Organizational Variables Contributing to School Counselor Burnout: An Opportunity for Leadership, Advocacy, Collaboration, and Systemic Change

Abstract

Although the American School Counselor Association National Model reflects the importance of high-quality school counseling core curriculum, or classroom guidance, as part of a comprehensive school counseling program, school counselors are often challenged by the complexities of designing an effective classroom guidance curriculum. This conceptual paper addresses these challenges by proposing the use of Understanding by Design, a research-based approach to curriculum design used widely in K-12 classrooms across the United States and internationally, to strengthen classroom guidance planning. We offer principles for developing a classroom guidance curriculum that yields more meaningful and powerful lessons, makes instruction more cohesive, and focuses on what is critical for student success.

Elementary School Counselor Experiences Teaching Lessons on a Related Arts Schedule

“…The participants in this study shared experiences that reflected concerns about their ability to adequately meet the needs of students, engage with families, and do their jobs effectively. Numerous scholars have discussed the importance of advocacy in school counseling (e.g., Beck & Lane, 2019;Havlik et al, 2019;Holman et al, 2019), and the results of this study support the need for school counselors to engage in professional advocacy. Although many advocacy skills and dispositions have been identified in the literature (Trusty & Brown, 2005), relationship building, communication skills, and data use are particularly important to professional advocacy in relation to the results of this study.…”

“…Use of data also can enhance school counselors’ ability to communicate about problems or concerns (Holman et al, 2019; Waalkes et al, 2019). Relationships are an important foundation for advocacy, but administrators might respond to data differently.…”

Effects of Imbalance of Self‐ and Other‐Care on Counselors' Burnout

“…Moreover, our results are also consistent with Salee and Sibley's (2004) suggestion that losing one's self through unbalanced selflessness can lead to impairment and burnout. In particular, the significant high levels of Incompetence in the low self‐care/high other‐care group compared with the well‐balanced group can be explained by the finding that counselors' experience of incompetence was significantly related to experiencing low levels of control over time and tasks (Holman et al, 2019). If counselors spend most of their energy helping others and not themselves, they may feel they have less control over their own day‐to‐day activities, and this could lead to feelings of incompetence.…”

Grit and Growth Mindset Contribution to School Counseling Services

“…School counselors need ways to manage the psychological workload to enhance their implementation of a CSCP (Holman et al, 2019). Higher grit levels are related to a decreased stress and burnout in school counselors (Mullen & Crowe, 2018) and other professionals (Dam et al, 2019).…”