Spirituality and comprehensive school counseling programs

Professional School Counseling, June, 2004 by Christopher A. Sink

Since spirituality is fundamental to human functioning, in this article, the author makes the case for including students' spirituality within the context of comprehensive school counseling programs. To do so, the article (a) defines spirituality in way that would be appropriate for open discourse in public schools; (b) discusses the theoretical grounding of the proposal; and (c) provides applications to ASCA's (2003) National Model in terms of its developmental standards, responsive services, large-group guidance, and counselors' behaviors.

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      The child's "house has many mansions"--including
   a spiritual life that grows, changes,
   responds constantly to the other lives, that in
   their sum, make up the individual we call by a
   name and know by a story that is all his, all hers.
   (Coles, 1990, p. 308)

During my visits to school districts around the country, I have often heard certain administrators intimating that school counselors' contributions to the education of children and youth are of lesser import than those of teachers. In recent years, however, thanks in part to the widespread implementation of programmatic approaches to school guidance and counseling, anecdotal evidence indicates that this unfounded perception is changing for the better (Sink, 2005a). Comprehensive school counseling programs (CSCPs) have evolved into well-articulated organizational frameworks that will successfully guide school counseling practice for years to come (American School Counselor Association [ASCA], 2003; Gysbers & Henderson, 2000, 2005). At their heart, CSCPs emphasize that as society and families continue to change, counselors can no longer rely on outdated, reactive interventions focused mostly on students at risk for school failure or those heading toward further education or training. CSCPs have given counselors a holistic and prevention-oriented structure to assist all students with more effective services, while at the same time supporting the teaching-learning activities going on in the school. Research compiled over the past few decades has shown that counselors operating within a programmatic framework are effectively supporting the welfare and development of students and their caregivers as well as enhancing school climate (see Borders & Drury, 1992; Lapan, 2005; Whiston, 2003, for reviews).

Coupled with this higher educational profile and demands for accountability, school counselors have added to their list of important student-centered responsibilities (Cobia & Henderson, 2003; Erford, House, & Martin, 2003; Sink, 2005a), while attempting to reduce non counseling activities (ASCA, 2003). Contemporary school counselors function in collaboration with the educational system by offering assistance, direction, and instruction to students and their families. Beyond ASCA's (1999b) core duties (counseling, consultation, coordination, plus classroom guidance), recent publications indicate that school counselors also should be (a) documenting more thoroughly their work through formal and informal evaluations (e.g., ASCA, 1997, 2003; Lapan, 2001), (b) serving more effectively a diverse school population (e.g., ASCA, 1999a, 2003; Lee, 2001), (c) integrating technological advances into their practices (Sabella, 2000), (d) helping create caring communities of learners which enhance school climate (Lapan, 2001; Sink & Rubel, 2001; Sink, 2002b, 2005b), and (e) fostering healthy student development in areas seemingly more peripheral to academics (e.g., ASCA, 1999b, 2003; Myrick, 2003; Ripley, Erford, Dahir, & Eschbach, 2003; Sink, 2002a, 2002b).

The last area mentioned above is at the center of what K-12 school counselors do each day. Until the past decade or so, the "legitimate" purview of developmentally focused CSCPs had been restricted to these fairly circumscribed domains: academic-educational, career-occupational, and personal-social. Fortunately, other aspects of students' lives are receiving more attention in the psychological, educational, and counseling literature. For example, one such area producing widespread debate is the value of spirituality as an effective "tool" for constructing a sense of purpose in lilt and for working through personal challenges (see, e.g., Coles, 1990; Kozol, 1995, for good examples of what this looks like for students).

This article's primary aim is to make the case that CSCPs and the students' they serve would benefit from adopting a more holistic or sociocultural perspective of human development--one that extends to the spiritual. To do so, I first discuss the characteristics of this wider view of spirituality in such a way that most stakeholders with different faith traditions can generally support. Second, I provide a rationale for introducing spirituality into comprehensive programs. Third, before concluding, applications to school counseling practice are explored.

SPIRITUALITY DEFINED

So what do I mean by "spirituality" and what might it look like from a student's point of reference? While introducing this special issue, Sink and Richmond indicated that the key element of a "genetic" view of spirituality, relates to students' attempts at making sense of their lives (Coles, 1990). Specifically, it concerns purpose- or meaning-seeking activities, thoughts, feelings, and so on, which are self-energizing (see Jankowski, 2002, for a detailed discussion). These expressions are sometimes religious in nature (e.g., asking a rabbi for guidance or praying to a god), reflect the sense of the sacred, and may involve students' morals and values (Eliade, 1989; Huxley, 1989). Overall, the perspective discussed here resonates with children's own definitions of spirituality. (Maples, 2001, for recent published examples) and other broad-based conceptualizations of term (e.g., Morgenthaler, 1999; see also definitions presented in this issue's articles).