Relevant Training for Relevant Roles: A Model for Educating Inner‐City Counselors

Abstract

The inner-city counselor is expected to enter into his role with an understanding of his students and their culture, as well as with a knowledge of the processes of social change and his own potential contribution. Present programs of counselor education do not tend to provide the basis for development of these wideranging skills. It is suggested that counselor education should place potential counselors in public school settings working in teams with practicing counselors, providing relevant experience for future counselors and invigorating contacts for future supervisors. Course work would be inter-disciplinary and provided in the public school milieu.We are only on the brink of understanding the world of disadvantaged youth, with its despair for the present and hopelessness

The Counselor as Activist/a Value Commitment

“…Many professionals in the area of counseling have been critical of the type of training the graduate student receives (Caracena, 1967;Doleys, 1971;Lewis and Lewis, 1970;Rogers, 1967). Rogers indicates early in his article his concern by stating: "Very briefly, the theme of my statement is that we are doing an unintelligent, ineffectual and wasteful job of preparing psychologists, to the detriment of our discipline and society" (Rogers, 1967).…”

“…Another part of the counselor education program that the counseling faculty could become active in changing is the field experience or counseling practicum. Serious questions have been raised as to whether most practicums or counselor education programs are equipping their students as counselors to deal effectively with the problems of the minorities or disadvantaged groups (Lewis and Lewis, 1970;Proctor, 1970: Russell, 1970Vontress, 1970). Practicums should be initiated that include experience in working with minority and disadvantaged groups so that the beginning counselor can get acquainted with the special problems these people face.…”

The counselor: who? what?

“…Social change is the product of individual action, and the counselor may be doing the best he can by helping young individuals to stand up for justice and honesty and decency, and thus have a marked impact on their society. Lewis and Lewis (1970) may well be new-fashioned rather then old-fashioned when they say, "Primary to the counselor's role, of course, must be direct counseling contact with individual students, providing an avenue aiding the student to explore himself and his potential, and freeing him to face a challenging future openly and less defensively." May (1971) also may be suggesting a radical change in the counselor's function: "By offering psychological counseling, counselors are in a unique position to help people improve their self-concepts and develop more of their potentials.…”