Can school teach us to master life? This book confronts what the author sees as an ongoing trend in many Western democracies where citizens are increasingly being held accountable for their health ...and happiness. The author believes that the introduction of life skills in school shows a tendency to place more responsibility on the individual rather than address fundamental societal flaws that really should be solved politically. It examines how such responsibility to psychologically deal with these problems affects our mental health and quality of life. This book questions the fundamentals of the life mastery curriculum where we might be risking the creation of just another arena where children have to perform, challenging readers to evaluate more closely the premises, consequences and limitations of life mastery. The book, one of the first to question ‘life mastery’ as an achievable goal with critical reviews of the 21st century skills movement, will be of interest to psychologists, school counsellors, teachers, students, politicians, and any reader evaluating school curriculums in relation to the decline in youth and adolescent mental health.
Compassion fatigue is common among counselors who are exposed to the ongoing trauma of students and families at times of distress and crisis. The aim of this study was to examine compassion fatigue, ...perceived stress, optimism and emotional distress among school counselors among 139 Israeli school counselors. The results indicated that compassion fatigue correlates positively both with perceived stress and with emotional distress and negatively with optimism. Levels of compassion fatigue were higher among Israeli school counselors working in elementary school than among those working in high school. Perceived stress mediated the association between compassion fatigue and emotional distress. The findings indicate that the personal resources available to helpers as well as vulnerability factors may affect levels of compassion fatigue and emotional distress. .
This article discusses the topic of schools as a learning communities from the perspective of the collaboration of two groups of school workers - teachers and school counsellors. The introduction ...defines how the concept of schools as learning communities is understood and how it is related to the concept of learning organizations. It also further elaborates on the key characteristics of learning communities. The first premise of the contribution is that through joint effort and collaboration, counsellors and teachers can more efficiently face the practical challenges of their work, both in providing help and encouragement to students and in ensuring better classroom work on the level of the whole school. The second is that they are important partners to each other in their professional development through joint reflections of their educational principles and expectations. The article further focuses on the quality of cooperation between counsellors and teachers in primary and secondary schools in Slovenia. The results of the empirical research show that both groups of school workers tend to evaluate their cooperation as either very good or good while teachers tend to be more satisfied. The questionnaire responses show that teachers believe collaboration can benefit them, however that they frequently leave decisions about work with specific students or classes to the counsellors. Establishing and maintaining partner collaboration is always a challenge, however, it is also crucial for effectively confronting contemporary challenges and ensuring quality learning for all and the contribution thus concludes with guidelines for establishing such a beneficial collaboration.
Abstract
This qualitative study examines how 17 elementary school counsellors perceive their work with out‐of‐home foster‐care children. Three main themes emerged from the in‐depth semi‐structured ...interviews, highlighting the challenges and conflicts faced by these counsellors: (1) shying away from providing deep therapy but helping with specific issues, (2) the professional and ethical dilemmas of having to report to the authorities about foster families' domestic neglect or abuse while maintaining positive work relationships with these families and the children and (3) prevailing admiration towards the foster parents. The study recommends comprehensive training for school counsellors, administrators and staff as well as professional peer‐support groups for counsellors.
Counselling is considered to be an important policy tool to prevent early school leaving, yet little is known about the effect of counselling on student outcomes. We investigate the effect of a novel ...type of counselling in Norwegian schools: the student welfare counsellor. These counsellors are employed by local welfare offices but placed in upper secondary schools, serving as a link between the student and support services by addressing financial, health or family-related issues and helping students into appropriate welfare office programmes. Using a difference-in-differences approach with variation in treatment timing, we find that moving this counselling service to schools kept students in school longer, although completion rates in upper secondary education did not increase. Effects are more pronounced for students with a minority background. These results suggest that moving available services closer to students can influence the educational attainment of at-risk youth – at least in the short run.
This article identifies the socio-emotional competencies of school counsellors working with children and adolescents. The aim is to address problems related to mental health and conflict and to ...implement training programmes. The study sample was composed of 149 counsellors working in schools. The instruments used were the CCPES-II (questionnaire on teacher competences) and a series of open-ended questions on conflict resolution. A mixed methodology was used, with a concurrent triangulation design with two phases: a quantitative one (QUAN) and a qualitative one (QUAL). Univariate, bivariate, and correlation quantitative analyses were performed. Parametric and non-parametric tests were applied depending on the number of dependent and independent variables. The qualitative analysis was performed with the NVivo 12 computer programme, which determines word frequencies using a classic content analysis. The results confirm the relationship between socio-emotional training and rapid response to school conflict; the generalised view that conflicts are difficult to anticipate and, thus, to prevent; and the demand for specific training in socio-emotional competences, intervention strategies, more specialised school staff, more time for intervention with and support for families, and more socio-professional recognition.
Acting in the best interests of students is central to the moral and ethical work of schools. Yet tensions can arise between principals and school counsellors as they work from at times opposing ...professional paradigms. This article reports on principals' and counsellors' responses to scenarios covering confidentiality and the law, student/teacher relationships, student welfare and psychological testing of students. This discussion takes place against an examination of ethics, ethical dilemmas and professional codes of ethics. While there were a number of commonalities among principals and school counsellors that arose from their common belief in education as a moral venture, there were also some key differences among them. These differences centred on the principals' focus on the school as a whole and counsellors' focus on the welfare of the individual student. A series of recommendations is offered to assist principals to navigate ethical dilemmas such as those considered in this article. Author abstract, ed
This article analyses five public consultation meetings about revisions to an LGBTQ-related school board policy on unceded Coast Salish territory in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. These ...meetings focused largely on the new provision that students in publicly funded schools be allowed to use the washroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Almost all of the objections to the policy revisions were articulated by parents of non-queer, or not openly queer students. We found that these parental concerns centred around two perennial issues in Canadian educational studies; namely, how schools regulate students' gender identities and expressions, and the role of the state in publicly funded schooling. We conclude by drawing upon emerging literature on best practices for trans youth in schools to offer alternative visions for how these issues can be better addressed with the public, and parents in particular.
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