School staff increasingly seek to implement evidence-based school mental health services to promote student mental health. However, barriers to accessing programming and support mean that ...implementing these programs is difficult. Popular strategies to address these challenges, like one time professional development, often fail to be effective or sustainable. This study used mixed methods to evaluate how a set of training activities-sequential online learning modules combined with interprofessional telementoring, following the extension for community healthcare outcomes (ECHO) model-influenced provision of school mental health services. School counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers (n = 46) participated in training activities, which included nine, cohort-based ECHO sessions and 12 modules. We used a concurrent mixed methods design in which quantitative (implementation data and pre-post surveys) and qualitative (posttraining focus groups with a subset of participants, n = 11) data were used to evaluate training. Quantitative results indicated statistically significant pre-post improvements in participants' clinical self-efficacy (d = .83) and knowledge of evidence-based practices (d = .37). Qualitative data corroborated quantitative results. Post training, focus groups described positive reactions, learning, and behavior change, particularly with respect to equitable service provision and interprofessional teaming. ECHO appeared to facilitate the application of evidence-based strategies to real-life practice and improved participants' understanding of effective coordination of services. Taken together, findings suggest that group-based telementoring may be a high-impact strategy for supporting the implementation of effective, culturally specific, and collaborative school mental health services.
Impact and Implications
Online, group-based, interprofessional telementoring may be high-impact solution to increase the capacity of school mental health professionals to meet rising student needs. Mixed methods findings from this study revealed that virtual learning communities were associated with a sense of community and connection across traditionally siloed professions and that case-based learning helped participants contextualize evidence-based strategies and utilize interprofessional collaboration to facilitate equitable and coordinated service provision.
Little is known about the efficacy of mental health interventions for children exposed to armed conflicts in low- and middle-income settings. Childhood mental health problems are difficult to address ...in situations of ongoing poverty and political instability.
To assess the efficacy of a school-based intervention designed for conflict-exposed children, implemented in a low-income setting.
A cluster randomized trial involving 495 children (81.4% inclusion rate) who were a mean (SD) age of 9.9 (1.3) years, were attending randomly selected schools in political violence-affected communities in Poso, Indonesia, and were screened for exposure (> or = 1 events), posttraumatic stress disorder, and anxiety symptoms compared with a wait-listed control group. Nonblinded assessment took place before, 1 week after, and 6 months after treatment between March and December 2006.
Fifteen sessions, over 5 weeks, of a manualized, school-based group intervention, including trauma-processing activities, cooperative play, and creative-expressive elements, implemented by locally trained paraprofessionals.
We assessed psychiatric symptoms using the Child Posttraumatic Stress Scale, Depression Self-Rating Scale, the Self-Report for Anxiety Related Disorders 5-item version, and the Children's Hope Scale, and assessed function impairment as treatment outcomes using standardized symptom checklists and locally developed rating scales.
Correcting for clustering of participants within schools, we found significantly more improvement in posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (mean change difference, 2.78; 95% confidence interval CI, 1.02 to 4.53) and maintained hope (mean change difference, -2.21; 95% CI, -3.52 to -0.91) in the treatment group than in the wait-listed group. Changes in traumatic idioms (stress-related physical symptoms) (mean change difference, 0.50; 95% CI, -0.12 to 1.11), depressive symptoms (mean change difference, 0.70; 95% CI, -0.08 to 1.49), anxiety (mean change difference, 0.12; 95% CI, -0.31 to 0.56), and functioning (mean change difference, 0.52; 95% CI, -0.43 to 1.46) were not different between the treatment and wait-listed groups.
In this study of children in violence-affected communities, a school-based intervention reduced posttraumatic stress symptoms and helped maintain hope, but did not reduce traumatic-stress related symptoms, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, or functional impairment.
isrctn.org Identifier: ISRCTN25172408.
Objectives
According to the assimilation model, psychotherapeutic progress involves building semiotic meaning bridges between disconnected parts of the person. Previous research with a young male ...client, who was diagnosed with ASP, showed that digital imagery can serve to build inter and intrapersonal relating during counselling. This project aimed to further elaborate that theory with a client of a different gender and with different presenting issues.
Design
This was a qualitative theory‐building case study.
Method
The client was a 16‐year‐old teenager seen in school counselling for 10 sessions who presented with a range of issues: problems with eating, depression and anxiety. She self‐harmed and had suicidal ideation and continued using counselling services after the end of the research project. Assimilation analysis used screen and accompanying voice recordings of the ten sessions, during the research project where she participated in an evaluation of cybertherapy software designed for therapy and coaching.
Results
The client created three main digital scenes. The first scene represented difficulties she experienced in her everyday life; the second scene represented a longed for experience of safety, and the third her attempts to connect the two. The imagery and meanings evolved across this segment of treatment, providing a channel of interpersonal and intra‐personal communication.
Conclusions
Observations showed how digital imagery can serve as meaning bridges between client and counsellor and between internal parts of the client.
School counselling services have always been unpopular among Malaysian students. Many researchers have studied what prevents students from seeking mental health services. However, there is a lack of ...study on the barriers to seeking help in the context of Malaysian school counselling services. Using a sample of Chinese high school students (N = 277), this qualitative study explored the under-utilisation of school counselling services. A thematic analysis was used to analyse an open-ended question, and the findings uncovered contextualised issues such as: conceptualisation of problems and the shameful, fearful, concerned, and responsible self that contributes to the under-utilisation of school counselling services.
Experiencing the reality of empathy Cole, Rebekah F.
Counselor education and supervision,
March 2022, 2022-03-00, 20220301, Volume:
61, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This pretest/posttest experimental design study investigated the use of virtual reality to teach school counseling students empathy, as measured by the Empathy Quotient. An independent samples and ...paired‐samples t‐test were used to analyze students’ scores in the experimental and control groups. The study's results are discussed.
Psychological difficulties among young people are common. Various initiatives are being proposed in schools, yet no evidence-based data is available on how to address family difficulties (the most ...prevalent issues in school-based counselling). The current study examined the use of a two-component intervention based on the principles of Perceptual Control Theory (PCT). One is Method of Levels therapy (MOL) and the other is a parent-child activity (Shared Goals). Young people were invited to choose how often to engage in both MOL and the Shared Goals activity as well as the topics discussed during sessions for four months. Seven dyads were recruited and six were retained. At the end of the intervention, five young people were considered recovered.
In K-12 public school settings, African American students experience racial disparities impacting their academic outcomes, career readiness, and social-emotional wellness (Bottiani et al. in
Journal ...of Educational Psychology,
109
(4), 532–545, 2017). To ensure equitable outcomes for these students, school counselors should view them through an intersectional lens, embracing their distinct hierarchical positions in comparison to their counterparts. As social justice change agents, school counselors model transformative leadership in an attempt to minimize racial, systemic, and institutional disparities experienced amongst this population (Cobb, 2019). The manuscript aims to provide practical interventions for school counseling leaders through the efforts of advocacy, data analysis, and systemic change.
In Texas, counselors-in-training can gain employment as a school counselor before they have completed a degree in school counseling through a provision for emergency permits in the Texas ...Administrative Code. Little is known about this hiring practice. Using a qualitative approach, the authors explored the perspectives and experiences of five school counseling program coordinators who have experienced this process with counselors-in-training. Authors identified four themes from semi-structured interviews and discussed the advocacy implications of the study for professional school counseling.
Collaboration between school counselors and families has increasingly been identified as a benefit to student success and well-being. This expansion of roles is reflected within school counseling ...standards as families and parents comprise one-third of the types of collaboration promoted by the ASCA National Model. Further, ASCA's program foundation cites the importance of families and parents in the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards and Competencies. In addition to a family focus within the standards of school counseling, family well-being has been associated with overall student wellness. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide school counselors with a model of family well-being that will serve as an organizing framework to help school counselors understand and conceptualize families and their well-being. Additionally, the authors provide strategies for school counselors to implement the organizing framework into the school environment.
The purpose of the paper is to explore the role of leadership in school counselling spaces and places. Space will mean theclassroom and places will mean the school and home. The problem is that ...school counsellors must provide counselling services and listen to students’ complaints and this cannot happen without the support of leadership in schools. The paper uses an interpretive paradigm and qualitative approach in exploring the role of leadership in school counselling. Teachers as counsellors in school counselling are expected to promote, advocate, and work towards social justice and culturally responsive programs that are accessible and accountable to all stakeholders involved in the school. Findings are the following: Leaders must ensure that counselling services are available to every student in schools; The lack of appropriate training, professional counselling knowledge and skills could influence the work of the school’s counsellor as a leader. School counsellors as leaders must support student achievement through services that have an influence on the career development, social and emotional development of all students enrolled in a school.
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