SCHOOL COUNSELORS

School Counselors - Upholding Confidentiality



School Counselors - Upholding Confidentiality

Introduction

School counseling, a crucial component to students' achievement, is a comprehensive program that facilitates students' academic, career, and personal/social development within the school setting. Professional school counselors have a minimum of a master's degree in school counseling. In order to facilitate the development of all students, professional school counselors implement a wide range of therapeutic interventions, including classroom guidance lessons on topics such as anxiety management and bully prevention, group and individual counseling, career testing and planning, parent and teacher consultation, and advocacy for systems change. Research has shown that these school counseling services improve students' academic success.(Baker, 2004) School counseling is an important topic in educational psychology because it promotes students' academic, career, and personal/social achievement in the educational settings of elementary, middle, and high schools. This entry provides details of school counseling by (a) reviewing the history of school counseling; (b) explaining the American School Counseling Association's National Model for school counseling; and (c) describing key components of a comprehensive school counseling program including guidance curriculum, counseling, career development, consulting, coordination of resources, leadership and advocacy, promotion of a safe and respectful climate, accountability, management of legal and ethical issues, and professional development.

In order to stabilize the changing focus of school counseling, in 2003, the American School Counseling Association (ASCA) developed a national model to provide consistent, comprehensive guidelines for school counseling programs and professional school counselors' duties that would promote success for all students throughout the country. A detailed description of the ASCA National Model is provided in The ASCA National Model: A Framework for School Counseling Programs, Executive Summary.

The ASCA National Model supports the school's overall mission by promoting academic achievement, career planning and personal/social development. It serves as a framework to guide states, districts and individual schools in designing, developing, implementing and evaluating a comprehensive, developmental and systematic school counseling program.

This approach to school counseling programs benefits students, parents, teachers, administrators, and the overall community. It is an integral part of each student's achievement. It is systematically delivered to every student and is not just for high achievers or at-risk students.

ASCA National Model

Systematic delivery of the ASCA National Model encompasses four interrelated components: foundation, delivery system, management systems, and accountability. The foundation is composed of (a) beliefs and philosophy on which all personnel agree; and (b) a mission statement that highlights the program's purpose, which aligns with the school and district's mission. The delivery system entails four methods needed to systematically deliver the school counseling program to all students. The first method of the delivery system is guidance curriculum. The curriculum consists of structured classroom lessons that provide knowledge and skills at the appropriate developmental level for kindergarten through 12th-grade students.(Baker, 2004) The second method is individual student planning in which professional school counselors meet with individual students to help them identify goals and future plans. The third method is responsive services to meet individual students' immediate needs through counseling, consultation, referral, peer mediation, ...