Counselling culturally diverse populations poses several challenges for mental health professionals in schools as well as the wider community. In 1998, the author interviewed counsellors working in ...Israeli schools, and categorised their approaches to immigrant pupils in four broad categories: culturally encapsulated assimilator, self-facilitator, specialist and cultural translator. The majority of counsellors (51%) were categorised as culturally encapsulated assimilators, emphasising the expectation of immigrant pupils to integrate into the dominant culture. This article describes a 10-year follow-up study in which 31 of the original 37 school counsellors were re-interviewed. The interviews included topics such as the processes counsellors went through during this period, indicating what the counsellors believed contributes to immigrant adjustment in school, what they considered the most important obstacles immigrant adolescents face in their process of adaptation, and what the counsellors have learned about themselves, their roles and the schools' work with immigrant students. Responses were categorised according to whether immigrants were perceived as a problem, a challenge, a non-issue or an asset to the school culture. The counsellors' reports and reflections enrich our understanding of the complex professional processes they and their schools go through when dealing with culturally diverse clients over time.
School counsellors are permanently in action, the success of which depends on their systemic approach to their action. Due to the difficulty, complexity and scope of their work, school counsellors ...are often under a lot of stress, which may eventually develop into occupational burnout. Thus, it is very important that school counsellors can use appropriate i.e. systemic, i.e. requisitely holistic ways of coping with stress and occupational burnout. Recently, after many years, supervision has been gaining importance as an action in the form of professional help to school counsellors to enable them to cope effectively with stress and to prevent occupational burnout. The primary purpose of the reported-about study is to determine how supervision, in accordance with the relational family model, affects the perception of stress and occupational burnout. The sample included 30 school counsellors in Slovenia. They were divided into an experimental group (with the presence of supervision) and a control group (without supervision). Results show a positive effect of supervision, in accordance with the relational family model, on the school counsellors’ perception of stress, since stress decreased after supervisory meetings, while the school counsellors’ perception of their professional burnout after supervisory meetings did not change significantly.
Consecuencia de los flujos migratorios que se han producido en la última década en gran parte de los países, las políticas educativas europeas han mostrado un creciente interés y preocupación por la ...respuesta educativa que recibe el alumnado cultural y lingüísticamente diverso (CLD). Al respecto, diversos informes y estudios han destacado la sobreidentificación del alumnado CLD en aulas de Educación Especial. Ello ha contribuido a cuestionar la validez de las prácticas diagnósticas, y de sus instrumentos, cuando se tiene que identificar las Necesidades Específicas de Apoyo Educativo de algún estudiante CLD. En España se desconocen estudios que hayan indagado sobre las prácticas diagnósticas que realizan los profesionales para identificar las necesidades educativas de estos estudiantes. La principal finalidad de este estudio fue explorar las prácticas de evaluación psicopedagógica que llevan a cabo los/as orientadores/as escolares cuando tienen que identificar las NEAE del alumnado CLD escolarizados en centros de Educación Primaria y Secundaria. La muestra estuvo formada por 64 orientadores/as, pertenecientes a 13 Equipos Psicopedagógicos de Tenerife, que trabajan en centros con alumnado CLD. Se diseñó un cuestionario ad hoc formado por 21 preguntas, agrupadas en cuatro dimensiones: I) Variables socio demográficas y experiencia profesional, II) Factores de la Evaluación psicopedagógica, III) Selección y uso de instrumentos diagnóstico y, IV) Evaluación de la competencia lingüística y el uso de intérpretes. Se presentan los resultados sobre las prácticas más frecuentes que utilizan los orientadores cuando realizan evaluaciones al alumnado CLD, con o sin dominio del idioma español, en relación a: factores a los que conceden importancia, evaluación de la competencia lingüística y del nivel de aculturación, selección y uso de instrumentos diagnósticos y experiencias con uso de intérpretes.
Aim: This paper seeks to understand whether Maltese school counsellors are equipped to deal with dyslexic clients, considers whether specific strategies need to be used, and what positive effects, if ...any, counselling has on these clients. Previous studies: A literature review on self‐concept and techniques on how to improve the self‐concept of children with Learning Disabilities (LD)/Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) will place the current study in context. Method: Questionnaires (available from the authors on request) were distributed to all school counsellors on the island and analysed using content analysis. Findings: Findings from respondents indicate a need for more training, evidence‐based knowledge of specific techniques when dealing effectively and successfully with dyslexic clients, specific specialised training to understand dyslexic clients and that counselling has a positive effect on dyslexic clients.
School counselling is a unique discipline involving the provision of personal, social, and educational counselling to youth in schools. Since school counsellors work closely with at-risk children and ...adolescents they frequently encounter suicidal youth as clients. In this study, a qualitative grounded theory method was used to explore school counsellors' experiences of client suicide. Four themes were identified from participants' interviews: Taming the Control Beast; Wearing the Mask; Interpreting the Dance; Staying in the Game. The impact on participants' personal and professional lives is discussed within the context on how they processed their experiences of loss.
Currently, there is no national framework or standardized procedure for the selection and recruitment of counsellors for schools in India. Hiring as a practice aids the selection of a professional ...counsellor in alignment with the needs of the school. In order to bring this area into research focus, the present study employs a qualitative design to explore perspectives of five school principals and five school counsellors on the hiring of prospective school counsellors. In-depth interviews were conducted with the participants, and data collected were subjected to thematic analysis. Findings describe reasons underlying the hiring of school counsellors, the criteria that are used to guide selection, the process of hiring itself and issues currently encountered during selection. They indicate a need for structured formal guidelines for selection and recruitment of school counsellors at the school and policy level. On the basis of findings, a checklist is presented to serve as an initial guide in the hiring process in the absence of a defined system of selection and recruitment.
Objective: This study aims to explore Australian rural adolescents' experiences of accessing help for a mental health problem in the context of their rural communities.
Design and setting: A ...qualitative research design was used whereby university students who had sought help for a mental health problem during their adolescence were interviewed about their experiences. Interviews were conducted face‐to‐face at the university.
Main outcome measures: A semi‐structured interview schedule was designed around the study's main research questions. Audio‐taped interviews were transcribed and thematically coded using a constant comparative method.
Participants: Participants were first‐year undergraduate psychology students between the ages of 17 and 21 years who sought help for a mental health issue during their adolescence and who at that time resided in a rural area.
Results: Participants highlighted various barriers to seeking help for mental health problems in the context of a rural community, including: social visibility, lack of anonymity, a culture of self‐reliance, and social stigma of mental illness. Participants' access to help was primarily school‐based, and participants expressed a preference for supportive counselling over structured interventions. Characteristics of school‐based helpers that made them approachable included: ‘caring’, ‘nonjudgemental’, ‘genuine’, ‘young’, and able to maintain confidentiality.
Conclusions: The findings support previous research that reveals barriers to help seeking for mental health problems that are unique to the culture of rural communities. The study raises questions about the merit of delivery of primary mental health care to young people via GPs alone and suggests that school‐based counsellors be considered as the first step in a young person's access to mental health care.
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