles.
impact on career Indicator-2 Students
pathways. can identify and utilize
two resources that can
inform them about
career pathways.
Standard #3:

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Postsecondary Competency 1: Indicator-1: Students will
Aspirations Students will have be able to articulate
Career exploration centered on students’ the opportunity to future visions of
passions, interests, dreams, visions of explore occupations themselves within the
their future self, and perceived options. based on dreams, workforce.
passions, and Indicator-2 Students
individual interests. will be able to identify
life interests and how
they relate to their
postsecondary vision of
themselves.
Competency 2: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will be be able to identify
knowledgeable several professionals in
about members in their community, and
their community “real world” information
who represent a regarding careers that
variety of career exist within their
pathways. community.
Indicator-2 Students
will be able to identify
professionals whose
careers are not
represented within their
local community, but
exist in other places.
Competency 3: Indicator-1Students will
Students will, be able to create a post-
through guidance secondary goal, based on
and support from their future vision of
their school themselves within the
counselor, workforce.
parents/caregivers, Indicator-2 Students
family members, will be able to identify
and community, how their values and
explore how their academic aspirations
dreams and interests support future life needs,
translate into career wants, and goals.
fulfillment.
Standard #4:
Postsecondary Options Competency 1: Indicator-1 Students will
The awareness of a variety of Students will demonstrate an

361
postsecondary and career opportunities develop awareness understanding of “self”
and advancements available using tools of self by assessing based on information
such as career clusters, personality motivations, given using career and
assessments, and learning style abilities, limitations,
college-ready
inventories to highlight individual interests and skills.assessments.
strengths and capabilities. Indicator-2 Students
will be able to identify
personal strengths and
weaknesses.
Indicator-3 Students
will use critical thinking
to assess possible career
pathways that best fit
their skills, abilities, and
interests.
Indicator-4 Students
will demonstrate the
ability to communicate
an academic action plan
for future goals and
achievements, based on
acquired self-knowledge.
Competency 2: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will know the difference
become between types of
knowledgeable colleges, as well as
about a variety of technical and
post-secondary apprenticeship
opportunities, programs.
including two-year Indicator-2 Students
and four-year degree will make cognitive
programs, connections between
apprenticeships, self-knowledge and post-
military service, secondary opportunities.
career and technical Indicator-3 Students
colleges, and will demonstrate the
service-learning ability to navigate and
programs such as use tools such as
Job Corps. CollegeInColorado.org,
among other online
resources as determined
by the school or district.

362
 Indicator-4 Students
will evaluate the costs,
benefits, and challenges
(to include personal,
social, environmental,
and/or family
implications) of post-
secondary opportunities.
Competency 3: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will gain identify advanced
exposure to basic placement opportunities,
academic and life extra-curricular clubs,
skills necessary to organizations and college
reach their optimal preparation programs
postsecondary available to them.
potential. Indicator-2 Students
will demonstrate
knowledge of basic
vocabulary and
information associated
with application and
interviewing processes.
Indicator-3 Students
will understand the
application and
interviewing process: to
include how to dress for
success, how to identify
strengths and abilities,
and how to
communicate verbally
and on written
assessments.
Standard #5:
Environmental Expectations Competency 1 Indicator-1 Students will
An ecological system in which school, Students will have access to programs
family, community, culture, and world understand how and activities which
view influence the students’ career their academic focus on issues of
development and post-secondary plans. environmental equitable distribution of
resources influence resources.
their career choice. Indicator-2 Students
will categorize available

363
 academic resources in
their region that
minimize academic
environmental
limitations.
Indicator-3 Students
will identify academic
environmental strengths
and limitations.
Competency 2 Indicator-1 Students will
Students will identify negative
increase their environmental
awareness of risky associations, which can
behaviors and how have an impact on post-
they can adversely secondary options and
influence career choices.
postsecondary and Indicator-2 Students
career options. will identify positive
environmental resources
(community after-school
programs and clubs)
which have a beneficial
impact on post-
secondary and career
choices.
Competency 3 Indicator-1 Students will
Students will identify their cultural
understand how and environmental
values and beliefs norms, values, and
within multiple beliefs as they relate to
environments career choice.
(school, home, and Indicator-2 Students
community) will be able to identify
influence future family structural and
career and other financial limitations
postsecondary influencing
options. postsecondary and career
options.
Indicator-3 Student will
be able to identify
limitations to their
career choice based on

364
 their geographical
region.
Indicator-4 Students
will understand
environmental factors
that influence their
physical, emotional, and
mental health in relation
to career choice.
Standard #6:
Academic Planning Competency 1: Indicator-1 Students will
The skills and knowledge necessary to Students will demonstrate the ability
map out and pass the academic courses acquire the to complete coursework
required to achieve postsecondary academic discipline in a timely manner using
goals. necessary for 8th some type of
Grade course organizational system
completion (e.g., electronic
(academic discipline calendar).
includes Indicator-2 Students
organization, will use appropriate
planning, and conflict resolution skills
effort). on an individual basis,
resulting in reduction of
disciplinary outcomes.
Indicator-3 Students
will demonstrate self-
advocacy through use of
appropriate
communication skills
when engaging teachers,
parents, and fellow
students as issues arise
over coursework.
Competency 2: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will gain be able to explain the
knowledge on how importance of
the Common Core communication skills,
State Standards teamwork, and problem-
apply to future solving skills in the
career clusters and workplace.
other postsecondary Indicator-2 Students
options. will demonstrate

365
 reasoning skills such as
critical thinking, using
logic, and forming
arguments in a socially
acceptable manner.
Indicator-3 Students
will apply personal
responsibility and
accountability skills to
promote a reduction in
their tardiness and
absentee rates.
Competency 3: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will apply information from
understand which personal interests, values,
courses are necessary and abilities assessments
to complete to select a career cluster.
graduation Indicator-2 Students
requirements in will select high school
high school to coursework that is
promote individual compatible with
career readiness. individual career cluster
interests.
Standard #7:
Employability Skills Competency 1: Indicator-1 Students will
To define, develop, Students are able to identify relevant
and hone skills that increase the locate, access, and employability systems,
likelihood of becoming and remaining utilize various including interpersonal,
successfully employed and civically systems in order to technological, and
responsible citizens. gain employability community.
information (what Indicator-2 Students
skills are needed for will evaluate
particular employability resources
jobs/careers?). for their applicability
and reliability within
their community and the
world of work.
Competency 2: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will summarize their personal
identify and develop and professional
personal and strengths.
professional Indicator-2 Students

366
 employability traits.will generate realistic
goals to enhance their
personal and
professional traits in
relation to a given career
pathway.
Competency 3: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will become aware of
identify and develop academic competencies
essential related to basic
employability skills. employability skills (i.e.
math, writing).
Indicator-2 Students
will generate goals and
an action plan for
improving their basic
employability skills (i.e.
math, writing).
Indicator-3 Students
will develop awareness of
the impact academics
have on future career
choices.
Standard #8:
Financial Literacy Competency 1: Indicator-1 Students will
The ability to recognize financial aid Students will be able to identify the
vocabulary and know what options are complete 8th grade various forms of
available to pay for post-secondary with the preparation financial aid, including
options. essential to meeting grants, scholarships, and
the needs for their loans.
postsecondary Indicator-2 Students
options. will be able to locate and
organize financial aid
information.
Indicator-3 Students
will become familiar
with financial aid
vocabulary.
Competency 2: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will know what the FASFA is
complete 8th grade and be able to locate the
with the skills to information necessary to

367
 find and apply for assist them in
federal financial aidcompleting the
to assist them in application process.
attending Indicator-2 Students
postsecondary will know the purpose of
options. determining the cost of
attendance (COA) for a
particular post-secondary
institution, and how it is
determined.
Indicator-3 Students
will know what expected
family contribution
(EFC) means and how it
is calculated.
Competency 3: Indicator-1 Students will
Students will know the online or
complete 8th grade pencil and paper
with knowledge of planning tools used by
all financial options the school or district,
available to them and how to use these for
through their state postsecondary
to pursue exploration and
postsecondary planning (i.e., Naviance®,
options. Career Cruising®).
Indicator-2 Students
will complete at least
one application for state
funding (i.e.,
scholarship, grant).
Indicator-3 Students
will determine what
payment options are best
suited to support their
postsecondary plans.
Adapted from Williams, R., & Morgan, L. W. (2014). Middle school career and college readiness standards for professional
school counselors in Colorado. Denver, CO: Colorado Department of Education. Reprinted with permission.

368
 APPENDIX E
NEA Template for Initial Media
Release: School Crisis

For immediate release

Contact: NAME
PHONE NUMBER
DATE OF RELEASE:
Headline: NAME OF SCHOOL, INCIDENT
Describe situation: At approximately TIME, DATE, TYPE OF INCIDENT occurred at
SCHOOL NAME, LOCATION.
Describe action being taken: Our school and district crisis response teams as well as
emergency responders (LIST AGENCY NAMES) are on scene.
Our major concern is for the safety of our students and staff.
List information for parents/staff:
Parents can meet their students at LOCATION ADDRESS.
Insert quote from principal/central administrator:
For more information:
Hotline number
District voice mail number
District Web site address
National Education Association Health Information Network. (n.d.). Media relations in a
crisis: Immediate issues. Available online at:
http://crisisguide.neahin.org/crisisguide/tools/index.html

369
 APPENDIX F
NEA Sample School Fact Sheet:
School Crisis

• About the school district

• Name
• Location
• Number of schools
• Cost per pupil
• District mission
• School calendar
• Board of Education members, superintendent
• About the school
• Name
• Location
• Articulation area
• Grades
• School enrollment
• School colors
• School mascot
• Motto/mission
• Principal
• Number of teachers
• Facility: When built, remodeled
• School programs
• Extracurricular activities
• Graduates
• History
• Test scores

National Education Association Health Information Network. (n.d.). School fact sheet
template. Available online at: http://crisisguide.neahin.org/crisisguide/tools/index.html

370
 APPENDIX G
NEA Sample Communications
Command Post Supplies

First Day of Crisis

Office supplies. Chairs, desks, bulletin boards, flip charts, stamps or a postage meter,
poster-making machine, computers, printers, fax machines, telephones, cell phones
and chargers, digital cameras, TV, radios, copy machine, file folders, paper, message
pads, school and district letterhead, pens, pencils.
Communications supplies. Media request forms, script for volunteers, fact sheets,
frequently asked questions, press releases.
Key lists. Staff and student telephone directories, media directory, map of school and
area.
Food and beverages. Volunteers might solicit donations from local restaurants.
Emergency supplies. Flashlights, police radio, two-way radios.

National Education Association Health Information Network. (n.d.). Sample

communications command post supplies. Available online at
http://crisisguide.neahin.org/crisisguide/tools/index.html

371
 APPENDIX H
NEA Sample Volunteer
Information

Answering the phone in crisis communications center and phone banks

• Volunteers should be equipped with a script on how to answer phone, daily fact sheets
and press releases, and frequently asked questions. Volunteers should read and become
familiar with all materials before answering calls.
• Volunteers should identify themselves as such and stick to the scripted information.
• The greeting for answering the phone is: “[INSERT NAME], Crisis Communications
Center, may I help you?”
• If the volunteer is asked his name, respond, “I am a volunteer helping the district fulfill
media requests and am not an official spokesperson. If you wish to attribute a statement,
I will be glad to take your contact information and be sure that a district spokesperson
returns your call.”
• If the call is from the public, parents or staff, the volunteer may answer questions that
are factual in nature. Take messages and record questions that need additional research.

Responding to the media

• If the call is from a member of the media, record questions and requests on the media
request form. The goal is to provide the media with fast, accurate information to meet
their deadlines.

Media Request for Information

Reporter_______________________________
Media outlet____________________________
Phone_________________________________
Cell phone_____________________________
Deadline_______________________________
Specific question_________________________
Message taken by_________________________
Date and time of request____________________
Media request for Interview
Request interview with_____________________

372
 Media outlet and reporter name________________
___TV
___Newspaper
___Magazine
___Radio
___Other
Phone____________________________________
Cell phone_________________________________
Date interview to be held_______________________
Location and logistics of interview:
___In person
___By phone
Topic_______________________________________
Anticipated length of interview____________________
Other interviewees______________________________
Message taken by_______________________________
Date and time of request__________________________

• After completing the form, file them in the designated folders – local, regional, major
national and others. Even though the phones will continue to ring, it’s important to file
the forms as quickly as possible.
• The volunteer may answer questions about factual information, such as how many
students are enrolled. If other data is requested, the volunteer should fill out a media
request for information or media request for interview form and file it in the appropriate
location for communications staff response.
• The priority for responding to the media is local first, regional second, major national
third, and international and tabloids last.

Assisting the communications center coordinator with the following duties

Morning:

• Finalize master schedule of events for the day and make available to all phone bank
volunteers.
• Finalize the daily fact sheet, and fax and email to appropriate lists. Post on Web site.
• Make sure each phone station has updated materials and supplies.
• Monitor the content of morning newspapers, wire stories and broadcast media.

Afternoon:

• Attend interagency communications director briefings and take notes.

• Prepare and distribute updated schedules and fact sheets, and post on Web site.
• Prepare and copy updated fact sheets for press briefings.
• Attend all press briefings, take notes and tape comments.

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• Research questions from phone bank and update FAQs.

Evening:

• Complete master schedule for next day.

• Remove outdated information from volunteer folders and replace with new.
• Back up computer files.
• Participate in end-of-day meeting to ensure media requests have been fulfilled and to
discuss issues that arose.
• Assemble “to do” list for following day and assign volunteers.

Other duties for volunteers

• Check incoming faxes and emails.

• Monitor Web sites and blogs.
• Monitor the contents of newspapers, radio and television reports.
• Organize and research phone bank and crisis center questions.
• Inventory and obtain supplies, such as paper, pens and pencils.
• Make sure each phone station has adequate supplies throughout the day.
• Supply copy and fax machines with paper.
• Catalog letters, cards and gifts.
• Write thank-you notes to donors.
• Keep running lists of items that need attention.

National Education Association Health Information Network. (n.d.). Sample volunteer

information. Available online at: http://crisisguide.neahin.org/crisisguide/tools/index.html

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 APPENDIX I
NEA Daily Fact Sheet Example

School District:
School Name:
Date:
Contact:
Contact Phone/Cell Phone:
Latest information:
Press briefing schedule:
Donations:
Condolences:
Funeral arrangements:
Mental health support:
Parent information line:
Web site:
National Education Association Health Information Network. (n.d.). Daily fact sheet
template. Available online at: http://crisisguide.neahin.org/crisisguide/tools/index.html

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 Index

504 plan 232–237, 247, 250

Abdul-Adil, J. K. 157
abortion 274, 279, 281, 283
academic achievement 31–32, 35, 39, 45–48, 50–51, 157, 171–172, 177, 181–182, 215
academic development 75, 88, 172–173, 187
achievement gap 16, 30–33, 45–50, 52, 54, 60, 62, 69, 71, 75, 77, 125, 173, 232
academic mission 25, 141, 152, 173, 214
accountability 25–26, 28, 30, 32–34, 41, 66
ACT, 33, 71–72, 74, 194–195, 197
action plan 29–30, 52–53, 74, 154, 183–184
action research 57, 67
Action Research Model 57
Adams, M. 181
administrator 11–12, 21, 26, 28, 31–32, 37, 39, 41, 51, 54–57, 59, 76–77, 92–93, 96,
110–111, 129, 140–141, 200, 210, 222
advanced organizers 92
Advanced Placement (AP) 29, 53, 58, 71, 74, 249, 299
Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program 58
advisory council 30, 52, 59, 96, 154, 156
advocacy 51–53, 156, 173, 183, 232, 255
adequate yearly progress (AYP) 33
African American students 32, 46–48, 55–58, 60, 133, 159, 177, 180–181, 184, 223
Akers, L. 68
Akin-Little, K. A. 166
Akos, P. 88–89, 93–95, 159, 171–174, 178–181, 183
Albers, C. A. 37
Albers, E. 268
Alexander, K. 286
Alexander, M. D. 286
Algozzine, B. 219–220, 226
Amatea, E. S. 155
American Counseling Association (ACA) 8, 10, 13–14, 16, 19–20, 51
American Education Research Association (AERA) 67

376
American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA) 5, 10, 13, 20
Amaya-Jackson, L. 266
American School Counselor Association (ASCA) viii, 5, 10, 12–16, 19, 21, 37, 39, 193,
195, 197–198, 209, 214, 221, 232–233, 249, 254–255, 269, 276
Anctil, T. M. 194, 198
Anderson, B. S. 274
Andreen, K. 37
anecdotal observation 84
anger management 72, 80, 114, 178, 216
Annandale, N. 253, 258, 261
annual agreement 30, 53, 154
archival data 92 Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) 17
Armstrong, C. 254
Army Alpha (test) 17
Army Beta (test) 17
Arni, T. J. 90
Arnold, D. L. 13
Arrington, K. 194–195, 197
ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors 27, 40, 50, 59, 127–129, 274–290
ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success 29, 40, 60, 78, 90, 96, 104, 125, 172, 193,
198–199
ASCA National Model 10, 13, 15, 20–21, 26, 37, 40, 45, 58, 67, 70, 71, 74, 88, 107, 110,
127, 152–153, 172–173, 183, 192–193, 204, 214, 232, 296
ASCA School Counselor Competencies 30, 125
Asletine, R. H.
Asian American students 55–56, 159, 180
Asian American families 275
Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) 199
Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW) 136
Association of Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) 20
Astor, R. A. 38
Astamovich, R. L. 52
Atlas, R. 256
attendance 125, 149, 155–156, 158, 182
Audio-Visual Vocational Preferences Test 209
authentic assessment 80
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) 243–244
Axner, M. 55

Bailey, D. F. 126
Baker, S. B. 2, 13, 89, 173
Bal, A. 234

377
Ballard, M. B. 31
Bailey, T. R. 195
Bailey, V. 37
Bandeh-Ahmadi, A. 18
Bandura, A. 73, 79
Bartolucci, A. A. 216
Baumberger, J. P. 243
basic listening sequence 111–114
Bauer, S. R. 134
Beck, A. T. 122–123, 266
Beghetto, R. 67
Behavioral Assessment for Children-2 (BASC-2) 37
behavioral consultation 160–161, 165–166
Behavior Education Program 83, 220
behavior intervention team 36
behavior management 146–147, 181
behavioral modification 36–37
Beeler, L. 130
Beers, C. 2, 14
Belasco, A. S. 197
Bell, H. M. 11
beliefs statement 27
Bemak, F. 125, 130, 134, 183
Benbenishty, R. 38
Benkovitz, J. 173
Bennett, G. K. 205
Berbary, C. 54
Berends, M. 48
Berg, K. I. 119
Bergan, J. R. 166–167
Berk, J. 68
Bernal, E. M. 158
Bertalanffy, L. von 38
bibliotherapy 52
Bickman, L. 108
Biernessen, K. 219
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 77
Black, D. R. 225
black history month 49, 98
Bloom’s taxonomy 96
Bogner, R. G. 221
Boland, J. B. 84

378
Bolman, L. G. 58
Borders, L. D. 50
Borum, R. 258
Bower, H. A. 157–158
Bowling, J. M. 227
Bracken, J. 18
Bradbury-Bailey, M. E. 126
Bradshaw, C. P. 36, 133
Brennan, J. C. 55
Brewer, J. M. 1
Bridgeland, J. 196–198
Bridges 205
brief counseling 107–108
Brigman, G. 62, 68, 77–78, 96, 132, 171, 174, 177–178
Bringman, N. 155
Brock, S. E. 254, 257, 259
Brodie, I. 154
Bronfenbrenner, U. 38
Brown, D. 172, 266
Brown, G. S. 125
Brown, C. 27
Brown, K. M. 173
Brown, N. W. 135
Brown vs. Board of Education 47
Bruce, A. M. 62, 127, 133, 183–184
Bruce, M. 196–198
Bryan, J. 158, 182, 197
Bryant, R. M. 49
Buffum, A. 34
bullying 38, 40, 52, 179, 181, 214–220, 225–226, 228–229, 253, 258, 279, 283, 292
bullying prevention 41, 75, 93, 218, 256
Burns, B. J. 266
Buzgon, J. W. 54

Cabrera, A. F. 158
Callanan, P. 135
Cameron, J. 223
Cameto, R. 209–210
Camodeca, M. 217, 228
Campbell, A. 82
Campbell, C. 19, 132, 171, 177–178
Cantrell, R. 222

379
Capuzzi, D. 268–270
Career Education Act 19
career and technical education (CTE) 61–62, 198–199
career aptitude tests 205
Career Cruising 205, 302
Career Decision-Making System-Revised 79
career development 75, 93, 132, 153, 180
Carey, J. 29, 33, 59, 62, 68, 78, 225–226
Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act 19, 21
Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Act 19
Carlisle, C. S. 255–256
Carrizales, D. 83
Carrol, A. G. 36
Carruthers, W. L. 222, 224
Carta, J. J. 181–182
Carter, D. 82
case law 273–276
case notes 287
Casey, A. M. 220
Catalano, R. F. 256
Chambers, T. V. 46
change agents 1, 24, 31, 45, 51, 56, 197, 214
Center for School Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation (CSCORE) 33, 68, 96,
226
certification 3, 4, 89
Chapman, C. 180
check-in/check-out (CICO) 36–37, 83, 220
Chen, G. 215
Chen-Hayes, S. F. 51–53
Chickie-Wolfe, L. A. 174–177
child abuse 265, 274, 282, 287
Child Find 235–237
Child Protective Services 121, 281–282
child study team 36, 153, 233, 237, 240–241
Chizhik, A. W. 56
choice theory 116, 134
Cholewa, V. 56
Choy, S. 180
Chung, R. C. 125, 134
circle format 147
civil liability 274
Clark, M. A. 55, 171, 174, 179–180, 184

380
Clayton, P. J. 268
closing-the-gap action plans 29–30, 183–184
Cockman, C. R. 88–89, 93–95, 179
Cocco, K. 209
Cochran, S. D. 268
cognitive-behavioral theory 109, 120–123, 218, 266
Colbert, R. D. 38
Cole, R. 155
collaboration 31, 45, 54, 57, 152–160, 173
collaborative consultation 160
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) 226
collaborative teams 59
college admission 51, 153, 158, 197
college admission essay 207
college and career readiness 35, 59, 152, 158, 180, 192, 194, 197–198, 207, 209
college application 25, 59, 206, 207
College Board 16, 46, 58, 195–196, 206–208
College Navigator 208
Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education (CRSE) 20
Common Application 207
Common Core State Standards 24, 30, 33, 34, 90, 104, 180, 196, 300
common factors model 108
community asset mapping 159–160
community partnership programs 182
comprehensive school counseling 11, 25–26, 28, 32, 69, 132, 152, 154, 172, 198, 249
Condron, D. J. 47
confidentiality 127–128, 143, 277–290
conflict resolution 178, 216, 220, 222–223
Connolly-Wilson, C. N. 256, 258–259
Constantine, M. G. 49
consultation 26, 36, 52–53, 55, 152, 160–169
contraceptive services 279, 281
Conyne, R. K. 136
Cook, C. R. 217, 228
Cook, J. B. 73, 177
Cook, M. 234
Cooley, L. 137, 139–140, 145–146
cooperative learning 91
Coping Cat Program 121
Corey, G. 125, 130, 135, 279
Corey, M. S. 125, 135
Cornell, D. 258

381
Cornely, L. 183
Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP)
iv, 1, 20–21, 24, 45, 66, 88, 107, 125, 152, 171, 192, 214, 232, 253, 273
Cox, D. D. 182
Coyne, A. 181
Craigen, L. M. 269, 279
Crepeau-Hobson, F. 254
Crick, N. R. 217–218
crisis intervention 254–255, 259
crisis prevention 253–255, 259
critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) 255–256
Crone, D. A. 83
Crosby, A. 216
crosswalking 90, 96
Crothers, L. M. 54, 79
Crowell, J. L. 136
Cruz, R. de la 18
cultural awareness 93, 104, 127, 129, 158
cultural biography 52
culturally responsive teaching 54
culture and climate assessment 257–258
Cunningham, E. G. 258
curriculum development 88, 92, 94
curriculum mapping 179, 189
Curtis, M. J. 166

Dahir, C. A. 10, 19, 74–75, 97, 194, 198

Dailey, D. 70
daily behavior report card (DBRC) 83, 220
Dahlberg, L. 216
Daluga-Guenther, N. 25, 39–40
Damico, J. 132
D’Andrea, M. 114
D’Augelli, A. R. 268
Daniels, H. 155
Darling-Hammond, L. 180
Dass-Brailsford, P. 269
data-driven decision-making 34–35, 37, 70, 71, 81, 85, 101
Daunic, A. P. 223
Davis, F. G. 2
Davis, J. B. 9
Day-Hairston, B. 224

382
Day-Vines, N. 158–159, 197, 224
Deal, T. E. 58
Dean, K. L. 266
DeBell, M. 180
DeBerard, S. 89, 147–148
debriefing question 100
Deil-Amen, R. 196
De Kruyf, L. 51–53
De La Rue, L. 38, 40
deliberate psychological education (DPE) 6
Deligatti, N. 166
DeMartino, R. 83
Desimone, L. 157
developmental approach to individual counseling 114
developmental delay 236, 241, 244
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 241, 243
DiClemente, C. C. 184, 186–187, 189
Dietel, R. 157
Differential Aptitude Test (DAT) 205
differentiation 94, 98, 249
DiGiovanni, C. D. 268
Dimmitt, C. 29, 33, 62, 68–70, 78–79, 225–226
direct student service 26, 127, 153, 174, 204
disaggregated data 32, 52, 58, 71, 75, 155
disabilities 32, 50, 98, 132, 178, 210, 232
discipline referral 29, 71, 158, 222, 286
discovery learning 56
discrepancy model 35, 233–234, 240
Disque, J. G. 284
diversity 39, 55–56, 94, 135, 154, 174, 221, 224, 259
Dodge, K. A. 217–218
Doksum, T. 227
Dollarhide, C. T. 32, 58–59, 99, 103, 269
Dowden, A. R. 57, 63
Dringard, K. 209
dropout prevention 180–181
Drummond, T. 37
dual relationship 102
Dunn, K. 67, 98, 205
Dunn, R. 67, 98, 205
DuPont, S. 25, 193
DuPraw, M. E. 55

383
Dupuis, A. 223
Durlak, J. A. 226, 259
duty to protect 282
duty to warn 282
Dymnicki, A. B. 226, 259

Eber, L. 36
ecological assessment 175
Ecological Model of Professional School Counseling 25, 39–40
education reform 9, 15, 21, 32, 90, 171, 232
Eder, K. 68–69, 89, 150
Education Amendment 18
Education for All Handicapped Education Act 19
Education Trust 8, 16, 19, 24, 31, 66, 172, 232
Einhorn, J. 210
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 6, 18
Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program (ESSCP) 19
Elementary School Counseling Demonstration Act 8, 19
Elias, M. J. 226, 267
Eliason, M. 268
Elijah, K. 249
Elliott, S. N. 102
Ellis, A. 122–123
Ellis, D. J. 122–123
Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) 256
Emery, G. 266
emotional disturbance (ED) 240–241, 244
Empowerment Groups for Academic Success 134
English as a Second Language (ESL) 57, 75
English language proficiency 32
Ennett, S. T. 227
Epstein, J. L. 155–156, 165, 183
Erchul, W. P. 167–168
Erford, B. T. 1–2, 9, 14, 18, 87, 93–95, 100–103, 125
Erikson’s psychosocial theory 93, 205
Espelage, D. L. 38, 40
Esperanza, J. 36
ethnography 67
Euben, D. 274
Evans, W. 268
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) 19, 24–25, 32–33, 45, 66
experiential learning 100, 137–138

384
experimental research 68
externalizing behaviors 82–83, 217, 220, 266
EZ Analyze 76

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) 19, 285–287

family-school collaboration 154–156, 165
Farkas, G. 234
Farmer, A. D. Jr. 157
Farrington, D. P. 41, 218
Farris, A. 160
federal grant 208
federal loan 208
Fein, A. H. 255–256, 268
Feinberg, T. A. 254, 259
Ferguson, B. 12
Ferguson, O. F. 102–103
Fermin, B. J. 195
Feuerborn, L. 83
Fezler, B. 27
Field, J. E. 79, 224
Fields-Smith, C. 157
financial aid 158, 192, 197, 207–208
financial literacy 301
Fineran, K. R. 267–268
Fischer, L. 280
Flattau, P. E. 18
Fleming, C. B. 256
Ford, C. A. 277
Ford, D. Y. 55
Foster, S. 227
Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) 59, 194, 204, 208
Freeman, K. J. 47
Freshwater, D. 137
Frey, K. S. 226
Friedberg, R. D. 122
Fuchs, D. 239
Fuchs, L. S. 239
functional behavioral analysis 37, 84
Fuqua-Whitley, D. 216

Gaetano, Y. D. 157
Gage, N. A. 220

385
Galassi, J. P. 159, 171–174, 178–181, 183
Garcia, J. H. 122
Garza, N. 210
Gay, G. 55
Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) 54, 269
Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) 53, 268–269
Geltner, J. A. 240
George Reed Act 3
Gerlad, D. 180
Getch, Y. Q. 127, 183–184
gifted and talented (GT) students 248–249
Gladding, S. T. 16, 125, 127
Glosoff, H. L. 285
Glover, T. A. 37
goal-setting 29, 91, 132, 143–144, 175, 177
Gonzales, R. 180
Goodman, R. 37, 89, 177
Goodnough, G. E. 92–95, 102–103, 125, 133, 139
Goossens, F. A. 217, 228
Gordon, G. 27–28
Gordon, R. L. 103
Gorman-Smith, D. 216
Gosselin, K. P. 194
Granello, D. H. 267
Granello, P. F. 267
Greenberg, K. R. 140, 149
Greenberg, M. T. 226
Greene, M. J. 249–250
Greenwaldt, M. E. 194
Greenwood, C. R. 181–182
Griffin, A. 54
Griffin, D. 156–158, 160
Grimley, D. M. 216
Grodsky, E. 158, 195, 197
Group Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) 266
Grothaus, T. 61–62, 155
Growcock, D. 280, 285
Gruman, D. H. 81, 84
Gueldner, B. A. 83
Guerra, N. G. 217, 228
Guillaume, A. M. 95–97, 100, 103–104
Guli, L. A. 168

386
Gutkin, T. B. 166
Gysbers, N. C. 7, 9–13, 16, 17–20, 90, 92, 172

Haas, A. P. 268
Haertel, G. D. 177
Hage, S. M. 49
Hahn, R. 216
Hall, R. V. 181–182
Halpern-Felsher, B. L. 277
Halstead, M. E. 246
Hamayan, E. 132
Hamilton, C. 219
Hanley, S. 227
Hardy, V. 219
Harper, R. E. 243
Harrington, T. F. 79
Harris, K. R. 52
Harris-Bowlsbey, J. 199
Hart, P. 157
Hartley, M. T. 210
Haston, M. 50, 56
Hatch, T. A. 13, 15–16, 29, 33, 62, 68, 78, 226
Havighurst, R. J. 93
Hawken, L. S. 83
Hawkins, J. D. 256
Hayden, D. C. 268
Hayes, J. G. 256
Hayes, R. L. 180
Haynes, N. M. 226
Hays, D. G. 269, 279
Healey, A. 269, 279
Heath, M. A. 253, 258, 261
Henderson, P. 92
Henggeler, S. W. 38
Henry, D. B. 216
Herbert, J. T. 181–183
Herlihy, B. 278, 280
Herr, E. L. 1–2, 9, 173
Herring, R. D. 47
Hess, R. S. 130
heterogeneous group 134
hierarchy of needs 214

387
Hill, G. 268
Hillmeier, M. H. 234
Hines, P. 38
Hoelzen, B. 81, 84
Holbrook, H. L. 12
Holcomb-McCoy, C. H. 157–158, 182, 193, 196–197
Holland, J. L. 205
Hollenbeck, A. F. 36, 240
homework 71–72, 91, 123, 141, 144, 176
homogeneous group 134
Hopkins, B. R. 274
horizontal articulation 88, 93
Horner, R. H. 36, 83–84, 219–220, 226
Hourse, R. J. 173
House, R. M. 180, 183
Hughes, A. 31, 69, 172
Hughes, K. L. 195
Hughey, K. 90
humanism 10
Hurt, K. 54–57

identity development 183, 205

Imbeau, M. B. 94
immigrant student 46
impact evaluation 69
indirect service 30, 52–53, 242
Individualized Education Plan (IEP) 153, 158, 209, 233–234, 241, 243–244, 247
individual planning 68, 179, 187, 204, 210
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 35, 208–210, 233–234, 236, 239–241,
243–245, 248
informed consent 127–128, 181, 277–278
inquiry learning 56
in-service 153, 174
intellectual disability 209, 238, 241, 245
institutional theory 13, 15
Instructional Support Team (IST) 153
integrators 10
internalizing behavior 82–84, 217, 220
International Baccalaureate (IB) 71, 74
International Model for School Counseling Programs 27
interval observation 84
Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) (test) 71, 74

388
Irwin, C. E. Jr. 277
Irwin, L. K. 84
Isaacs, M. L. 278
Isaacson, N. S. 255–256
Ivey, A. E. 111
Ivey, M. B. 111

Jacobi, M. 157
Jansorn, N. R. 155
Jasper, M. 137
Jaycox, L. H. 266
Jimerson, S. R. 254, 256, 258–259
job shadowing 9, 52, 209
Johnson, A. H. 17
Johnson, C. 10
Johnson, D. 134
Johnson, D. W. 221
Johnson, J. 25, 193
Johnson, R. T. 221
Johnson, S. 10
Jondahl, S. E. 102–103
Jones, M. T. 158, 195, 197
Jordan, W. J. 158
journaling 91, 95, 292
Juhnke, G. A. 161

Kaffenberger, C. J. 36, 72, 125, 177

Kahn, B. B. 161
Kalafat, J. 267–268
Kalberg, J. R. 81, 83
Kamphaus, R. W. 37
Kataoka, S. H. 266
Kaplan, D. M. 16
Kaplan, L. S. 128, 284
Karp, M. M. 195
Keller, T. 89
Kelley, S. D. 108
Kelly, F. D. 180–181
Kemp, J. 260
Kendall, P. C. 120–121
Kern, C. W. 157
Khoury-Kassabri, M. 38

389
Kim, T. E. 217, 228
Kindaichi, M. M. 49
Kish, L. 79
Kneale, M. M. 59–60
Knight, J. 269, 279
Knokey 209–210
Koenig, W. 268
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development 93
Kolb, D. 57
Kolbert, J. B. 54, 79, 224
Kolko, D. J. 266
Kolodinsky, P. 199
Kovalik, S. J. 100
Koth, C. W. 133
Kovaleski, J. 240
Kozlowski, K. 129
Kratochwill, T. R. 37, 102, 160, 166–168
Kuperminc, G. P. 256
Kutcher, S. 256

Ladson-Billings, G. 46
Laird, J. 180
Lambert, M. J. 108
Lambert, W. 220
Lamberto, R. 27
Lambie, G. W. 59
Lane, K. L. 81, 83, 220
Langevin, J. 194
Langley, A. K. 266
Lantz, A. 95, 100, 103, 129–130, 137, 146
Lapan, T. L. 33, 62, 68, 90, 172, 226
Latham, A. S. 221
Latino American students 29, 32, 46–47, 53, 55–57, 60–62, 158–159, 177, 180–181
Latino families 157, 275
Lauer, P. 268
Lazzaro, B. R. 256, 258–259
leadership 29, 31, 33–34, 45, 49, 51, 58–59
leadership group 129, 134, 159
Leaf, P. J. 36, 133
Learning Disabilities Association of America 98–99
learning disability 234, 239–240, 245–246
learning objective 97, 226

390
learning profile 93
learning style 28, 60, 94, 98, 138, 297, 299
Learning Style Inventory 98, 205
least restrictive environment (LRE) 233, 249
Ledyard, P. 277
Lee, C. 133
Lee, V. V. 125, 133, 139
Leibforth, T. N. 240
legitimate educational interest 286
Leon, A. 62
Lemberger, M. 32
lesson plan 35, 88, 95–97, 99–101, 125
Levine, P. 210
Lewis-Palmer, T. 84
LGBT students 53–54, 133, 268–269
Li, H. 234
Liberman, A. 216
Lieberman, M. A. 126
Lieberman, R. A. 254, 259
Likert scale 79, 92, 149
Limber, S. P. 41, 216, 219–220
Linde, L. E. 274–275
Lindo, N. 54–57
Lindsey, R. B. 47–50, 56
Linn, D. 103
Little, M. A. 220
Little, S. G. 166
local education agent (LEA) 233, 239
Lopez, N. 157
Lovelace, M. K. 98
low-income parents 152, 155, 157–158, 197
low-income students 31–32, 51, 157–158
Lowy, J. 216
Lucas, S. R. 48
Lupton-Smith, H. 224
Lyman, B. 253, 258, 261

MacIver, D. 137
Maczuga, S. 234
Mager, R. F. 97
Magnuson, S. 130
Maher, B. C. 182

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Maher, C. A. 182
Malekoff, A. 129, 135–138
Malone, P. S. 187
Maloney, L. A. 83
malpractice 274
Mangan, P. A. 199
Marcia, J. E. 205
Marler, B. 132
Martens, K. 37
Martin, J. 207–208
Martin, P. 31, 172, 183
Marzano, R. J. 88, 90
Maslow, A. 214
Mason, E. C. 24, 35, 39–40, 58, 240
Mathy, R. M. 268
Mattison, R. 234
Mattos, M. 34
Mays, V. M. 268
McCarroll, L. 137
McCauley, A. 89
McCelland, M. M. 115
McLean, S. 199
McClure, J. M. 122
McConnell, S. R. 83
McCradie, A. 12
McCurdy, K. G. 284
McDonough, P. M. 193–194
McGannon, W. 33, 225
McIntosh, K. 82
McKechnie, J. A. 97, 100–101
McKown, C. 47
McMahon, H. G. 24, 39–40, 50, 56, 58
McQuillin, S. 187
measurement 75, 77, 79–80
MEASURE 74
“Me I Wanna Be” group 60
mediation 52, 222–223, 225
Meichenbaum, D. 123, 168
Mellin, E. A. 181–183
Melzer, H. 37
mentor 36, 181
Menzies, H. M. 81, 83

392
Merrell, K. W. 83
Merrill, G. 9
meta-analysis 68, 89, 98, 216–218, 222, 226, 259, 265–266
Meyers, C. 209
Meyers, J. 256
Middle School Career and College Readiness Standards 196–197, 297
Miles, M. 126
Militello, M. 59
Millard, T. 59–60
Miller, W. R. 184, 187–189
Milsom, A. 126, 209–210, 243
Milstein, S. G. 277
Mims, G. A. 133
Mims, M. J. 133
Minami, T. 108
minor 277–278, 281, 285, 289
minority parents 157–158
minority students 133, 157–158, 173, 199
miracle question 120, 144
Miranda, A. 177
mission statement 24, 28–30, 35, 53, 56, 59
Mitchell, B. S. 220
Mitchell, C. W. 284
Mitchell, M. M. 36
Mitchell, J. T. 255
Modzeleski, W. 258
Montopoli, G. 199
Moore-Thomas, C. 158, 197
Morgan, L. W. 194, 302
Morgan, P. L. 234
motivational interviewing (MI) 109, 184, 187–188
Moyer, M. S. 280, 285
Mullis, F. 165
Murphy, J. J. 118–119
Murray, K. C. 284
Myers, G. E. 12, 19
Myrick, R. D. 10, 16
multicultural 2–8, 50, 52, 55, 63, 129, 159
multicultural competency 55
multiple-gate screening 37, 81, 83, 220
Mutillo, A. J. 173

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Nakasato, J. 36
National Association of Guidance Supervision and Counselor Trainers 20
National Association of Peer Programs 225
National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) 234, 260, 264
National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC) 20–21
National Career Clusters Framework 200–201
National Center for Transforming School Counseling 31
National Certified Counselor (NCC) 20–21
National Certified School Counselor (NCSC) 20–21
National Defense Education Act (NDEA) 5, 18, 21
National Dropout Prevention Network 181
National Education Association (NEA) 20, 261–262, 264–265, 309
National Office of School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA) 196, 198
National Panel for School Counseling Evidence-Based Practice 68
National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA) 10–11, 18, 20
Native American 32
Naviance 205–207, 302
needs assessment 53, 60, 71, 92–93, 96, 153
negligence 270, 274, 278
Nesson, L. 54
Net Price Calculator 208
Neufeld, J. 268
Newman, L. 209–210
Newmyer, M. D. 136
Nickerson, A. B. 254, 256, 258–259
Niebergall, S. 219
Nikels, H. J. 133
Niles, S. G. 179, 199
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act 15, 19, 21, 24–25, 31–33, 45, 66, 71, 75, 90,
154–155, 168, 194, 215, 261
Noonan, D. 227
Norcross, J. C. 184, 186–187, 189
Noorulamin, S. 95, 100, 103, 129–130, 137, 146
Norwood, E. 108
North, R. D. 9
note-taking 58, 91, 286
Now is the Time initiative 262

Occupational Information and Guidance Service (OIGS) 20

Ockerman, M. S. 35, 240
O’Donnell, P. S. 234
Oescher, J. 31

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Oesterle, S. 256
office discipline referral (ODR) 37, 81–82, 220
Olsen, K. D. 100
Olweus, D. 41, 216, 219–220
Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) 41, 219–220
opportunistic experiment 68
organizational theory 13
Orozco, G. L. 182
O’Shea, A. J. 79
Ortiz, C. D. 266
other health impairment (OHI) 245, 248
Ott, A. N. 25, 193
outcome data 28, 40, 57, 61, 72–74, 77–78, 101

Paisley, P. 126
parental consent 129, 142, 278, 281
parental permission 128–129, 286, 292, 294
parent involvement 72, 75, 155, 181–182
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) 54
parents’ rights 278–280, 284–285
parent-teacher association (PTA) 59, 77
parent-teacher conference 155–156, 165
Park-Higgerson, H. 216
Parks-Savage, A. 222
Parsons, F. 2, 9–10
Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) 200
Pate, R. H. Jr. 285
Paulsen, C. A. 70
PeaceBuilders program 216
Peace Pal Program 222
Pederson, W. 199
peer helping/support 214, 221, 225, 229
peer mediation 52, 214, 218, 221–224, 255
peer mentoring 36, 181, 218, 221
peer tutoring 181–182, 189, 221, 225
Peluso, P. 62, 177
Penaloza, R. V. 48
Pender, D. A. 136
perception data 72–73, 74, 78, 101, 225
performance-based assessment 73, 80
Perkins, G. 31
person-centered theory 109, 112, 119, 121–122, 184

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Perumean-Chaney, S. E. 216
Perusse, R. 31, 38, 69, 90, 93–95, 102–103, 125, 133, 139, 172
Pesce, R. C. 256, 258–259
Peterson, J. S. 89
Peterson, R. K. 221–222
Petroski, G. F. 172
Phillips, A. 220
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development 93, 114
Pinterest 146
Plank, S. B. 158
Pokharel, T. 256
Poll Everywhere 95
post-traumatic stress 256–266
Poteat, V. P. 268
power-sharing techniques 147
Price, G. E. 98, 205
principal 25, 31, 59, 174, 243, 263–264, 273
privileged communication 276, 278
problem-solving 177, 216, 259, 266, 268
process data 72–73, 101, 225
Prochaska, J. O. 184, 186–187, 189
Progressive Movement 14
progress monitoring 35, 175, 177–178
project-based learning 56
political theory 13, 15
program goals 29, 52–53
Provasnik, S. 180
psycheducation 63, 115–116, 121, 130, 132
Purposeful Group Techniques Model 136
Putnam, F. W. 266

qualitative research 67

Rabiner, D. 237
Rahardja, D. 68, 89, 150
Rao, M. A. 38, 40
Raskin, N. J. 109
Ratts, M. J. 51–53
Reavis, W. C. 12
Reach Higher Initiative 24, 37, 193
reality theory 116–118
Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) 27, 30, 32, 69, 172, 309

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Reddy, M. 258
reflective model 136
Reeves, M. A. 254, 256, 258–259
referral 26, 29–30, 35–36, 52, 108, 140, 142, 152–153, 158, 220, 253, 269, 289
regulatory law 275
Rehfus, J. 222
Remley, T. P. Jr. 278, 280
Resch, A. 68
Response to Intervention (RtI) 24, 34–36, 80–81, 132, 234, 239–240, 259
responsive service 27, 30, 52, 107, 152, 174
results report 74
Reynolds, A. 201
Reynolds, C. R. 37
Richards, K. 180
Richards, L. 9–11
Riedo, S. 94, 100, 147–148
right to privacy 273, 277, 280
Ringwalt, C. 227
Roach, A. T. 256
Robers, S. 260
Robertson, P. 284
Robinson, D. R. 181
Robinson, G. 227
Rochkind, J. 25, 193
Rogers, C. R. 5, 10, 13, 109, 184
Rohrbach, L. A. 227
Rolfe, G. 137
Rollefson, M. 227
Rollnick, S. 184, 187–189
Rooney, P. 180
Rothman, R. 33
Rouston, S. 225
Rowley, R. L. 46
rubric 73, 80–81, 92, 225
Ruiz, A. 25, 39–40
Russell, D. 82
Russell, J. M. 135
Russell, S. T. 268
Ryan, T. 36

Sadek, S. 217, 228

Safe and Drug Free Schools 33, 215

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Saginak, K. A. 99, 103, 269
Salazar, C. 47
Salinas, K. C. 155
Sallie Mae Fund 158
SAMIC 117
Sanchez-Lopez, C. 132
Sanders, M. G. 155
Sapp, M. 134
scaffolding 98
scaling question 61, 116, 119–120, 145, 162
Schellenberg, R. 60–62
Schellinger, K. B. 226, 259
Schenk, P. M. 193, 198
Schmidt, J. J. 276–278
Schneider, B. 180
Schoeny, M. E. 216
scholarship 158, 207–208, 268, 301–302
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) 58, 71, 74
School and Family Integration Model 183
school climate/safety 33, 133, 173, 221
school counseling core curriculum 88, 95
School Counselor Use of Time Analysis (SCUTA) 76
School Data Profile 71
school district policy 273–276, 279, 285
school psychologist 19, 123, 174, 234, 238, 243, 245–247, 257–259
school violence 38, 133, 214–215, 253, 283
School-wide Positive Behavior and Intervention Supports (SWPBIS) 24, 34, 36, 37,
80–81, 219, 259
Schreiber, J. B. 79
Schroder, V. 199
Schulz, L. L. 54–57
Scientific Based Research (SBR) 67
Schofield, J. W. 181
Schweid, J. 59
scope and sequence articulation 93
screen 35–37, 73, 81, 83, 127–128, 142, 268
Scruggs, T. E. 174
Sears, S. J. 173
Seashore, H. G. 205
Second Step Violence Prevention Curriculum 68, 96, 226
Section 504 of Rehabilitation Act 209–210, 233, 235
Seeley, K. 180

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segregation 48
self-advocacy 51–52, 63, 210, 242, 298, 300
Self-Directed Search (SDS) 205
self-efficacy 72
self-injury 129, 269, 279–280, 283, 287–289
self-monitoring 36, 168, 175, 248
Sellman, E. 224
serious and foreseeable harm 279–280, 283
Severson, H. H. 83
sex 279, 281
sexually transmitted disease (STD) 281
sexual harassment 94, 97, 99, 101, 225
Sharma, P. 266
Shaver, D. 209–210
Shazer, S. de 119, 139
Sheen, D. 253, 258, 261
Sheldon, C. B. 10
Sheldon, S. B. 155–156
Sheperd, T. L. 103
Sheras, P. 258
Shoffner, J. F. 50
Shores, C. 82
Shriver, T. P. 226
Sickmund, M. 215
Sievering, K. S. 254
Signs of Suicide 83
Sikes, A. 269, 279
Silverman, W. K. 266
Simon, B. S. 155
Sinclair, K. O. 268
Singer, J. Y. 52
Singh, A. 50, 56
Singh, K. P. 216
Sink, C. A. 32, 69, 90–91, 93, 95
Siroskey-Sabdo, L. 125, 134
Skiba, R. 221–222
Skues, J. L. 256
SMART goals viii, 60, 82, 143, 296
Smith, B. H. 187
Smith, C. K. 194, 198
Smith, M. 268
Smith, S. A. 52

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Smith, S. W. 223
Smith Harvey, V. 174–177
Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 3
Smolkowski, K. 36
Snyder, H. N. 215
social constructivism 119
social/emotional development 28–29, 75, 91, 153, 196, 223, 234, 249, 277
social and emotional learning (SEL) 226–227
social information processing (SIP) 217–218
social justice 45, 49–51, 53–54, 57, 60, 309
social skills 36, 68–69, 75, 78, 83–84, 88, 96, 114, 125, 177–178, 181, 209, 216, 266
solution-focused consultation 160, 162
solution-focused supervision 161, 165
solution-focused theory 73, 113, 118–120, 139, 143, 145, 160, 162, 164, 168, 177
Solution Shop 177
Solutions to Ethical Problems (STEPS) 289
Sorensen, S. 256, 280
special education eligibility 235, 237–239
Spight, D. L. 225
stakeholder 15–16, 27, 30–31, 35, 54, 56, 59, 63, 66, 71, 73–74, 76–78, 96, 129, 134,
140, 152–154, 158–160, 197–198, 221, 229, 238, 249, 263–264, 276
standardized tests 25, 32–33, 46, 171–172
standard practice 79, 274
standards blending 55, 60–62
statutory law 275–276
Steen, S. 125, 130, 134, 156
Steers-Wenzell, K. L. 181
Steidl, C. R. 47
Stein, B. D. 266
Stein, D. M. 89
STEM 46, 180
Stephens, D. L. 47–50, 56
Stephenson, E. R. 54
Stevenson, D. 180
Stewart, J. B. 249
Stoiber, K. C. 102
Stone, C. 74–75, 97, 128–129, 171, 174, 179–180, 184, 274, 278, 280–283, 285, 287,
289
Stonis, J. 254
Stormont, M. 220
Strait, G. G. 187
strengths-based approach 159

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Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire 37
Strickland, C. A. 88–89, 93–95, 179
Stroh, H. R. 32, 69
Strong, K. 258
Strong Kids Curriculum 83–84, 220
Student Assistance Program (SAP) 153
student advocacy 14, 52–53
student empowerment 52
Student Risk Screening Scale (SRSS) 37
Student Success Skills (SSS) 62, 68, 77, 177
student support team 36
study skills 60, 62, 72–74, 80, 174–176, 181
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) 96
subpoenas 287
substance use 71, 132, 226, 268, 279–280, 283
Sugai, G. 36, 84, 219–220, 226
suicide 83, 267, 269–270, 274, 279–281, 287
suicide postvention 266–268
suicide prevention 256–268
Sullivan, A. L. 234
Sullivan, J. R. 280, 285
Sullivan, K. 18
summarizing 35, 91, 114, 161, 166
Sun, L. 219
Super’s theory of career development 93
Support for Students Exposed to Trauma (SSET) 266
Susan, M. K. 256, 258–259
Swan, S. 187
Sweeney, B. 222
Systematic Screening for Behavioral Disorders (SSBD) 37, 83, 220
systems advocacy 52–53
systems consultation 164–165
systems-ecological theory 24, 38–41
systems level 173
Szumilas, M. 256

Tai, W. L. 68, 89, 150

Tarasoff v. Board of Regents of California 282
Tatum, B. 52
Tarvydas, V. M 16
Taylor, K. R. 270
Taylor, L. 119

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Taylor, R. D. 226, 259
Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) 183
Teaching Students to be Peacemakers Program (TSP) 222
Teich, J. 227
Terenzini, P. T. 158
Terriquez, V. 158–159
Terry, J. 187
test-taking skills 174–175
Tevis, T. L. 196
Thomas, R. V. 136
Thompson, R. A. 9–10, 14, 20
threat assessment 258–259, 261
Thurston, C. J. 182
Tillery, A. D. 256
Time Elapsed Analysis & Reporting System (TEARS) 76
time management 82, 132, 157, 176, 181
Tindall, J. A. 225
Tobin, R. 180
Todd, A. W. 36, 84
Tolan, P. H. 216
Tominey, S. L. 115
Tomlinson, C. A. 93–94
Tope, D. 47
tracking 48, 70, 171
trait/factor theory 9–10, 13
trauma 129, 238, 246, 254–256, 265–266
traumatic brain injury (TBI) 241, 246
Tran, O. K. 83
Transforming School Counseling Initiative 24, 31, 38, 40–41, 67, 172–173
transition services/planning 209, 246–247
transtheoretical model (TTM) of change 184–186, 188
Traxler, A. E. 9
Truman, J. 260
Trusty, J. 172, 179, 181–183
Ttofi, M. M. 41, 218
Turk, D. C. 168

Urban, T. 173
Urbano, A. 50, 56

Valiga, M. J. 10
value laden issues 278–279, 281

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Van Atta, R. 18
Vandiver, F. M. 155
Van Someren, K. R. 168
Van Velsor, P. 182
Van Voorhis, F. L. 155, 183
Varjas, K. 256
Veach, L. J. 125
Vision into Action 10, 19
universal screen 35, 37, 81, 83
Villares, E. 62
Vincus, A. A. 227
violence prevention 154, 216, 226, 256
vision statement 28
Viswesvaran, C. 266
visual imagery 123
vocationalists 9
Vocational Education Act 5, 18
Vocational Education Amendments 18
vocopher 11
Vossekuil, B. 258

Wadenya, R. O. 157
Wadsworth, J. 209
Wagner, M. 221
Wagner, R. 209–210
Walberg, H. J. 177
Waldo, E. 194
Walker, H. M. 83
Wall, J. 224
Walter, K. D. 246
Wampold, B. E. 108
Wang, M. C. 177
Ward, C. A. 32
Watanbe, S. 180
Weaver, R. 9
Webb, L. 62, 68, 77–78, 96, 174, 177
Weber, C. 34
Wegner, C. 225
Wehby, J. 220
Wei, Y. 256
Weikart, L. A. 215
Weintraub, A. L. 165

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Weisenback, J. 220
Weishaar, M. E. 122–123
Weissberg, R. P. 226, 259
Wells, D. S. 54
Wesman, A. G. 205
West-Olatunji, C. 56
Westwood, C. A. 165
Wethington, H. 216
What I Like to Do Inventory 209
What Works Clearinghouse 96
White, J. 165
White, S. W. 180–181
Whiston, S. C. (2008) 62, 68, 89, 150, 226
Wilgosh, L. 209
Wilkerson, K. 32, 69, 172
Wilkinson, L. A. 168
Williams, K. R. 217, 228
Williams, R. L. 94–95, 100, 103, 129–130, 137, 146–148, 284, 302
Williamson, E. G. 10
Williamson, L. L. 59
Wirt, J. 180
Wirth-Bond, S. 181
Witt, J. C. 102
Witty, M. C. 109
Woellner, R. C. 12
Wong, H. K. 102–103
Wong, M. 266
Wong, R. T. 102–103
Wren, C. 210
Wright, D. W. 46
Wright, P. D. 233, 235
Wright, P. W. 233, 235
Wubbolding, R. E. 116

Yalom, I. 126, 134

Young, A. A. 59–60, 219
Young, D. 200
Young Adult Social Behavior Scale (YASB) 79

Zalaquett, C. P. 111
Zeira, A. 38
Zinner, E. 209

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Zins, J. E. 167–168, 226
Ziomek-Daigle, J. 127, 183, 184
Zirkel, P. A. 240
Zumbo, B. 82
Zunker, V. G. 194

405