Schools play a key role in supporting, protecting, and advocating for LGBTQ students. However, educational programs worldwide tend to exclude and marginalize LGBTQ issues, especially when it comes to ...ethnic and racial minorities. In the current study, we examined Arab school counselors' experiences of working with Arab-Muslim LGBTQ youth. After 100 counselors declined to participate, the study included semi-structured interviews with 60 female counselors in Arab-Muslim schools in Israel. Data were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Four main themes emerged: religious considerations, causal explanations of LGBTQ orientation, working practices, and supportive resources. Our findings point to the unique challenges facing Arab school counselors who are torn between their professional values and traditional norms. Among the strategies counselors used for managing this tension were separating LGBTQ orientation from LGBTQ adolescents, passive listening while avoiding proactive inquiry, and referring to LBGTQ orientation as a transient phase. Our findings emphasize the need to develop culturally relevant programs that address LGBTQ orientation for students, teachers, and families.
The school counselling service in Slovenia is part of every school. Collaboration among all participants in the school community is particularly important for the quality of the work. The aim of this ...paper is to gain insight into the collaboration between school counsellors and teachers in Slovenian primary and secondary schools. The frequency with which teachers take the initiative to cooperate with school counsellors in different areas of work will be presented, as well as the specific issues of classwork and teaching in which they believe they would most benefit from cooperation with school counsellors. A quantitative research design was used, and questionnaires were designed for school counsellors and teachers. These were sent to all school counsellors, of whom 315 (32.6%) responded. The questionnaires for teachers were sent to randomly selected schools; 501 teachers responded. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods. The results show that - according to both teachers and counsellors - teachers most often take the initiative to support individual students who need help. On the other hand, according to teachers' open-ended responses and the perception of the counsellors themselves, teachers also need support and collaboration in their work with the classroom community. However, if the focus of school counselling is solely on remedial and service tasks, it is difficult to speak of quality collaboration. This paper reveals the importance of strengthening mutual collaboration in co-creating supportive and inclusive learning environments and classroom communities. In the future, it would be useful to examine the obstacles to such collaboration.
Turkish school counsellors (N = 113) were surveyed on their basal knowledge, resources for keeping up, and suggestions with respect to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning ...disorders (LD). Suggestions were then subjected to thematic content analysis and classified as child-centred, teacher-centred or parent-centred approaches. Counsellors primarily suggested child-centred approaches for ADHD and teacher-centred approaches for LD. They highlighted the need for ensuring that schools accommodate to the realities of these students. Although some of the counsellors were more sensitive to abusive labelling and unnecessary medication, the majority of them were not against medication for ADHD. They felt less competent to cope with children with LD, and mostly suggested ways of keeping them from being alienated from family and friends.
School counselling is a well-established means of supporting the mental health of children. Counsellors are most effective when they collaborate with parents, so it is important that parents have a ...good understanding of and access to school counselling services. Despite this, little is known about parents' perceptions of counselling in Hong Kong schools. We interviewed 27 parents in Hong Kong to investigate how they perceived the counselling services provided by their children's local and international schools, and analysed the data thematically. International school parents recognised the potential of school counselling as a means of support for their children and wanted to work more closely with counsellors to a greater extent than local school parents. Parents were confused about the roles of counsellors and experienced stigma and concerns about confidentiality which inhibited them from engaging with counselling services. Our findings suggest that school principals should work with counsellors to establish and communicate roles more clearly. Greater recognition of counsellors' professionalism, and clearer role differentiation between counsellors and other mental health and educational professionals may improve parental engagement with and support for school counselling.
La finalidad de este estudio es describir la identidad profesional de un grupo de profesionales de la orientación educativa en el contexto colombiano a partir de las funciones que desempeñan y cómo ...se posicionan ante ellas. En primer lugar, se exploran cuáles son las funciones que, mayoritariamente, ejercen los profesionales de la orientación educativa. En segundo lugar, se identifican las posiciones internas y externas predominantes y, por último, se analizan las relaciones significativas que pueden describir patrones identitarios entre estos posicionamientos y las funciones que desempeñan. Los participantes han sido 67 profesionales de la orientación educativa de centros escolares de niveles educativos de Preescolar, Primaria y Secundaria en el territorio colombiano. Se han administrado dos cuestionarios, uno para valorar las funciones y otro para determinar los posicionamientos. Los resultados indican que la identidad de los profesionales de la orientación educativa está mediada por factores como el nivel educativo en el que trabajan, la formación profesional, los años de experiencia y la participación en una red profesional. Las funciones más significativas son la atención personalizada e individualizada del alumnado y sus familias. Respecto a las posiciones internas, encontramos que los profesionales de la orientación educativa con más años de experiencia profesional se posicionan más como promotores de convivencia y menos como líderes institucionales. Las posiciones externas más significativas son de rector/a, coordinador/a y alumnado. En conclusión, en un momento de cambio e innovación educativa como el actual, es especialmente relevante el estudio de la identidad de los profesionales de la orientación educativa dentro del ecosistema en el que se desarrollan sus funciones.
A strong counsellor professional identity is associated with the provision of more effective school counselling programmes. However, many school counsellors in East and Southeast Asia carry out ...wide‐ranging and poorly defined roles, occupy marginalised positions in schools, and have limited access to communities of practice and professional development. To provide more effective support for children’s well‐being, a greater focus on the professional identity of school counsellors in the region is needed. A significant task for professional school counselling organisations is the promotion of counselling in schools as an important and distinct professional role.
This qualitative study examines how school counsellors perceive children aged 14–18 whose fathers are incarcerated. Three main themes emerged from the in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews: (1) The ...school counsellors perceived feelings of vulnerability, shame, anger and lack of trust amongst the adolescents. (2) The father's incarceration was a turning point in the lives of families and served as a catalyst for major economic decline, forcing the adolescents to fend for themselves. (3) The school counsellors often felt frustrated and unsuccessful in dealing with the complex issues these students faced. In addition, helping these adolescents affected their personal lives outside work.
The purpose of the study was to examine the prevalence, type and frequency of supervision provided to school counsellors, as well as to map experienced counsellors’ expectations of thesupervisor The ...research question guiding this study was: What is the platform, type and frequencyof supervision provided to school counsellors, and what are experienced counsellors’ expectations ofthe supervisor? An online survey was employed to collect data for the present study from therespondents (N=78). The survey was distributed to Israeli counsellors via an announcement postedon a dedicated WhatsApp group. The survey results indicated that %71 of the counsellors receive supervision, where 44% receive individual supervision and 78% group supervision. Sixty-seven percent of the supervision sessions are provided at the school and the rest at the district and in workshops. Regarding experienced counsellors’ expectations of the supervisor, a higher proportionthan novice counsellors noted the following topics: additional points of view, space for deliberation,new intervention tools, good understanding of their feelings, emotional ventilation, new knowledgein counselling, as well as the wish to receive emotional support and clear guidance. This data suggests that experienced counsellors need regular supervision to enhance their awareness and professionalism and that their needs change throughout their years of work. At the same time, some counselors still need the dominant and directing presence of a supervisor even after many years of work, a fact that indicates personal aspects that affect the role of the counsellor. This paper contributes additional knowledge concerning experienced school counsellors and suggests expanding the range of possibilities according to counsellors’ needs.
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