School counselors' preparation for and participation in crisis intervention

Professional School Counseling, Dec, 2002 by Melissa Allen, Karen Burt, Eric Bryan, David Carter, Ralph Orsi, Lisa Durkan

2. Continuing professional development: Are school counselors participating in professional development activities to increase knowledge and skills in crisis intervention?

3. Participation in school crisis intervention: (a) Are school counselors familiar with crisis plans? (b) Are school counselors participating on crisis intervention teams?

4. Recommendations for counselor education: Which high-priority topics of crisis intervention do school counselors suggest for strengthening school counselor education?

METHOD

Participants

Upon request, the American School Counselor Association provided 400 randomly selected names, phone numbers, and addresses of current members. Of the 276 completed surveys (69% return rate), 236 (59% of 400) were considered valid for the purposes of this study. Surveys were excluded if the participant reported never working as a school counselor.

Respondents reported practicing as school counselors for an average of 6.25 years (SD = 6.22 years). Eighty-five percent of the participating school counselors were female. Approximately 53% of the counselors reported graduating after 1995. Counselors reported the following information regarding their level of education: approximately 3% were temporarily certified, 88% completed a master's degree, 5% a specialist degree or a master's plus 30 hours, and 3% completed a doctoral degree.

The participating school counselors represented school districts in 35 states in the United States and three foreign countries. Twenty-eight percent of the counselors worked in the northeastern United States, 32% in the southern states, 20% in the north-central states, 19% in the western states, and 1% outside the United States.

Questionnaire

The preliminary version of the questionnaire was refined based on the feedback from participants in a pilot study (N = 47-16 graduate students enrolled in a school crisis intervention class and 31 school psychologists working in a school setting). The refined questionnaire was also used in a parallel study conducted with school psychologists (N = 276; Allen et al., in press). The majority of participants in these two studies indicated their willingness to participate if the questionnaire could be completed in 10 minutes or less. As a result, it was designed to be completed in 10 minutes.

Participants were asked questions related to demographic information: gender, year of graduation from a counselor education program, years of experience as a school counselor, level of academic preparation, number of students in the school district, student to school counselor ratio, ethnic composition of students served, and type of community (rural, suburban, or urban). In addition, 16 questions solicited information related to the four categories of research questions: university preparation (seven questions); continuing professional development (two questions); participation in school crisis intervention (five questions); and recommendations for counselor education programs (two questions).