Academic peer counseling: Advising with a personal touch

By taking advantage of its resources, students already prepared to do counseling, an academic department has used a peer counseling program to conserve faculty time, improve the dissemination of information, and provide significant interpersonal contact for undergraduate students. Careful selection and synergic supervision have resulted in performance and commitment from the peer counselors. Their efforts have been evaluated positively by student consumers and faculty.She teaches and supervises graduate students in counseling, teaches humanistic psychology, and supervises the academic peer counseling program.He was a peer counselor at the University of West Florida for two years.     

Field Supervision of Counselors in Training: A Survey of the North Atlantic Region

Most of the research on supervision has focused on supervisors in academic institutions (faculty members or doctoral students). In this article the authors describe a study in which they examined supervisors in community agencies where master's level counselors were assigned for practicum and internship training. The survey suggested that agencies were heavily invested in supervising graduate level counseling students and providing them with a rich clinical experience. Respondents typically had a master's degree, used various models of supervision, and provided feedback by means of self-report and audiotape or videotape review of counseling sessions. Results suggest that these supervisors had little contact with the concurrent academic supervisor and may have had little formal training in supervision. Implications of this survey include a need for more training for supervisors in graduate counseling programs and a need for more liaison between campus and field supervisors.     

Effects of Verbal Interaction Analysis Training with Counseling Practicum Students

This article investigates differences in counselor verbal style and type of counselee talk in two groups of counselor trainees. The first group consisted of 15 counselor trainees who received a training program with an Amidon-type Verbal Interaction Analysis System; the second group was a control group of 15 counselor trainees who received no interaction analysis training as part of a semester-long counseling practicum. The results indicated that the counselors receiving interaction analysis training tended to talk less and Use indirect influence techniques more often than the counselor trainees in the control group. Clients of the counselors in the experimental group tended to talk more often and use more self-initiated talk than did the clients of counselors in the control group.     

Equalizing Opportunity: Training Indigenous Personnel as Mental Health Counselors

Traditional counseling and clinical programs have been reluctant to train lay counselors. The innovative program described in this article was designed to assist disadvantaged adults in obtaining credentials to qualify for a professional position. Unlike traditional students, TIP (Training Indigenous Persons) students were admitted to graduate level courses in mental health counseling on criteria other than their past academic record. Results supported the recent focus on variables related to candidates' success as counselors, rather than on their previous academic performances.     

Utilizing Partnerships to Maximize Resources in College Counseling Services

Research indicates an increasing number of college students are experiencing severe psychological problems that are impacting their academic performance. However, many colleges and universities operate with constrained budgets that limit their ability to provide adequate counseling services for their student population. Moreover, accessing off-campus mental health services can be difficult for college students, in particular community college students, for a variety of reasons. This article describes a partnership between a community college and university that utilizes a graduate training program to provide on-campus counseling to both student populations enabling both institutions to maximize their resources.     

Counselor Training in a School Center

This article describes the creation of a partnership between a local school district and a university counselor education department to train counselors while providing counseling services using counselor trainees. The partnership resulted in a counseling center located in the school, which serves the school and community and is staffed by the university. The concept of a training center constructed by a school district and staffed by trainees and university faculty to serve students and people in the community is unique. This article explores the rationale for the community school-based, training-service center and the steps leading to its establishment. Also discussed are the physical structure and the operation of the center and the advantages and problems.     

A National Survey of the Program and Enrollment Characteristics of Counselor Education Programs

ACES sponsored a national survey of state supervisors of guidance and counselor education institutions and of nontraditional institutions offering graduate degrees in guidance and counseling in order to secure information regarding (a) the licensure of guidance counselors, (b) the use of a competency-based approach to the certification of counselors, (c) the manpower needs for persons in guidance and personnel work, and (d) the program characteristics of counselor education institutions. Only a relatively small number of states anticipate becoming involved in the licensure of conselors in the foreseeable future; 53.6 percent of the states expect their certification of counselors to be competency-based within 2 to 5 years, and 76.1 percent of counselor education institutions have decided to make their programs competency-based but progress is slow. There is an oversupply of BA-level guidance persons, school counselors, and doctoral-level persons seeking faculty positions; there is a strong preference for ethnic minorities and women to fill counselor education positions; and abnormally high faculty/graduate ratios were reported for many institutions.     

Principals' Training in Counseling and Development: A National Survey

A national survey for all schools offering graduate training for school principals and for school counselors was conducted to determine the amount of preservice training principals receive related to school counseling and development. A questionnaire was mailed to the head of the administrator-training program at each of the 407 universities identified, and 376 responses were returned. Findings with respect to counseling and development courses required in administator-training programs, counseling and development courses available as electives, and counseling and development-oriented components in required administration courses are presented. Also, suggestions for counselor educators regarding methods of improving the counseling and development-related training received by educational administrators are offered.     

Do Formalized Gatekeeping Procedures Increase Programs' Follow‐Up With Deficient Trainees?

The authors investigated whether formalized gatekeeping procedures and program‐level characteristics influence the rates at which deficient trainees are graduated from counseling programs. One hundred eighteen faculty members reported that counselor educators face diverse pressures to avoid investigating potentially deficient students, including concerns about being sued and concerns about receiving compromised teaching evaluations. However, faculty members in programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs and faculty members in programs with more formalized gatekeeping procedures seemed to more effectively follow through with concerns they had about specific students. These findings support the implementation of both broad, program‐wide training standards and specific, formalized procedures to more effectively screen deficient trainees.     

Counselor Education Students’ Exposure to Trauma Cases

In the past two decades there has been an increase in the number of studies that have examined the psychological effects on counselors who provide counseling to clients with trauma experiences. However, little is known about the experiences of counselor trainees who provide counseling to their clients seeking counseling because of trauma. This qualitative study explored the experience of eight doctoral students in a counseling program who completed their master’s-level training in the United States. Three themes emerged from the inductive data analysis process, namely: (1) immediate reactions, (2) information processing, and (3) post-exposure development. Implications for counselors, counselor educators, and clinical supervisors are examined and recommendations to enhance counseling and supervision services are offered.     

School Smarts: A Reflection of Pedagogical and Personal Insights

Recent studies show that many college instructors still believe that Latino students lack the “school smarts” for academic success. This essay challenges the notion of school smarts in order to highlight Latino students’ numerous strengths. I share my model for a mentorship program that facilitates better student–faculty communication and deepens a student-centered learning environment in a large general education course. Establishing the program led me to reflect on how the enduring belief in school smarts affected my own academic training. Directly challenging deficit thinking, I argue that Latino students contribute to a transformative educational process in which faculty are also learners.     

OLDER ADULTS AS PEER COUNSELORS: CONSIDERATIONS IN COUNSELOR TRAINING WITH THE ELDERLY

The use of peer counselors with various populations has had a major impact on many areas of mental health service provision, including services to the elderly. Training older persons to serve as peer counselors requires specific attention to characteristics of older adult learners. This paper offers practical suggestions for the design and implementation of peer counseling programs for older adults. These suggestions include both general principles to serve as a guide in developing a program, such as selection of trainees, setting training goals, and providing follow‐up training and supervision, and specific recommendations on conducting effective training, including group size, number and length of sessions, educational format, and leadership qualities.     

The Gap Between Influence and Efficacy: College Readiness Training,Urban School Counselors,and the Promotion of Equity

This phenomenological study presents 11 urban school counselors’ perceptions of their graduate education in school counseling in relation to their engagement in college readiness counseling with low‐income, 1st‐generation college‐bound students. Findings from 2 rounds of interviews suggest that intentional strategies to integrate postsecondary readiness and planning into counselor education curricula is necessary to efficiently prepare school counselors to promote college access and success for at‐risk youth, thereby reducing the inequities that currently exist in postsecondary degree attainment.     

Supervisor Training: A Discrimination Model

The delivery of supervision skills to those who direct counselors through practicum is not well defined in the counseling literature. This article addresses that issue by presenting a model for identification and training of those skills, the roles in which the skills are demonstrated, and the types of choices or discriminations that are necessary to make in tutoring trainees through the counseling practicum. This model attempts to pair the training of supervisors with the training of counselors in a systematic fashion.     

Finger Blood Volume Responses of Counselors,Counselor Trainees,and Non-Counselors to Stimuli from an Empathy Test

Measures of 4 physiological variables were obtained while 30 counselors, 30 counselor trainees, and 30 graduate science majors were evaluating a series of dramatic dialogs and slides taken from an empathy test. Significantly more vasoconstriction, indicative of arousal, was observed in the counselors and counselor trainees than in the science majors. This finding is consistent with the proposal that empathy is related to physiological responses and serves as contributing evidence for criteria in the selection, training, and evaluation of counselors.     

Integrating theory and practice to increase scientific workforce diversity: a framework for career development in graduate research training

Few, if any, educational interventions intended to increase underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students in biological and behavioral sciences are informed by theory and research on career persistence. Training and Education to Advance Minority Scholars in Science (TEAM-Science) is a program funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the twin goals of increasing the number of URM students entering and completing a PhD in BBS and increasing the number of these students who pursue academic careers. A framework for career development in graduate research training is proposed using social cognitive career theory. Based on this framework, TEAM-Science has five core components: 1) mentor training for the research advisor, 2) eight consensus-derived fundamental competencies required for a successful academic career, 3) career coaching by a senior faculty member, 4) an individualized career development plan that aligns students' activities with the eight fundamental competencies, and 5) a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats personal career analysis. This paper describes the theoretical framework used to guide development of these components, the research and evaluation plan, and early experience implementing the program. We discuss the potential of this framework to increase desired career outcomes for URM graduate trainees in mentored research programs and, thereby, strengthen the effectiveness of such interventions on participants' career behaviors.     

学情研究：高校辅导员开展学业指导的逻辑起点

高校辅导员开展学情研究是辅导员工作专业化、职业化的必然要求。学情分析是辅导员开展学业指导的逻辑起点,是高校提高思想政治教育实效性的保障。高校辅导员开展学情分析,围绕学生已经习得的状态和潜在的状态和差异状态三个维度,对学生的学业认知、学业情感、学业行为及学业群体特征展开。通过组建导师团队,建立动态数据库,开展学业咨询,提高辅导员工作的实效性。     

Academic Criteria,Experiential Background,and Personal Interviews as Predictors of Success in a Counselor Education Program

A 4-year evaluation was conducted of a counselor education trainee selection process that places approximately equal weight on three selection criteria: academic index, experiential background, and personal interviews. Mean faculty rankings were obtained for 77 trainees on three separate evaluative areas: (a) academic success in the program, (b) overall counseling competency in the program, and (c) anticipated success in the field. Results of Pearson product-moment correlational analyses indicated that two selection criteria (Miller's Analogies Test and the Verbal portion of the Graduate Records Examination) were significantly related to faculty-ranked academic success. No single criterion, however, was significantly related with faculty rankings of either counseling competency or anticipated success in the field. The correlation between the Miller's Analogy Test and a measure of “overall success in counselor education” was in the predicted direction but failed to reach the traditional levels of statistical significance (p < .09). Implications for future research and limitations of the study are discussed.     

The Preparation of Master's‐Level Professional Counselors for Positions in College and University Counseling Centers

This study investigated college and university counseling center directors’ perceptions of the adequacy of the preparation of master's‐level counselors for work in college and university counseling centers. Results indicated that counselors were rated on average as prepared; however, many directors had concerns about counselors’ ability to work with students presenting more severe mental health issues. Findings are discussed, and implications for the training and preparation of college counseling practitioners are presented.     

Preparing Entry‐Level Counselors for Collaboration

Over a period of 5 years, faculty members from the North Carolina State University's Counselor Education Program have integrated a curriculum enhancement to promote collaboration behaviors among program graduates across the master's degree options for training school, college, and community counselors. The School–College–Community Collaboration (SC3) idea was integrated into a 48‐credit master's degree curriculum accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. The authors present the rationale for the training program, historical background, program enhancement content, evaluation findings and faculty responses, and future plans for the SC3 enhancement program.