The Girls’ Leadership Experience Camp: A Parallel Process of Leadership Skill Development for School Counselors-in-Training

Abstract

School counseling programs must provide counselors-in-training with effective and multifaceted leadership skill-building opportunities (Brott, 2006; DeVoss & Andrews, 2006; Dollarhide, Gibson, & Saginak, 2008; Kaffenberger & Murphy, 2007). The Girls’ Leadership Experience Camp (GLEC) was created by the authors to enhance the leadership abilities of local girls while providing a training ground for future school counselors to develop their own leadership abilities. The camp participants included 16 rising sixth-grade girls who were potential first-generation college students and were identified by school personnel as possible leaders. The training experiences were framed using the core qualities and components of the ASCA National Model® (American School Counselor Association, 2005). This article describes the processes and outcomes related to leadership training of future school counselors via the GLEC.

Educating future leaders: integrating leadership into an introductory school counseling course

“…Two studies directly involving leadership training -and one concerning preservice school counselor-principal collaboration -espoused aspects of the ELT framework. Briggs et al (2009) created The Girls' Leadership Experience Camp (GLEC), a program for preadolescent girls that promoted personal, social, and academic topics. Within the GLEC experience, school counseling students served as program facilitators and used leadership skills such as understanding the mission behind the GLEC curriculum, implementing the curriculum with students, and collecting feedback from parents to adjust the program and evaluate outcomes.…”

“…The two leadership-focused studies relied solely on qualitative interviews with participants postgraduation, asking students' opinions about the educational experience some weeks (Michel et al, 2018) or years (Briggs et al, 2009) later. In Briggs et al (2009), participants expressed wanting to learn more about certain practices earlier, particularly interprofessional collaboration, before taking part in the intervention (Briggs et al, 2009). From an ELT perspective, one might argue participants more disproportionally inhabited the mode of concrete experience without engaging in the other three modes.…”

Efficacy of online training for improving camp staff competency

“…Out of thirteen PA behaviors taught to staff, nine PA behaviors demonstrated a statistically significant increase from pretest to posttest. As another example, Briggs, Staton, and Gilligan (2009) collected data from seven staff who facilitated a one-week leadership training programme [i.e., Girls Leadership Experience Camp (GLEC)] for sixteen rising sixth-grade girls. Each staff member completed an in-person training course before serving as staff for the one-week camp.…”

Women's Spirituality Across the Life Span: Implications for Counseling

“…Whereas men may find solace and a sense of achievement in hierarchical approaches, most women prefer sharing experiences, leadership, and responsibilities (Briggs, Staton, & Gilligan, 2009; Frame, 2002; Gilligan, 1993). A relational, interdependent approach is consistent with a circular, rather than linear way of relating.…”