BUILDING HIGH-QUALITY SCHOOL COUNSELING PROGRAMS TO ENSURE STUDENT SUCCESS

This brief is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Mandy Savitz-Romer | Harvard University

Tara Nicola | Harvard University

January 2022 | Brief No. 21

Central Question

How can schools and districts ensure that all students benefit from school counseling programs?

Key Insights

Breaking Down the Issue

  • Access to school counselors improves academic outcomes, social-emotional development, and postsecondary enrollment.
  • The students who could benefit the most from counselors typically have the least access to them.
  • During COVID-19, virtual work and added non-counseling duties have further limited students’ access to school counselors while student needs have accumulated

Strategies to Consider

  • The most effective counseling programs focus comprehensively on academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary domains in addition to being preventative and using data to better target student needs.
  • When designing a comprehensive counseling program, schools can rely on existing, validated, counselor-led interventions in all three counseling domains.
  • Lowering student-to-counselor ratios improves student outcomes and promotes counselor efficacy.
  • When school and district leaders understand the scope of the counselor role, build strong relationships with counselors, and support their professional growth, counselors are better positioned to fulfill their jobs

Strategies to Avoid

  • Supplemental college access programs run by community organizations can actually increase inequities in access when they are not well integrated into school-based programs.
  • Assigning counselors non-counseling tasks deprives students of critical counseling support.
  • Simply hiring more counselors without clarifying their professional roles is insufficient.

Breaking Down the Issue

Access to school counselors improves academic outcomes, social-emotional development, and postsecondary enrollment.

The students who could benefit the most from counselors typically have the least access to them.

During COVID-19, virtual work and added non-counseling duties have further limited students’ access to school counselors while student needs have accumulated.

Strategies to Consider

The most effective counseling programs focus comprehensively on academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary domains in addition to being preventative and using data to better target student needs.

When designing a comprehensive counseling program, schools can rely on existing, validated, counselor-led interventions in all three counseling domains.

  • Student Success Skills (SSS), a counselor-led program that promotes cognitive, social, and self- management skills, strengthens student achievement.
    • One randomized controlled trial examining the use of SSS in 5th grade classrooms found improvements in students’ behavioral engagement, cooperation, and levels of test anxiety after participation in the program.
    • Screening tools can ensure that students who need targeted, specialized support are identified.
    • Universal mental health screening is an effective way to identify students who may benefit from intensive mental health support.
    • Some screening tools have been validated for assessing the emotional wellbeing of children and adolescents, identifying bullying behaviors, and evaluating substance use.
  • Countless social-emotional tools and interventions show evidence of positive impact on school climate and student behavior and wellbeing.
    • Examples of evidence-based social-emotional interventions include counselor-led classroom lessons focused on strengthening social behaviors and school-wide programs such as wellness days for improving school climate.
    • Emerging evidence suggests that mindfulness interventions may improve student wellbeing.
  • Culturally responsive interventions can bolster outcomes for historically marginalized students.
    • Emerging evidence indicates that hip-hop and spoken word therapy, an innovative counseling approach involving the writing, recording, and performing of hip-hop music, may improve the emotional self-awareness of African American and Latinx youth.
    • Observational evidence suggests culturally responsive academic interventions may be particularly important for strengthening the achievement of students of color.
    • Qualitative studies have found that immigrant-origin students especially benefit from interventions that both recognize their existing community cultural wealth and build their social and cultural capital.
  • Proactive summer outreach to graduating seniors, individualized learning plans, and early career exploration help students prepare for postsecondary success.
    • Providing targeted one-on-one college counseling to graduating students in the summer months post high-school graduation has been shown to reduce summer melt, increasing college enrollment rates.
    • Individualized learning plans that help students identify career interests and necessary skill requirements are a promising practice for bolstering college and career readiness.
    • Classroom-based career readiness initiatives in early grades are one avenue for jumpstarting career exploration.

Lowering student-to-counselor ratios improves student outcomes and promotes counselor efficacy.

When school and district leaders understand the scope of the counselor role, build strong relationships with counselors, and support their professional growth, counselors are better positioned to fulfill their jobs.

Strategies to Avoid

Supplemental college access programs run by community organizations can actually increase inequities in access when they are not well integrated into school-based programs.

Assigning counselors non-counseling tasks deprives students of critical counseling support.

Simply hiring more counselors without clarifying their professional roles is insufficient.

  • Studies find that school counselors experience substantial role ambiguity because of unclear job descriptions, differing expectations among school stakeholders about what the role encompasses, and the presence of other school-based mental health professionals.
    • Research suggests that a lack of role clarity is negatively associated with job satisfaction and diminishes the potential impact of the counselor role.
    • Updating counselor job descriptions to align with professional expectations, clearly delineating how counselors’ responsibilities differ from those of other student support personnel, and ensuring counselors’ time is appropriately allocated are concrete ways that school leaders can reduce role ambiguity.

Funding for this research was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the foundation.

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