Consultation and Collaboration

I am returning to comment on Chapter 10 because I skipped ahead last week. I’m glad I made this mistake though because I can now use our class discussion to inform my thoughts for this post. After reading the case study on Peg and Yer on my own, I was initially weary about the issues of confidentiality that may have potentially been breached during this conversation. However, after hearing from some of my classmates who viewed this exchange as perfectly acceptable, I am now more comfortable with the idea of having this sort of conversation with another school counselor, as I think these additional insights can only improve my practice. Much of the information covered in the chapter was new to me, but one of the concepts that seemed especially useful was community asset mapping, which compiles existing community resources for all school stakeholders to access. Although we are creating an individualized version of this document in our practicum portfolios, I had not considered the benefits of organizing a multidisciplinary team to identify resources and develop a community resource guide for a school. At first glance, this seems like a low-stakes sort of project that could potentially result in big gains in community awareness and buy-in. After our long discussion about the role of school counselors in conducting classroom observations, I am still not sure where exactly I stand on this issue and have a fairly low comfort level with my ability to provide targeted feedback on instruction. However, I appreciated the authors’ discussion of the possible scenarios for consultation in Chapter 10, as I realized that I am comfortable with a number of these other roles. I especially liked reviewing the examples highlighting the distinctions between consulting and counseling when working with students, as I think it will be important to realize what approach you’re taking in order to intervene effectively. I am still a bit confused about the four models for consulting approaches, but can again understand the importance in making these distinctions when selecting a particular intervention. I found the case study examples helpful once again at the end of the chapter because I had not classified programs like mentor/mentee programs as consultation, but can now see how teachers serve in consulting roles to students in addressing issues like attendance, peer conflicts, and other family issues, and how counselors act in consulting roles to teachers serving as advisors. Dollarhide, C.T., & Saginak, K.A. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs (2nd Ed.). New York: Pearson, Inc.