Blog 14 - Nakia Eckert

I found this article to be extremely interesting and a great wrap-up to our semester. At the beginning of this semester, I have to admit that I was not a “believer” in the ASCA National Model and thought that School Counselors just did what their Administrators told them to do. Going through this class and building a Comprehensive School Counseling Program with my group has taught me that learning this model and learning how to implement it are essential to the development of our profession both for us and for the future of School Counseling.

It was nice to read about how the ASCA National Model has had an unprecedented influence on the profession of School Counseling. We are lucky that others have done the hard work of building these programs in the schools, but there is much left to be done and we have our work cut out for us in both the implementation of CSCP’s in schools that do not already have one and in upholding the hard work of others in schools that already have an established program. Therefore, it is extremely important that we, as future School Counselors, establish the foundation of our attitudes and belief systems before entering into a school district. This is something we started this semester in our CSCP projects, but is also something I believe we have to work more on before we can say that we have fully refined our belief systems. 

The article states that, “despite the profound influence and impact of the ASCA National Model on professional school counselors, our review of the literature has not revealed research on school counselor readiness to embrace and implement this new way of work” (Dahir et al., 2009, p. 3). Despite the survey given to the counselors that did show an increase in priorities, there is still much work to be done so that counselors feel that they are supported in all that they do. The article also stated that if changes are to be implemented, the people that should be the ones to drive those changes are the School Counselors. They are the ones with their ears to the ground with the students and school district policies as a whole and should be the primary voices for change. This is something I look forward to and School Counselor rights and needs are something I will advocate for so that everyone can benefit.

Dahir, C. A., Burnham, J. J., & Stone, C. (2009). Listen to the voices: School counselors and comprehensive school counseling programs. Professional School Counseling, 12(3), 182-192. doi:10.5330/PSC.n.2010-12.182