Importance of the CACREP school counseling standards: school counselors' perceptions - Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs

Professional School Counseling, Dec, 2002 by Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, Julia Bryan, Stephanie Rahill

Basic to the practice of any profession or professional specialty area is the delineation of specific knowledge and skill requirements for effective service delivery (Szymanski, Linkowski, Leahy, Diamond, & Thoreson, 1993). To this end, school counselor education programs approved by the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2001) are based on a common body of knowledge and skills that are assumed to underlie the practice of school counseling. These knowledge and skill areas comprise the curricular experiences outlined in the CACREP standards. In addition to the common core curricular experiences, the standards require that students in CACREP-accredited school counseling programs demonstrate knowledge and skills in the following areas: (a) Foundations of School Counseling, (b) Contextual Dimensions, and (c) Knowledge and Skills for the Practice of School Counseling. The last curricular experience is divided into three subcategories: Program Development, Implementation, and Evaluation; Counseling and Guidance; and Consultation. To date, CACREP has accredited 132 school counseling programs across the United States (CACREP, 2001).

Although the CACREP standards are assumed to cover the knowledge and skills necessary for effective school counseling, a great deal of attention has been given to the identity, role, and responsibilities of professional school counselors (Menacker, 1976; Moles, 1991; Shertzer & Stone, 1963; Wrenn, 1962). Authors have examined the professional school counselor's role within the components of a comprehensive guidance and counseling program (e.g., Lapan, Gysbers, & Sun, 1997; Sink & MacDonald, 1998), the school counselor's responsibilities in relation to other school personnel (e.g., Frame, Tait, & Doll, 1998; Murphy, DeEsch, & Strein, 1998), and effective strategies used by school counselors to work with various student issues and problems (e.g., Hinkle, 1993; Kahn, 1999; Kiselica, 1995). These descriptions of the role, function, and responsibilities of school counselors have helped to identify both the common professional ground and the uniqueness of school counseling among other counseling specialties (e.g., career counselors, rehabilitation counselors, mental health counselors) and related student personnel disciplines (e.g., school psychology, school social work). Nevertheless, these descriptions have not included the knowledge and skills necessary for the actual practice of school counseling.

With the tremendous expansion of the responsibilities of school counselors and the lack of data regarding the knowledge base of school counselor preparation, there is need for an examination of the importance of pre-service curricula in CACREP school counseling programs in relation to school counselors' actual practice. Therefore, the following research questions were posed:

1.What are the underlying factors of the CACREP school counseling standards?

2. To what extent do professional school counselors rate the school counseling CACREP standards to be important to their actual work as school counselors?

3.Is there a relationship between selected participant characteristics (i.e., school setting, years of experience, school community) and perceived importance of the CACREP school counseling standards?

With reference to the third question, there is some evidence (e.g., Dougherty, 1986) that work setting (e.g., high school, middle school, elementary school) influences the importance of particular school counselor responsibilities. Likewise, it has been suggested that a school's community (e.g., rural, urban, suburban) influences the work of the school counselor (Worzbty & Zook, 1992). There is no research or literature, however, to suggest that years of experience influences school counselor's' perceptions of school counselor responsibilities or accreditation standards. Nevertheless, the researchers believed that exploring the relationship between length of time a counselor has practiced and his or her perception of the CACREP standards would be advantageous because of the rather recent development of CACREP (i.e., 1981) as an accrediting body of school counseling programs. School counselors, for example, with more experience and who graduated before 1981 may perceive the standards differently than school counselors with less experience and who graduated after 1981.

METHOD

Participants

A random sample of 600 practicing school counselors was drawn from the membership of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA). The sample was randomly selected by a computerized system at the ASCA headquarters. Out of the 600 surveys mailed, 187 (31%) usable surveys were obtained. Consistent with the demographics of the school counseling profession, many of the participants in the study were female (80%). A vast majority of the participants identified their ethnic background as European/White (92%). The ethnic background of the remaining participants included the following: African American/Black, 2%; Hispanic/Latino, .5%; Asian, 2%; Native American, .5%; and not reported, 3%. Participants also reported the number of years of experience they had in the school counseling profession. The largest percentage of participants (32%) have been in the profession for more than 15 years, while 27% have been in the field for 5 to 10 years, 26% for 1 to 4 years, and 12% for 11 to 14 years. The school setting that the participants work in was varied with 41% of the participants working in elementary settings, 20% in a middle or junior high school, and 32% in a high school. Approximately half of the participants (48%) reported that they work in a suburban community, while 30% work in a rural setting and 18% in an urban setting. These percentages are based on the participants who completed the demographic information sheet.