Counselor Personality Needs as a Determinant of Functional Specialty Preference

The objective of this study was to determine whether personality needs discriminate between counselor trainees who prefer the administrator specialty and those who prefer the practitioner functional specialty. Doctoral students in counselor education at 20 southern universities were asked to complete a three-item questionnaire designed to determine functional specialty preference. Sixty-two subjects who indicated a preference for the administrator functional specialty and 63 subjects who chose the practitioner functional specialty completed the Personality Research Form (PRF). Stepwise discriminant analysis was used to determine the efficacy of PRF variables in discriminating between the administrator and practitioner groups. The results suggest that the PRF may have value as a tool in the selection of counselors.     

Professional Development in Counseling Older Persons

Because of belated attention to gerontology, most counselors concerned with older persons seem to require initial professional development rather than renewal. Development calls for enhancement of both knowledge and attitudes; interrelated areas delineated in this article. Knowledge needed includes stages and tasks encountered over the life span, recognition of individual variations on life-span themes, and specific information on such significant phases as career change, retirement, and death and dying. Attitudes, composed of cognitive and affective elements, may require intensive efforts to supplant stereotypes with unbiased views and appreciative feelings. Consideration is given to the relative merits of coursework, fieldwork, and other experiences in effecting attitudinal change. Programs and courses presently available are indicated and future prospects proposed, toward improvement of professional development in counseling older persons.     

Meeting Needs but not Changing Goals: evaluation of in-service teacher training for sex education

Teachers' lack of sex education training has been widely regarded as a barrier to delivery, but very few in-service programmes have been evaluated. This paper evaluates the teacher training component of a theoretically-based behavioural sex education programme for 13–15-year-olds called SHARE. It combines data from participant observation, in-depth interviews, questionnaires and lesson observations. The teachers found the training very valuable, particularly in relation to collegiate support, familiarisation with the SHARE pack and reducing discomfort. The two main objectives of the training programme that were congruent with teachers' perceived needs were fulfilled: to make teachers more comfortable and confident to deliver sex education and to prepare them to deliver the SHARE pack. However, the introduction of social-psychologically informed skills based exercises, radically different to those normally followed, was the least successful aspect of the training, as one might predict from previous research on in-service training. This might suggest that theoretically based, behavioural health education programmes might be best delivered by specialist staff.     

The Counseling-Community Psychologist in the CMHC: Employer Perceptions

A questionnaire devised to measure community mental-health center directors' perceptions of requisites for doctoral-level employment was mailed to 302 directors in Department of Health, Education and Welfare Region IV (southeastern United States); 117 (39%) returned completed questionnaires. The data are discussed, and a model is proposed for the training of doctoral-level counseling-community psychologists.