The Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program Delivery System

The Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program Delivery System

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Insert Figure 16

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As summarized in Figure 16, Section 4 describes the organizational system for delivering guidance and counseling program activities. The comprehensive, developmental guidance and counseling delivery system for Texas public schools is structured by four activity components:

·  Guidance Curriculum

·  Responsive Services

·  Individualized Student Planning

·  System Support.

As an integral part of a total educational program, the intent of a comprehensive, developmental guidance and counseling program is to provide

·  developmentally appropriate assistance for all students, and

·  special assistance to those who need it.

Organizing a delivery system by organizing its activities works well because activities bring all the design factors and the resources together:

·  students and other clients

·  student learning and skill development

·  professional school counselor competence

·  facilities, equipment, and materials

Every activity in the Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program targets student learning objectives within the seven content areas described in Section V.

Activities are provided for students directly and indirectly. They participate in direct services. While students are the focus of indirect services, the participants are teachers, parents, administrators, and other adults who have responsibility for students. The descriptions below of each component includes its

·  Purpose

·  Subject matter

·  Activities

·  Professional School Counselors’ Competencies

·  Other Professionals’ Involvement

·  Parent Involvement

This section ends by describing how to plan for delivery of a balanced program. A common rule of thumb is that in a student-centered guidance and counseling delivery system counselors spend 85% of their time in direct services, and 15% in indirect services.

Standards for Delivery System Components

Guidance Curriculum

Purpose:

Guidance curriculum component activities help “students develop their full educational potential, including the student’s interests and career objectives” [TEC §33.005 (1)]. As the base of the developmental guidance program (I), it provides guidance content in a systematic way to all students.

Subject matter:

Instruction in guidance and counseling content areas begins with children’s first experiences in school, with the levels of mastery becoming more advanced each year in accordance with the students’ ages and developmental levels. Section V specifies an age-appropriate sequence for student learning in guidance and counseling content areas by stating competency indicators for the following grade spans:

• Grades Pre-Kindergarten-Kindergarten

• Grades 1 - 3

• Grades 4 - 6

• Grades 7 - 9

• Grades 10 – 12

Decisions are made at the campus or district level about what constitutes a well-balanced guidance curriculum, based on their students’ needs and addressing all seven content areas over the course of students’ school careers. Local needs and priorities dictate the specific competencies, results, and objectives to be taught.

Activities:

Guidance Curriculum activities are provided to all students in all grade levels in a school. It is taught in units with planned, objective-based (V) lessons to classroom-sized groups of students. Depending on students’ ages, a counselor’s caseload, and the local program balance, guidance instruction maybe taught to small groups. The most effective activities and materials to be used are selected locally. It is imperative that activities are designed and materials used are relevant within the school community served. To ensure increasing effectiveness, guidance lessons include assessments of student learning.

Guidance Curriculum activities may be implemented as a separate subject area as in a specific course, and/or be infused throughout the rest of the instructional disciplines.

Professional School Counselors’ Responsibilities:

As members of instructional teams, school counselors “deliver classroom guidance activities,” providing direct instruction for learning and applying skills “based on the school’s guidance curriculum” [TEC §33.006 (b)(6)].

They serve students indirectly by consulting with

·  “teachers conducting lessons based on the school’s guidance curriculum” [TEC §33.006 (b)(6)],

·  teachers whose curriculum dovetails with guidance and counseling content areas, and

·  other school staff members in participating in school-wide activities that target students learning guidance and counseling content

Other Professionals’ Involvement:

Full implementation of the guidance curriculum requires partnerships between counselors and teachers.

Parent Involvement:

The guidance curriculum reflects knowledge and skills that parents also help their children learn. Historically, parents have accepted primary responsibility for teaching these life skills. It is important for parents to provide input to the curriculum taught at their children’s schools. It is best for their children when they make themselves aware of what is taught and reinforce the skills at home. Each school conducts a preview of guidance and counseling delivery system materials to be used during the year (TEC §33.004(b)).

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Insert Tips for Counselors: Working with Patents

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Responsive Services

Purpose:

The purpose of the “responsive services component is to intervene on behalf of any student whose immediate personal concerns or problems put the student’s continued educational, career, personal, or social development at risk” [TEC §33.005 (2)].

Subject matter:

All the Content Areas and Goals (V) have relevance in implementing meaningful Responsive Services depending on issues presented by students, their circumstances, and developmental stages.

Although counselors respond to any concerns presented by students, some issues that have been identified as having high priority and/or relevance within the school setting are listed in Figure 17.

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Student Issues Presented: Texas Priorities

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In addition to issues identified at the Federal and State level, campuses/districts commonly identify others (See Figure 18).

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Recurrent Student Issues Presented in Local Communities

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In this component as in the others, locally identified needs dictate the priorities for issues and the groups of students to be served.

Activities:

Professional school counselors

·  counsel individuals or small groups of students,

·  appraise individuals for the purpose of problem identification,

·  consult with teachers and parents, primarily about individual students

·  refer students and/or their parents and teachers to other specialists or special programs,

·  coordinate programs and services with other specialists, and

·  follow-up with students to monitor progress toward resolution of their problems.

Where applicable, they train and supervise peer facilitators. Often they conduct guidance sessions in response to teachers’ requests to address problems of particular groups, such as competitiveness or stress with classroom groups of gifted students.

Based on the needs of the students being served, professional school counselors’ interventions are categorized as being developmental (as described in Guidance Curriculum), preventive, remedial, or crisis.

Preventive responses serve students who are on the brink of choosing an unhealthy or inappropriate solution to their problems or being unable to cope with a situation.

Remedial responses serve students who have already made unwise choices or have not coped well with problem situations.

Crisis interventions serve students who are at high risk for seriously disrupting their educational, career, personal, or social development. As much as feasible, professional school counselors’ crisis responses are scheduled and planned in advance. True crisis interventions often call for reactive responses.

The number of students in schools that can be served through Responsive Services depends on multiple factors, including

·  The number of students in counselors’ caseloads (II)

·  The time allocation for services set in the delivery system design (III)

·  The configuration of the service: small groups or individuals; students or adults

·  The amount of time needed to effectively carry out the intervention

·  The amount of time needed to effectively meet the established expected results and activity objectives (V)

Professional School Counselors’ Responsibilities :

“The primary responsibility of a school counselor is to counsel students to fully develop each student’s academic, career, personal, and social abilities” [TEC §33.006 (a)]. Other direct service responses are referring students for other services, and conducting individual student assessments.

They respond indirectly when they “consult with a student’s parent or guardian and make referrals as appropriate” [TEC §33.006 (b)(2)], and when they consult or coordinate resources with and for other adults.

The Texas Family Code §32.004 authorizes counseling without parental consent for: suicide prevention, chemical addiction or dependency, or sexual, physical or emotional abuse.

Professional school counselors have an ethical responsibility to advocate for their student clients and their parents when situations call for such (ACA, 2005; ASCA, 2004).

Other Professionals’ Involvement:

Teachers refer students for counseling services and collaborate with counselors in addressing students’ issues. School administrators guide students and their parents, and when appropriate refer them to professional school counselors for counseling or referral to other mental health service providers. Other community or school-based mental health specialists provide extended counseling or therapy. They also collaborate with school counselors to ensure coordinated efforts on behalf of students.

Parent Involvement:

Parent involvement with and participation in Responsive Services activities increases the likelihood of their children overcoming barriers that put them at-risk. They refer their children for help, work with school staff to specify their children’s issues, and give permission for needed special services including on-going counseling. Some school districts require written consent for some of the responsive services (TEC §33.003).

Individualized Student Planning

Purpose:

The purpose of Individualized Student Planning component is “to guide a student as the student plans, monitors, and manages the student’s own educational, career, personal, and social development” [TEC §33.005 (3)]. Additionally, “each counselor at an elementary, middle, or junior high school … shall advise students and their parents or guardians regarding the importance of higher education, coursework designed to prepare students for higher education and financial aid availability and requirements” [TEC §33.007 (a)]. A counselor shall “provide information about higher education to students and parents … “during the first year a student is enrolled in a high school or at the high school level in an open-enrollment charter school, and again during the student’s senior year” [TEC §33.007 (b)]. (Also see the related Commissioner’s Rules in Appendix D.)

Subject matter:

The most relevant Content Area Goals (V) to implement meaningful Individualized Student Planning activities are

Motivation to Achieve

·  Develop their own academic potential

·  Take advantage of educational opportunities

·  Identify career opportunities that will allow them to fulfill their potential

Decision-making, Goal-setting, Planning, Problem-solving Skills

·  Make decisions

·  Develop a plan of action

·  Set goals

·  Gather information

·  Manage change

·  Manage transition

Topics of high priority for Individualized Student Planning activities throughout Texas include guiding and advising students to

• Set challenging educational, career, and personal-social goals that are based on self-knowledge and information about school, the world of work, and their society;

• Make plans for achieving short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals;

• Analyze how their strengths and weaknesses enhance or hinder the achievement of their goals;

• Assess their current progress toward their goals; and

• Make decisions that reflect their plans.

Commissioner’s Rules (§61.GG; Appendix D) specify content to be addressed in providing information to students regarding higher education. The topics are

·  “the importance of higher education” [§61.1071 (b) (1)]

·  “the advantage of completing the recommended high school curriculum or higher” [§61.1071 (b) (2)]

·  “the advantages of taking courses leading to a high school diploma relative to the disadvantages of preparing for a high school equivalency examination” [§61.1071 (b) (3)]

·  “financial aid eligibility” [§61.1071 (b) (4)]

·  “instruction on how to apply for financial aid” [§61.1071 (b) (5)]

·  “the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Center for Financial Aid Information” [§61.1071 (b) (6)]

·  “the Automatic Admissions policy which provides certain students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class with automatic admission into Texas public universities” [§61.1071 (b) (7)]

·  “the general eligibility and academic performance requirements for the TEXAS grant program” [§61.1071 (b) (8)]

The rules require more detail about these topics. Those details are in Appendix D.

Activities:

Activities in this component focus on individual students—their information, their goals, their plans, their progress. All students in schools need help in establishing and implementing personal plans. Activities are planned and scheduled to match students’ developmental stages. The basic activities in this component are conducted in large, class-sized, and small groups. Individual follow-up occur as appropriate. Even when conducted in groups, all the activities in this component help students focus on their own plans and goals.

The number of students in schools that can be served through Individual Student Planning activities depends on multiple factors, including

·  The number of students in counselors’ caseloads (II)

·  The time allocation for services set in the delivery system design (III)

·  The configuration of the service: small groups or individuals; students or adults

·  The amount of time need to effectively carry out the guidance sessions desired

·  The amount of time need to effectively meet the established expected results and activity objectives (V)

In order to use scarce resources—e.g., counselors’ time and talent—efficiently, campus or district educators establish priorities for helping students at different grade levels make and implement different kinds of plans.

As an integral part of the developmental guidance program, Individualized Student Planning activities include:

·  targeting age-appropriate, objective-based guidance sessions;

·  relevant, accurate, and unbiased information; and

·  coordinated advisement procedures to facilitate appropriate placement decisions by students and their parents.

Examples of typical systemic opportunities for providing Individualized Student Planning assistance include

·  the interpretation of standardized test results,

·  career development activities (e.g., Career Days),

·  school transition strategies provided to help students’ transition from one school level to the next

·  pre-registration for courses for the subsequent school year, and

·  exploring options for post-secondary education and/or training.

Professional School Counselors’ Responsibilities:

Professional school counselors serve students directly by guiding groups and individuals through the planning processes. “With the assistance of school staff, [they] interpret standardized test results and other assessment data that help a student make educational and career plans” [TEC §33.006 (b)(5)].