Blog 3

     I find myself challenged by the chapter on ethics and standards. It seems a daunting task to know the ins and outs of parent rights, school faculty responsibilities, ASCA, ACA, D&A, FERPA,Title IX… I appreciate the internet availability of all of these guides. I also feel this emphasizes the need to network with other staff, counselors and community agencies. Counseling is not an isolated role. Reaching out will give me support, more knowledge and resources- all to help the students. I appreciated the guidelines for ethical decision making processes. This will certainly be a necessary document to have readily available.

I was torn in the text’s exercise to rate the 6 primary values of a counselor.  My list today would be as follows:, nonmaleficence, justice/ fidelity , context and systems awareness ,  beneficence and autonomy. It should be understood that I feel that none of these values are less noble than the rest. Beneficence or doing good is a wonderful goal, we can expect standards of good, but I believe we will always question “good” enough. Autonomy in decision making is a strong value as well, and useful at appropriate times. However, as discussed earlier, the insight of other’s perspectives can be very powerful in difficult situations. 

     The ethical decisions chapter played nicely with one of my interviews. In this interview I was told of a student who was being neglected while her step siblings were treated much differently. The counselor reached out to child and youth services, but nothing could be done. This left the counselor frustrated and with little power. We need to be aware of our boundaries as counselors. To what extent can one intervene? Not as far as we would like, I am certain. We cannot expect change, simply because we don’t agree with a parenting style.

     I cannot profess my parenting opinions as best practices. I have come across questionable parenting situations where I work. My method has been to speak respectfully to the child in the parent’s presence, as a way to model effective communication.  I have noticed, the more families are exposed to positive communication, the more they tend to use it. It would be interesting to implement this strategy into a team building experience for families.

     Walsh, Barrett, and De Paul (2007) state that a large portion of the achievement gap is due to community and family issues.  The role of the counselor is of a liaison between families, school and community. This is becoming a larger piece of the puzzle. A network must be in place to support one another. If one system is failing, it impacts the others greatly.  

Dollarhide, C.T. & Saginak, K.A. (2012) Comprehensive school counseling programs. (2nd ed.). New York: Pearson, Inc.

Walsh, M.E., Barrett, J. G., & DePaul, J. (2007). Day-to-day activities of school counselors: Alignment with new directions in the field and the ASCA National Model. Professional School Counseling, 10(4), 370-378..