BRIEF COUNSELING IN SCHOOLS
Professional School Counselors perform many roles in a school building, from supporting a student with personal problems, working with parents and extended family, guiding growth and development of young people, administering tests, creating systems to reach a large student population, and often filling in gaps with may be unrelated to the counseling department. School counselors are often seen as the jack-of-all-trades in a school, with various skills and attributes that are suited to work effectively with a wide range of people in diverse and often high stress situations.
School counselors face several barriers in their day, and have on average an incredibly large caseload of students. The American School Counselor’s Association (ASCA) states that the average counselor to student ratio is 476:1. However, ask any school counselor what their biggest challenge is and you will likely get the response that their ultimate barrier and hurdle is overcoming time limitations. School counselors understand that there are several competing demands on their time, and find that they are up against a ticking clock each time a student comes to their office. One brief counseling theory professional school counselors have found useful is Solution-Focused Brief Counseling.
Solution-Focused Brief Counseling is well suited for school counselors because:
1. Counseling is solution focused rather than problem focused.
2. Counselors are focused on the individual’s strengths, with the belief that each individual is capable.
3. Counselors strive to treat each session like it could be the last.
4. Individual Small changes can have big impacts.
However simple and straight forward Solution-Focused Counseling may seem it is important for school counselors to recognize that specific training and supervision is needed to be adept at using the strategies promoted by solution-focused counselors such as; the miracle question, scaling, instead/exception questions, and effectively creating appropriate goals.
Currently, empirically supported research is limited on the effectiveness of brief counseling, and solution-focused techniques. Since is hard to see a time when constraints on counselors will loosen, we can expect that for the foreseeable future school counselors at all levels will continue to face daunting numbers of students and many constraints on their time. With brief intervention strategies such as Solution-Focused Counseling, school counselors can have another much needed tool for their toolkit, though data to support their use is imperative. Future directions for brief counseling strategies include increasing research on the effectiveness and implementation in schools using specific solution-focused, or other brief counseling theories and techniques.
School counselors face several barriers in their day, and have on average an incredibly large caseload of students. The American School Counselor’s Association (ASCA) states that the average counselor to student ratio is 476:1. However, ask any school counselor what their biggest challenge is and you will likely get the response that their ultimate barrier and hurdle is overcoming time limitations. School counselors understand that there are several competing demands on their time, and find that they are up against a ticking clock each time a student comes to their office. One brief counseling theory professional school counselors have found useful is Solution-Focused Brief Counseling.
Solution-Focused Brief Counseling is well suited for school counselors because:
1. Counseling is solution focused rather than problem focused.
2. Counselors are focused on the individual’s strengths, with the belief that each individual is capable.
3. Counselors strive to treat each session like it could be the last.
4. Individual Small changes can have big impacts.
However simple and straight forward Solution-Focused Counseling may seem it is important for school counselors to recognize that specific training and supervision is needed to be adept at using the strategies promoted by solution-focused counselors such as; the miracle question, scaling, instead/exception questions, and effectively creating appropriate goals.
Currently, empirically supported research is limited on the effectiveness of brief counseling, and solution-focused techniques. Since is hard to see a time when constraints on counselors will loosen, we can expect that for the foreseeable future school counselors at all levels will continue to face daunting numbers of students and many constraints on their time. With brief intervention strategies such as Solution-Focused Counseling, school counselors can have another much needed tool for their toolkit, though data to support their use is imperative. Future directions for brief counseling strategies include increasing research on the effectiveness and implementation in schools using specific solution-focused, or other brief counseling theories and techniques.