Role of the Counselor

I had always been interested in the relationship between the school principal and counselor and enjoyed hearing some stories about specific relationships in the school counselor panel discussions. The article by Ameata and Clark (2005) affirmed some of these discussions, with 12 percent of survey respondents believing that school counselors should take active leadership roles in their schools. We have had many discussions about this role in our class conversations so far, and I feel comfortable with my skills in this area. I found the role of case consultant interesting, as I also believe this is an important role of the counselor, although I would view this as a direct service responsibility. In this section, I liked the authors’ reminder that is important for counselors to act in a collaborative rather than an expert manner, expecting the counselor to “work with a teacher or parent in solving a particular child’s problem rather than either tell[ing] the teacher or parent what to do or tak[ing] over the responsibility for changing the student’s behavior” (Ameata and Clark, 2005, p. 20). Approaching problems from this perspective will hopefully also help alleviate some of our burden. I liked reading that a third of respondents believed that the counselor’s primary role was to provide direct services to students, as I think that this is the role that is emphasized in our particular program. While some administrators emphasized the career guidance role, others emphasized the importance of dealing with individual students in crisis. I'm more comfortable with my skills in the career guidance area, but I recognize the importance of crisis intervention and plan to build on my skills in this area. I will also make it a priority to learn my school and district procedures when I'm in my first job. I have mixed feelings about the administrative team player role. I know we've had many discussions about the appropriate and inappropriate responsibilities of school counselors, but coming from a teams sport background, I still feel as if I should pitch in when necessary to help things run smoothly. This attitude and perspective will have to be something that I balance with protecting my time so that I can focus on providing direct services to students. Instead of examining this from the perspective of the roles I'm most comfortable with, perhaps I also need to ask myself (as the authors mention) if I'm willing to serve in very different roles depending on the needs of my school and students. Amatea, E., and Clark, M.A. (2005). Changing counselors: A qualitative study of school administrators' conceptions of the school counselor role. Professional School Counseling, 9(1), 16-27.