The purpose of this research is to set forth a model proposal with a view toward establishing a program of counseling, consultation, and coordination activities of a school counselor. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which each aspect of the program can be established, and then to discuss details of how each program area could be optimally addressed.
There is a view in the professional school-counselor community that strong counseling requires multiple skill sets. According to Harrison (1993), elementary school counselors cannot be entirely effective unless in addition to counseling skills as such they also have skills related to consulting, crisis intervention, and coordination, as well as the ability to shift gears and assume whatever role or duty is required. In context, crisis intervention may be included under the banner of counseling, although on the line, it may overlap with consulting and coordination as well. Accordingly, it will be useful to examine program efforts appropriate to counseling, consultation, and coordination, each in turn.
Whatever else a school counselor is, he or she is a service provider. Counseling refers to a whole range of duties that provide assistance to student clients in the elementary or secondary school setting. This assistance is not appropriately confined to students with problems (Harrison, 1991), but rather reaches across the student population, with a view toward facilitating any student's experience of education, not only while in school but after the student leaves school as well. Students may indeed have problems (drug use, pregnancy), but they may also have needs that are not so much problematic as issue-oriented in general (college planning, vocation planning). This misperception on the part of students is shared in the part of many parents and others in the community.
It is all very well to discuss counseling services from the perspective of the school-...