The impact of COVID-19 and the racial awakening of the United States intensified the inequities already present in many K–12 schools. Authors report a practitioner-focused case study of a high school counseling department integrating multitiered systems of support (MTSS) into their comprehensive school counseling program during the 2020–2021 school year, in response to both a global pandemic and the racial justice movement. Authors describe school counselors’ passionate commitment to supporting the school and department goal of increased graduation rate for the graduating class of 2021 in the midst of navigating virtual learning, racial and ethnic disparities, and lack of resources.
Nine professional school counselors (PSCs) and eight school counseling interns in training (SCIT) participated in semi‐structured interviews to explore their understanding and awareness of socioeconomic constructs that influence a range of social, emotional, and academic outcomes for youth. Findings suggest that participants in both groups displayed advanced cognitive complexity of constructs, more SCIT focused on the micro‐level of economic stability, and more PSCs described the constructs through their experience with examples. The authors recommend that counselor educators and supervisors develop competencies to support advanced training and continuing education to increase clarity, awareness, and understanding of socioeconomic constructs that are impacting youth clients. The authors include future research directions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.