Although chapter 8 of Dollarhide and Saginak’s (2012) text did not discuss many aspects of the ASCA National Model; I was still able to make connections from the topics in the chapter to the model. As I read through the sections on the misconceptions of counseling, prevention, intervention, and treatment the themes of advocacy and collaboration stuck out to me. I am glad that Dollarhide and Saginak (2012) touched on the misconceptions of counseling because this is a topic that is often visited in our discussions in class, and it also goes along with the idea of role confusion. I would say that before I started this program; I had many of these misconceptions from my own experiences with counseling when I was in school. My high school counselors very much focused on making class schedules and career counseling. Dollarhide and Saginak (2012) made a good point in saying that letters should be sent home to parents and caregivers at the beginning of the year that explain the foundations and nature of a comprehensive school counseling program (p. 123). This topic was actually brought up by the elementary school counselor that I interviewed for our research projects. When I asked her how a better developed counseling program would be an asset to her school; she responded with trying to make the program more known to the public. She actually handed out a newsletter to the parents on back to school night that explained how she was going to implement certain programs in the school. This ties in nicely with the ideas of collaboration and advocacy from the ASCA National Model. By letting parents know how the program works; counselors are able to advocate for their roles in a school and are also able to start building a rapport with parents which could be helpful for collaboration.
I am glad that Dollarhide and Saginak (2012) discussed the ideas of mental health counseling. I know that school counselors are not considered to be mental health counselors. However, I am sure that we will be faced with mental health challenges at some point in our careers. Knowing the difference between prevention, intervention, treatment, and when to refer a student will ultimately allow us to have a better handle on the issues that our students may be facing. As mental health issues are increasing in our society; we need to educate more people instead of allowing these issues to sometimes have a negative stigma attached to them. This idea also goes along with the importance of collaboration in our profession. In the future, we will need to have contact and a rapport with several outside agencies so that no student is overlooked when faced with an issue that may be outside our scope of school counseling. I attended the youth mental health rights conference at Millersville last week. I will admit that before attending this conference; I may have been unaware how much suicide prevention and intervention is needed in our schools. Depression affects young people today more than any other mental health issue. It is extremely important to recognize the warning signs and utilize the IS PATH WARM and SLAP models that Dollarhide and Saginak (2012) discuss in the chapter (p. 125). Programs such as Aevidum would also be a great setting for peer mentorship programs. Since the program is mostly created and run by a group of students; it could be a great opportunity for students to reach out and support each other.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this chapter. A lot of the topics such as multicultural counseling, individual counseling, and group counseling really brought together the things I learned about in my other classes in the school counseling program. Although the chapter did not necessarily touch on the ASCA National Model; I am beginning to realize the importance of the elements of the model and how they can be used in schools regardless of the topic or issue at hand.
Dollarhide, C. T., & Saginak, K. A. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs. (2nd ed.). New York: Pearson, Inc.
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