Counseling in the DAP: Enhancing Student Wellbeing and Support Services

Publisher to insert cover image here CHAPTER 8DELIVERY SYSTEM: COUNSELING ACTIVITIES IN THE DAP Developed by: Kelli Saginak, Amy Taake, & Anna GirdauskasUniversity of Wisconsin, Oshkosh

The School Counselor as Counselor • Partnership with community mental health counselors is important to understand • A school counselor may be the only person who interacts with students who is trained in any mental health paradigm • only person able to provide help and referrals • Solid identification of school counselors as counselors who provide first-line prevention and intervention

The School Counselor as Counselor • Often many misconceptions of counseling • Historical context of school counseling • Movie and public depictions of counselors • Letters to parents and teachers at the beginning of each year serve to introduce the nature and scope of the CSCP

Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment: When to Counsel and When to Refer • Counselors try to enhance the positive elements of a student’s life and mitigate the effect of negative elements through prevention efforts • strengths-based counseling • Work with primarily short-term and medium-term issues • Short-term issues: 4-8 counseling meetings (lasting 10-30 minutes each)

Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment: When to Counsel and When to Refer • Medium-term issues: full semester or may resolve themselves as student matures and time passes • Deep-level issues may require lifelong mental health work • Counselor provide immediate intervention with referral to community mental health counselors for treatment

Collaboration Between Counselors • The community therapist and the school counselor would collaborate so that the school counselor: • Knows what medication(s) the student is taking • Would be available if the student experienced a crisis during school • Would assist in the coordination of IEP meetings • Would provide individual counseling for academic, career, and personal/social issues • Includes the student in any groups currently meeting for students with similar issues

Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention • Crisis: an event that exceeds the organism’s ability to cope • in the school community • in the individual lives of students • Building crisis response involves appropriate channels for communication and information, both inside and outside the school community • Individual crisis intervention is also known as suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention

Suicide Intervention • Prevention efforts involve informing all members of the • School counselor teaches basic assessment strategies so that everyone can help in intervention efforts • promotes referral to the school counselor if there are any concerns about potential suicide school community • Critical to take every threat seriously • Ensure the safety of the student • Consult with colleagues • Inform and involve caregivers • Follow district and building protocol

Helpful Acronyms • IS PATH WARM? • ideation, substance abuse, purposelessness, anxiety, trapped, hopelessness, withdrawal, anger, recklessness, mood changes • SLAP • S-Specifity of the suicide plan • L-Lethality of the means for carrying out the suicide plan • A-Availability of the means for carrying out the suicide plan • P-Proximity to help

Intervention Strategies • Remain with the student • Ask direct questions for clarity and assessment of risk • Encourage the student to express feelings • Focus on the present, not the past or future • Express sincere concern about the student • Encourage the student to broaden his or her awareness of alternatives to suicide

Intervention Strategies • Listen actively, calmly, and without judgement or criticism • Follow your school’s intervention plan and alert the crisis team in the building/district • Contact the student’s caregivers • Refer the student to a community-based counselor

Multiculturally Appropriate Counseling • Broaden your connections with persons of diversity • Pursue multicultural professional development and training • Address multicultural differences explicitly with the student

Multiculturally Appropriate Counseling • Understanding of the Multicultural Counseling Competencies • First know their internalized societal messages about those who are “different” • Pursue informed perspectives about the particular group whom which they are working • Weave insights into healing strategies that meet the needs of the client

Developmentally Appropriate Counseling • Take the foundation counseling skills you’ve learned and modify them to counsel young people in both individual and group counseling settings

Developmentally Appropriate Counseling • Must be mindful of the following guidelines: • Young people need to be active because they possess a shorter attention span than adults • Young people are still developing their own moral compass and intellectual, critical thinking skills • Young people may not have the emotional intelligence to be able to identify or describe their emotions

Developmentally Appropriate Counseling • Young people need to feel free to choose, while concurrently needing help articulating their framework by which to evaluate alternatives • Young people need help developing strategies for generating and evaluating alternatives, making a commitment to an identifiable alternative, and then understanding the consequences of the choices they make

Legal and Ethical Considerations • Be open and sensitive to all issues • Non-verbal cues • Constantly assess all areas of a student’s functioning • Provide adequate time and attention to all students • Students need to know you’re not going to “freak out” when you hear their problems • Must understand both the process of helping your students and the product of healing that you hope for your students

Assessment within the Counseling Process • First use of “assessment” refers to the compilation of needs and outcomes for program planning and evaluation • Needs: assessed through surveys of students, teachers, parents, and then individual/group counseling activities • Outcomes: assessed in terms of number of participants, their evaluations, what they learned, and how their school-related functioning has changed as a result

Assessment within the Counseling Process • Second use of “assessment” refers to use of formal and informal data collection during counseling for academic, career, and personal/social functioning • Counseling-related data collection

Assessments for Counseling • Essential to obtain in-depth understanding of assessment instruments and concepts • Must be aware of the criticisms of certain instruments that are often used in schools • Assessments used within the 3 domains: • Academic: help students to know their learning styles and strengths • Career development: help students further self-knowledge and match self-exploration with information about world of work • Personal/social: help students understand themselves better

Individual Counseling • Commonly practiced school counseling approaches: • Adlerian counseling: provide insights into the student’s family dynamics • Solutions-focused brief counseling: engages students in considerations of when the problem is not such a big problem, then assists them in applying “what was working then” to now • Reality therapy: uses acronym WDEP • Wants of students • Direction of the student • Evaluation of the direction • Planning for change

Using Creative Strategies and Multiple Intelligences in Counseling • Creative strategies: play, music, and art • Not age-bound • Multiple Intelligences can provide insight for how to effectively work with students • verbal, mathematic/logical, artistic, musical, naturalist, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and kinesthetic strengths • Look for counseling methods that fit the strengths of the students

Group Counseling • Primary intervention • Participants will be able to learn about themselves, other people, life tasks, and authentic ways of relating in a safe, confidential setting • More effective than individual counseling to address the needs of students, especially high-risk

Structured (Psychoeducation) VS. Process Groups • Structured/psychoeducational groups: counselor takes direct leadership of the group • identifying goals, presenting material with an assumed values orientation, selecting activities, and directing interaction

Structured (Psychoeducation) VS. Process Groups • Process groups: rely on the learning that emerges from the group interaction and spontaneous experiences that occur as the members learn to negotiate the natural progression of all relationships • forming • storming • norming • performing • adjourning

Implications and Considerations of Group Counseling • Advantages: • Developmental appropriateness • Efficiency • Expands counselor’s system awareness • Limitations: • Issue of confidentiality • Scheduling difficulties

Peer Facilitators • Older students are selected and trained to act as peer facilitators, assisting counselors with: • Peer tutoring • Peer mediation • Peer helping • Orientation programs • Peer facilitation groups • Special training: • helping process, listening, the basics of confidentiality, and facilitation of

Systems Thinking: Families, Schools, and Communities • Top 6 support assets: family support, positive family communication, supportive adult relationships, a caring neighborhood, a caring school climate, and parental involvement in schooling • Negative effects if developmental assets are missing • View all students from a holistic, naturalistic perspective • Members of interlocking and dynamic systems of social interactions • Intervention efforts aimed at students’ systems

Selection of Counseling as an Intervention • Primary ways to work with adult partners: • Educating, consulting, leadership, and advocacy • Counseling is always an option if warranted

Selection of Counseling as an Intervention • Essential issues to consider: • A student-focused problem • Time considerations • Training in family systems counseling if you are providing family systems counseling • Administrative support • Needs assessment data, program evaluation data, and processes that highlight problem solving rather than treatment • Availability of referral support • The location of the problem on the prevention-intervention-treatment continuum

Counseling in the DAP: Enhancing Student Wellbeing and Support Services