Leadership in Guidance: A Survey of School Counseling Supervisors

Abstract

The authors present the results of a survey of district-level school counseling supervisors in Virginia. The results indicate that few school divisions employ individuals with the title of guidance supervisor. In divisions where such positions exist, they are staffed most often by individuals with guidance training and experience. The supervisors surveyed indicated that they spend a substantial portion of their time providing direct consultative support and assistance to counselors, engage in few research activities, and have few consultative contacts with counselor educators. Recommendations regarding school counselor supervision are offered based on survey data.

Inducting the Transformed School Counselor Into the Profession

“…Borders and Usher, in a survey of Nationally Certified Counselors, found that school counselors reported significantly fewer hours of postdegree supervision than counselors in other settings, and almost half of the school counselors reported no postdegree counseling supervision at all. Typically principals or other administrators with little or no counseling background provide administrative supervision to school counselors, which does little or nothing to develop the clinical skills and professional identity of the novice counselor (Schmidt & Barret, 1983;Sutton & Page, 1994;Wilson & Remley, 1987). Researchers have reported several reasons for this lack of clinical supervision by counseling professionals, including lack of release time, financial support (Sutton & Page, 1994), and clinical supervision experience and skills (Henderson & Lampe, 1992).…”

Impact of Two Clinical Peer Supervision Models on Practicing School Counselors

“…Boyd and Walter (1975), for example, compared the school counselor to a cactus, saying that, by necessity, both must grow and thrive with the minimal amount of "nutrients" (p. 103). Since the 1970s many other authors have expressed similar concerns about the almost nonexistent supervision of school counselors (American Association of Counseling and Development Task Force, 1989;Barret & Schmidt, 1986;Borders, 1991a;Borders & Schmidt, 1992;Schmidt, 1990;Schmidt & Barret, 1983;Wilson & Remley, 1987). In fact, what is called supervision for school counselors is most often administrative oversight being supplied by school principals (American Association of Counseling and Development Task Force, 1989;Borders & Drury, 1992;Roberts & Borders, 1994;Schmidt & Barret, 1983;Wilson & Remley, 1987), as illustrated by two recent surveys.…”

Improving one's practice of clinical supervision of guidance officers

“…Most of the little research that has been undertaken has been in the United States while there is one piece of research recently completed in Queensland. The American research has produced results that indicate that the practice of school counsellor supervision has fallen short of what the profession would see as ideal (Barret & Schmidt, 1986;Borders & Usher, 1992;Roberts & Borders, 1994;Sutton & Page, 1994;Wilson & Remley, 1987). Collectively, this research has highlighted the need for increased numbers of supervisors, improved training in supervision and greater opportunities for supervision of school counsellors.…”