Iowa Department of Education Feedback to Institutional Report
School Counseling Program Response
Preparing School Counselors at UNI Since 1953
ELCPE Department
The UNI Counselor Education faculty look forward to visiting with the Iowa Department of Education visit team related to our School Counseling program. We hope to provide thoughtful and thorough answers to all of your questions and to share plans for the future and recent programmatic accomplishments. We feel that when our report is read in its entirety the information is clearer; we apologize for any confusion.
Feedback Comments & Responses
(Responses in Bold)
School Counseling Program: Table 1.7 shows concerns in resourcing. Is this program appropriately supported? What is this program’s relationship to the clinical program?
Response 1:
Yes, we need additional resources and support to keep our CACREP accreditation (1990-2010, 20 years strong) or we need to admit fewer students. For the past 3 years we have admitted twice as many school counseling student than mental health counseling students to due the projected shortage of school counselors in the state of Iowa. We have 3-core tenure track faculty, which is the minimum number of faculty for CACREP accreditation. We are out of compliance and now have a 1:31 ratio of faculty to students, not 1:10. Record numbers of applicants and high need for our graduating school counselor students.
In 2003-2004, the counselor education programs had essentially the same number of students, but 5-core faculty. We continue to maintain high quality with the expectation that resources and institutional support will follow. With a new clinic facility, excellent students, professionally active and productive faculty, clearly the main issue is resources and institutional support for additional faculty lines. Faculty realize that the state of Iowa is facing mountainous fiscal challenges. Yet, school counselors are in high demand and our students have a 100% employment rate; counselor education at UNI is making every effort to assist in the statewide current and projected shortage of school counselors.
In 2008-2009 the UNI Academic Programs Assessment Task clearly identified our programs and high quality and in need of support. According to the UNI Academic Programs Assessment, Counselor Education was considered “very good programs that, despite a progressive reduction of faculty resources, have remained strong.” The report goes on to state the following: ”given the quality of these programs, a return to a minimum support level of 6 FTEs is strongly recommended” and “serious consideration for growth and investment.”
Response 2:
We believe you are inquiring about the mental health counseling program’s relationship to the school counseling program, when you state “clinical”. We prepare counselors who are employed in settings specializing in working within the school system and predominately with children and adolescents and counselors who work in agency or private practice settings with adults. But we have a number of students seeking to complete requirements of both programs. Some students in the mental health counseling program want to specialize in working with children and adolescent and they frequently take the specialty courses for school counseling as their electives. There is a common core of courses to both the school counseling and mental health counseling programs that all students take, separate courses are detailed below.
1. Does coursework for school counseling overlap with other counseling programs? If so, please describe.
Yes, the majority of courses in the program represent a common core of courses to both counselor preparation programs. With new catalog changes the school counseling program is now 51-57 credits. Courses different or specialized for School Counseling are the following:
290:254 Counseling Children and Adolescent (3)
290:210 Developing Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (3)
290:290 School Counseling Practicum (3) (UNI-Price Laboratory School)
290:291 School Counseling Internship (6)
Graduate students without teaching background take the following courses or equivalent courses to meet the DOE requirements.
200:148 Learning & Instruction in the Classroom Context (3)
200:128 Field Experience (1)
220:150 Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners (2)
Mental Health Counseling Students take the following separate courses, their program is 60 credits and they have 3 electives:
290:241 Treatment and Diagnosis Procedures (3)
290:205 Counseling Process (2nd level counseling skills course) (3)
400:142g Abnormal Psychology (3)
290:290 Mental Health Counseling Practicum (3)
290:291 Mental Health Counseling Internship (6)
3. Questions
1) P. 61: 79.20 (1) “UNI School Counseling Program seeks to prepare future professional who . . . ”
a) How did the unit decide on these standards? What was the origin of these standards?
b) How are these standards reflected in clinical practice?
c) How are these standards reflected in the conceptual framework?
d) How are these standards assessed throughout the program?
Faculty believe that counseling is both and art and science and that our students have concrete information necessary for practice, but that there are also elements that are less concrete and more complex to master; much of this complexity relates to self-knowledge and personal growth that occurs throughout the program and into professional practice. Students regularly receive feedback in annual formal evaluations and in courses throughout the program. Our program is student center and experiential, so we are in dialogue with students on a regular basis. Counselor Education faculty developed this mission statement to reflect the culture and values of our programs; which mirror the CACREP standards and we hope expectations of the Iowa Department of Education. There is strong emphasis on ethical practice and multicultural competencies for our graduate students.
2) P 62: Regarding 79.20 (2), what types of additional experiences are provided in 290:254 Counseling Children and Adolescents? Please clarify.
Students are in the schools at a minimum of 12 hours observing, shadowing, interviewing and working with students.
3) P 69: What type of clinical practice do students have at these differing levels of courses?
Do any courses require candidates to observe, job shadow, practice certain skills? If so how? If not, does the unit have ideas to infuse clinical practices on differing levels into various courses?
CACREP and UNI Counselor Education faculty value early exposure to professional experiences and contact in future professional settings.
Courses:
290:103g (3) Introduction to Professional Counseling
Students go on a minimum of 3 site visits to a variety of area school districts to visit school counselors and interview them. The sites are determined by the student’s interests and future plans, they are encouraged by the instructor to seek out diverse experiences.
290:105g (3) Counseling Skills
1 ½ hours per week in clinic lab practicing counseling skills with students in skills class
Additional time reviewing tapes of interviews and observing interviews of classmates.
290:220(3) Group Process
Students lead a group session in class
Student take part in 8 group sessions as group member
290:262 (3) Intervention/Prevention Across the Life Span. ((290:103, 105, 227)
Interview with specific development issue and age group
290:227 (3) Counseling Children & Adolescents (290:105 “B” or above, 290:227 rec.)
Students work in a school with a mentor (school counselor) and counsel with a child and shadow and dialogue with the school counselor for a total of 10 hours.
290:250 (3) Family Counseling (290:105, 227 rec.)
Clinical analysis of a family.
290:226 (3) Consultation Skills (290:103, 105, 205, 254 rec.)
If available special projects involving working with clients/students and client groups, for example the Stress Less Fair (anniversary of EF-5 tornado in Parkersburg, IA); also visit the Black Hawk County Jail and Department of Corrections.
290:256 (3) Multicultural Counseling (290:103, 227)
A culturally engagement project—experiential component interaction with people different than they are.
290:290 (3) Practicum (10 hrs/per week) (290:103,105,220,227,250,254,262) Sign up/Approval
Students spend a minimum 9 hours a week working in a school setting with clients.
290:228 (3) Assessment Techniques in Counseling (290:103, 105, 205)
A two session assessment is required. It involves an intake interview, an appropriate assessment, and a follow up.
290:210 (3) Developing Comprehensive School Counseling Programs (290:103,105)
Plan to develop a program with Cedar Falls Public Schools. Two federal grants were submitted February 2010, one for elementary school counseling and one for secondary school counseling. The partnership between UNI school counseling program and the Cedar Falls Public School District was included in the grant application.
290:291 (6 ) Internship (40hrs/per week, 1 semester or 2 semesters 20hrs/perweek) (290:290)
Student does a full-time internship in a typical work setting as a school counselor.
TOTAL HOURS= 54 credit hours, Fall 2010 changes to 51 for students with teaching background.
4) P 62-63: Regarding 79.20 (3), what are the selection criteria for practicum and internship sites? Who supervises students at the site?
5) P 63: Regarding 79.20 (4), how are schools selected for practicum and internship?
6) How are the clinical experiences similar or different at the Clinical Lab and at the school settings?
Requests
1) Please provide a table (such as the one prepared for 79.21 (1)) that shows how courses have various levels of practice.
We apologize for not having a table. This information is provided in narrative form above.
2) P 66: For Table 6.1 please also add another column showing how the standards are assessed in those courses and provide some examples of student work. Preparing a table similar to the table 5.1 of the teacher preparation program report would be helpful.
As mentioned earlier, we are working on this component, but have yet to complete the task. We did provide in narrative form all of CACREP standards link to the department of education standards. All of these standards are included in our syllabi and multiple examples of student assignments are provided in exhibits.
C-3: Faculty Standard (Counselor Ed/Ed Psych/Speech Path)
Requests
1) Please review information submitted and ensure that data for all faculty members are presented in the format used by the TEP in Appendix E.
2) Please provide the plans for completing the 60-hour requirement for these programs.
This requirement potentially impacts the following courses. We look forward to speaking with the site visit team to develop ideas to meet this requirement. We have several ideas and will develop others to meet the 60 hours requirement per course. We also have some questions.
290:103g Introduction to Professional Counseling
290:227 Counseling Children and Adolescents
290:210 Developing Comprehensive School Counseling Programs
290:290 School Practicum (taught at Price Lab, Clare Struck instructor, in school)
290:291 School Internship
D-3: Counselor Education
Questions: How has the report addressed 79.13(1) a through h? While some of the rules may have been indirectly addressed, the team saw no references to these rules. They will be interested in reading/hearing how the Counselor Education program has specifically addressed these requirements.
Requests
1) P 53-58: The team appreciates the alignment of CACREP standards with specific coursework in which these standards are addressed and assessed. They will be interested in seeing more detail in the syllabi as mentioned. However, the component missing in the chart is what candidate performances address the specific standards: specifically how these standards are assessed. This is critical in building a performance assessment system.
2) Please provide more information on how standards are assessed in courses and student performance data as well as sample candidate work.
3) P 60: Please provide example(s) of annual evaluation(s) completed with individual candidates.
4) Please provide the results of the latest CACREP accreditation review/report and response.
5) The team looks forward to discussions regarding the current or planned assessment system for this program.
6) Does coursework for school counseling overlap with other counseling programs? If so, please describe.
The 2009 CACREP standards are moving to outcomes for students, similar to the expectations that the Iowa Department of Education has mentioned with candidate performances. This will be a total shift for our 2 programs, 51-60 credits, and has not been implemented as yet, but faculty are discussing that change in focus and planning. Nationally CACREP programs are discussing avenues for this shift on the national lists and at national conferences. The plan for us here at UNI is to implement an on-line e-portfolio system, where students will upload affidavits of support for addressing standards. This will provide an easily accessible venue to evaluate students’ work. We regret that we have not been able to make this change at this time. In addition, we feel that the 100% pass rate on the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Exam (CPCE) with 81% of our students scoring above the national mean is a good measure of the quality of our students graduating from UNI counselor education programs.