The Importance of School Counselors

838 Words2 Pages

A school counselor’s role is vital in many schools across America. Many students see their counselor, to work on any emotional stressors, academic changes and challenges. This may include, interventions, group therapy and changes in class schedule, but sometimes with all the implementations given, students do not succeed in school. Perhaps one needs to take a closer look at the programs being implemented and its success rate. In addition, a counselor should guide itself using the ASCA (American School Counselor Association) to provide evidence based practices in schools.
According to Carey and Dimmitt, it is essential for counselors to use evidence-based practice to make sure they are able to ensure and improve student outcomes (2008). Counselors would be able to use a model to facilities research, that is to use data to identify a problem, find practiced that been shown to lead improvements and determine the effectiveness of the intervention (Carey & Dimmitt 2008). Counselors can also use the same model to determine if any existing intervention is effective. I believe many counselors do use some, if not all, of these components of the model. The demands of a counselor is driven by data due to No Child Left Behind Act, in which this ensures all students are making academic growth. Although there shows to show great success rates for using science in the field of school counselor, one must consider the obstacles that may make it difficult to implement.
Quality outcome research for programs is key and necessary. When counselors are asked to create an intervention for a particular group of students, the counselor must take in mind what type of program to use. Although, the counselor can create their own intervention based on res...

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...ere are staff developments, counselors should be given time to understand or research programs for their school. It’s important that counselors are given adequate training and understanding of science-based programs. This means administration and mental heath staff should support counselors in gather research and implementing research-based programs.
In summary, school counselors would benefit from using science when creating new programs and interventions for their schools. Using science, in the end, will save a counselor time because their has been time dedicated to show that the program used is proven to be useful and successful thus having to find another program year after year or researching why there isn’t growth. A counselor self esteem will also boost, as they know the program they implemented is science-based and will have a good outcome with students.

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