School counselors are a well-positioned resource to reach the significant number of children and adolescents with mental health problems. In this special school counseling issue of The Professional Counselor, some articles focus on systemic, top-down advocacy efforts as the point of intervention for addressing child and adolescent mental health. Other articles investigate improving child and adolescent mental health through a localized, groundlevel approach by developing school counselors' competency areas and specific school counseling interventions. Article topics include school counselors' professional identity, training, self-efficacy, supervision, burnout, career competencies and cultural competencies, as well as how to measure the impact of school counselors' interventions. The author discusses the importance of school counselors' role within schools, and hindrances to school counselors' ability to perform their role as counselors.
When working with LGBT service member clients, counselors should use the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies as a framework to guide their practice as they navigate the intersection between the military culture and LGBT culture. This framework addresses four domains that are foundational for multicultural and social justice competency: (a) counselor self-awareness, (b) the client worldview, (c) the counseling relationship, and (d) counseling and advocacy interventions. Included in the framework are the following aspirational competencies within each domain: attitudes and beliefs, knowledge, skills, and action. Best practices for culturally competent, social-justice-focused work with LGBT service members within each of these domains are discussed.
Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Defense shows military spouse suicide to be an imminent concern for the U.S. military. Currently, there is an absence of research in the counseling profession related to suicide prevention and intervention for this population. Therefore, this qualitative phenomenological study explored the perceptions of military spouses regarding suicide within their community. Ten military spouses were interviewed twice and were asked to provide written responses to follow-up questions. Six main themes emerged: (a) loss of control, (b) loss of identity, (c) fear of seeking mental health services, (d) difficulty accessing mental health services, (e) the military spouse community as a protective factor, and (f) desire for better communication about available mental health resources. Implications for practicing counselors and military leadership in helping to prevent military spouse suicide as well as recommendations for future research regarding ways to support military spouse mental health and prevent suicide in this community are included.
Counselors-in-training face the challenges of balancing academic, professional, and personal obligations. Many counselors-in-training, however, report a lack of instruction regarding personal wellness and prevention of personal counselor burnout. The present study used CQR methodology with 14 counseling graduate students to investigate counselor-in-training perceptions of self-care, burnout, and supervision practices related to promoting counselor resilience. The majority of participants in this study perceived that they experienced some degree of burnout in their experiences as counselors-in-training. Findings from this study highlight the importance of the role of supervision in promoting resilience as a protective factor against burnout among counselors-in-training and provide information for counselor supervisors about wellness and burnout prevention within supervision practice
The purpose of this study is to examine how recent incidents of planned mass violence in high schools within the United States were successfully averted. Using the Averted School Violence database, this study utilizes a mixedmethods content analysis approach to analyze 82 incidents of averted mass violence in high schools that occurred post-Columbine era. The following three themes were identified: attack motives and logistics, plot discovery, and attack aversion. Implications for professional school counselors in preventing similar mass violence attacks in the future are discussed, including fostering trusting relationships between students and adults, providing education to parents about social media platforms and proper firearms storage, establishing threat assessment teams, and educating parents, students, and school personnel about warning signs for violence.
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.