The Emergence of School Counseling and Guidance in Israel

Abstract

This article deals with the development of counseling and guidance services in Israel. It stresses the preparation programs at the graduate level in 5 universities and discusses the current status and the major issues that school counselors, in particular, deal with today. This review further discusses in detail the future challenges and anticipated trends that the counseling profession faces in Israel.T he major purpose of this article is to describe the emergence of school counseling and guidance services in Israel, and especially to highlight the following: (a) the historical development of school counseling and guidance in Israel, (b) the preparation and training of school counselors, (c) the current status of school counseling and guidance, (d) the major issues that Israeli school counselors are dealing with today, and (e) the future challenges and anticipated trends of school counseling and guidance services in Israel.

Role Behavior Profiles of Israeli School Counselors

“…Since the first 43 school counselors entered the system in 1964, counselors have found themselves in the midst of a dynamic process characterized by accumulation of functions to meet the needs of a society persistently subject to stress emanating from a turbulent internal and external environment (Erhard & Klingman, 2004;Israelashvili, 1993;Karayanni, 1996;Klingman & Eizen, 1990).…”

Israeli counsellors facing terrorism: coping and professional development

“…Although the formal objective of school counsellors in Israel focuses on developmental difficulties in social and academic aspects of student life (Karayanni, 1996), the political situation in Israel, where terrorist attacks are part of everyday life, forces the counsellors to function as mental health providers for victims of trauma. This function requires a different set of professional behaviours emphasising counsellors' individual therapeutic work with students as well as with teachers.…”

“…Their work involves major (primary and secondary) preventive interventions, including those relating to life transitions, academic adjustment, destructive behaviours, life skills, educational choices, and crisis intervention (Karayanni, 1996). The leading intervention orientation is developmental, preventive, and system oriented, with an emphasis on staff consultation (Klingman, 2002).…”

The effects of counsellor's experience and tendency to elicit disclosure on perceptions of individual counselling in school settings

“…Moreover, the definition of the school counsellor in Israel, as a counsellor-teacher, may lead principals to demand that counsellors increase the amount of frontal instruction time at the expense of net individual counselling (Karayanni, 1996).…”