School counseling for the 21st Century: challenges and opportunities

Professional School Counseling, Dec, 2001 by Pamela O. Paisley, George McMahon

Combining appropriate program and role, school counselors are asked to:

1. Provide individual and small group counseling sessions

2. Conduct classroom guidance interventions

3. Consult with parents, teachers, administrators, and community agency representatives

4. Advocate for all students to enhance educational experiences and outcomes

5. Build partnerships and teams within and outside of the school

6. Be a member of school leadership and policy-making groups

7. Provide individualized, focused, and intensive interventions for at-risk students

8. Be the developmental specialist in the school setting

9. Be the mental health specialist in the school setting

10. Provide family counseling interventions

11. Coordinate school-wide programs including peer helping, peer mediation, conflict resolution, violence prevention, character education, and teacher advisory programs

12. Prevent suicides, pregnancies, dropouts, drug use, and general moral decay

13. Maintain the necessary levels of expertise in all of the above areas to ensure quality in all interventions and programs.

Even with the most ideal counselor-to-student ratio, fulfilling all of these expectations would be incredibly difficult. In reality, the average ratio in the United States ranges from 1 to 313 in Vermont to 1 to 1,182 in California (American Counseling Association, 1999). Asking school counselors facing such student loads to perform the full range of associated and appropriate functions may be beyond the scope of what is possible. When these tasks are also layered with often-assigned yet professionally inappropriate roles, the ability to design and implement effective programs is even less likely.

Increasingly Diverse Student Populations

A second challenge facing school counselors involves the increasingly diverse student populations in the schools. The changing demographics of society have been widely noted (e.g., Lee, 2001). As these changes are realized in school settings, counselors may find that psychological and educational theories and practices, developed largely from a Eurocentric perspective, may not represent the worldviews of or be the best approaches for their students and families (D'Andrea & Daniels, 2001; Lee, 2001; Murphy, DeEsch, & Strein; 1998; Skovholt, Cognetta, Ye, & King, 1997). Considerable progress has been made in the area of addressing multiculturalism within schools, but statistics continue to show gaps in academic achievement along racial and ethnic lines (Education Trust, 1996) as well as differences in those individuals who actually seek counseling services (Sue & Sue, 1999).

An additional factor increasing the level of complexity of this issue is that diversity in schools today is not limited to race and ethnicity. The term diversity actually describes a far broader range including socioeconomic status, students with disabilities (Carpenter, King-Sears, & Keys, 1998; Scarborough & Deck, 1998; Tarver-Behring, Spagna, & Sullivan, 1998), urban/suburban lifestyle differences (Omizo, Omizo, & Honda, 1997), and sexual orientation (Cooley, 1998; Lipkin, 1999; Marinoble, 1998). In fact, diversity can be used to describe any differences in the behavioral styles, attitudinal orientations, and value systems of students (Lee, 2001).