Professional School Counseling Essay

The 5 themes are character education, bullying, social-conflict, academics, and mental illness. Additionally, this paper will include important elements of school counselor identity, function and ethics. A section of the paper will give biblical values and insights related to the subject of professional school counseling. The experience of research has provided the reader with the personal reflections concerning school counseling and a discussion of the commitment to provide biblically grounded, ethical and empirically based services from the point of view of the writer. Introduction Children are in a society where the world is rapidly changing. Due to influx of social and economic changes and problems that are brewing within the homes of our students: these problems tend to spill over into the schools. The problems that are presented in the schools are escalating, when you think that things are improving. The purpose of this paper is to give some insight on the problems that professional school counselors faced in our schools. Every problematic area is not covered in this paper because it is so much research on many degrees of issues that professional counselors face. We propose that with the proper training, programs and support of the schools, counselors will be able to see a positive change. History and Development The factors leading to the development of guidance and counseling in the United States began in the 1890s with the social reform movement. Formal guidance programs using specialized textbooks did not start until the turn of the twentieth century. In 1958 the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was enacted, providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. One of the consequences was the compulsory education movement and shortly thereafter the vocational guidance movement, which, in its early days, was concerned with guiding people into the workforce to become productive members of society. The social and political reformer Frank Parsons is often credited with being the father of the vocational guidance movement. His work with the Civic Service House led to the development of the Boston Vocation Bureau (Sandhu, 2000). Guidance and counseling in these early years were considered to be mostly vocational in nature, but as the profession advanced other personal concerns became part of the school counselor’s agenda. Introduction of Topic Professional school counselors are certified and licensed educators with a minimum of a master’s degree in school counseling that make them uniquely qualified to address all students’ academic, personal/social and career development needs by designing, implementing, evaluating and enhancing a comprehensive school counseling program that promote and enhance student success (Sandhu, 2000). Professional school counselors are employed in elementary, middle/junior high and high schools; in district supervisory positions; and counselor education positions. Professional school counselors uphold the ethical and professional standards of ASCA and other applicable professional counseling associations, and promote the development of the school counseling program based on the following areas of the ASCA National Model: Foundation, delivery, management and accountability. Five Aspects