Keywords; Definition
Staff of Counseling, Aims of Staff Counseling, Organizational relationships, Guidance Department, Counselors’
Responsibilities, school counseling, Guidance and counseling of staff members
Definition:
Staff counseling is a psychological
health care intervention which can take many forms. Its aim is to assist both
the employer and employee by intervening with an active problem-solving
approach to tackling the problems at hand.
Employee counseling can do much to
prevent the negative effects of stress at an individual level and ultimately at
an organizational level.
Aims of Staff Counseling:
The
specific aims of staff counseling are to:
·
Explore
and find the key sources of difficulty.
·
Review
the individual’s current strategies and styles of coping.
·
Implement
methods of dealing with the perceived problem, thereby alleviating the issue.
Often, this step may involve also improving interpersonal relations at work
and/or improving personal performance.
·
Evaluate
the effectiveness of the chosen strategies.
Staff Assignments
While the program must be defined and
organized to meet the identified needs of students and the established goals of
the program, the assignments of the program staff also must be appropriately
defined and organized. Although school counselors have the primary
responsibility for delivery of the Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance
and Counseling Program, full program implementation calls for employing a wide
range of categories of staff and distinguishing between their roles. Organizing
the staffing patterns and defining their organizational relationships are also
required.
Staff categories: The personnel resources available to
a campus or district guidance program vary with the size of the district and the
school / district’s commitment to the guidance program. Professional,
paraprofessional, and volunteers from the school guidance department, the
school staff, and the district and community are used.
School Staff:
•
Administrators’
responsibilities may relate to the guidance program: provision of responsive
services to students who are having behavior or other problems; referral of
students for counseling; provision of system support to the program and the
counseling staff; administration of functions which link to guidance activities
(e.g., scheduling, testing program coordination).
•
Teachers
may perform such guidance functions as the teaching guidance curriculum,
advising in the individual planning system, and referring students for
counseling.
District staff:
•
Guidance
department administrators and supervisors lead and assist in developmental
guidance and counseling program planning, design, implementation, and
evaluation. They provide staff development activities through supervision,
evaluation, and in-service training of campus guidance staff. They are
responsible for materials and resources.
•
Psychological
services personnel coordinate and collaborate with counselors to ensure
continuity of services for students with special, psychological needs.
•
Social
Workers and other related mental health specialists augment the guidance
program staff. In general, their services are extensions of Responsive
Services.
Competence. The responsibilities that various
people carry out in comprehensive, developmental guidance and counseling
program implementation must be specifically defined. Responsibilities should be
appropriate to the individuals’ background, training, and competence; for
example, guidance department heads should be trained in supervision of school
counselors.
Personnel without school counselor
certification should be trained to carry out their responsibilities in the
guidance and counseling program, e.g., teachers trained to be advisors,
community representatives trained to be school speakers, and parent volunteers
trained in tasks and parameters of their jobs. They should also be schooled
regarding the needs of students.
Personnel without school counselor
certification cannot legally be used in place of certified professional school
counselors, but rather to augment the program. All personnel assisting in the
delivery of the guidance program should adhere to the ethical and legal
standards of the counseling profession. Key standards are those regarding
students’ and parents’ rights and confidentiality.
Staffing patterns. Staff load and/or special program
assignments for individual staff members need to be:
•
supported
by a rationale appropriate to student and community needs, and to campus
guidance program goals and objectives;
•
appropriate
to each counselor’s or staff member’s program responsibilities;
•
Appropriate
to each counselor’s or staff member’s training, background, and area of
specialization.
Organizational relationships. The guidance department has primary
responsibility to implement the Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance and
Counseling Program the local board of education adopts as policy. Personnel
without school counselor certification who are active in the program should be
supervised by the professional school counselors.
Within the professional school
counseling staff, organizational relationships should be clearly defined. Those
counselors with special responsibilities should be clearly identified. The
guidance department head should be delegated the authority needed to supervise
the counseling and guidance department staff.
Mechanisms which facilitate
communications between the various members of the guidance program staff need
to be employed; for example, regular staff meetings should be held.
Guidance Department:
•
Counselors
may be assigned to conduct their responsibilities comprehensively (i.e., to
fulfill all responsibilities for the counselees in their group assignments).
Specialist counselors may be assigned to carry out special program assignments
or to serve special student groups. Special program assignments include
guidance department leadership, crisis team, and building test coordination.
Special group assignments include students in compensatory education, special
education, career and technology education, and substance abuse/prevention
programs.
•
Paraprofessional
support personnel are needed to fully implement the Texas Comprehensive,
Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program and include secretaries,
registrars, career center technicians, and scheduling clerks.
Counselors’ Responsibilities
When a fully certified school
counselor is employed, the administration, faculty, parents, and community
should expect the counselor to carry out eight basic responsibilities
competently and in a professional and accountable manner. The eight responsibilities
are:
•
Program
Management
•
Guidance
•
Counseling
•
Consultation
•
Coordination
•
Student
Assessment
•
Professional
Behavior
•
Professional
Standards
