School Counselors Deliver Information about School Counseling and their Work: What Professional Message is Conveyed?

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which 99 school counselors delivered information to stakeholders about their profession and work via various channels. Results showed that information was mainly delivered via routine encounters within the school while the use of a pre-arranged manner and electronic media were less frequent. School counselors’ work information tended to be delivered to the school staff rather than to pupils, parents/guardians, and community. To the least extent, school counselors delivered information about their professional profile. The authors discuss the importance of delivering information in the advocacy of the counseling profession.

Experiences With Elementary School Counseling Advocacy

“…School counselors engage in various methods of professional advocacy from the micro to macro-level, ranging from providing information to stakeholders about their positions and programs to requesting resources and support. While these described studies took place in the United States, in Israel, a sample of school counselors across school levels reported that self-advocacy often occurred through daily encounters in school buildings with other educators (Shimoni & Greenberger, 2014). Other school counselor advocates across U.S. K-12 settings have described the importance of leveraging the educational hierarchy in a top-down approach to advocacy, which may occur through intentional conversations with administrators about appropriate duties for school counselors (Havlik et al, 2019).…”

Driving Forces in Elementary School Counseling Advocacy: A Phenomenological Investigation of Advocates’ Experiences

“…A more recent study that focused on school counseling professional advocacy was conducted by Shimoni and Greenberger (2015). They surveyed 99 members of the Israel School Counselors Association, 29% of whom worked at the elementary level, to discover the extent to which school counselors advocated for their roles through communication.…”

“…In examining the available literature, we found some research studies that provided support for advocacy strategies. Examples of these strategies included using data to advocate, networking and establishing connections with educational leaders, and communicating the school counselor role (Dollarhide et al, 2008; Havlik et al, 2019; Myers & Sweeney, 2004; Shimoni & Greenberger, 2015; Singh et al, 2010). Although these studies were helpful for beginning to research advocacy related to school counseling, not all of the studies were conducted at the national level and none focused solely on successful advocates for elementary school counseling.…”

“…However, these conceptual articles do not provide evidence that these strategies are effective at helping school counselors reach professional advocacy goals. The few existing research studies also identified numerous helpful professional advocacy recommendations such as the need for school counselors to use data to advocate (Dollarhide et al, 2008;Singh et al, 2010), personal counselor qualitites that help with advocacy (Dollarhide et al, 2008), the importance of networking and collaboration in advocacy work (Myers & Sweeney, 2004;Shimoni & Greenberger, 2015), and the need for school counselors to actively explain and promote school counselor roles (Havlik et al, 2019). However, none of these studies focused on elementary school counselors specifically.…”

A Sense of Mattering: A Group Intervention for African American Boys

“…A greater examination of the impact of specific interventions for African American boys is needed (Miranda, Webb, Brigman, & Peluso, 2007). As educators work to bridge gaps, they often do not utilize school counselors appropriately, but if school counselors are allowed to take on appropriate duties, they can impact change in a meaningful way (Shimoni & Greenberger, 2014).…”