Supervision Experiences of School Counselors-in-Training: An Interpretative Phenomenological Study

School counselors-in-training receive university and site supervision during their field experiences. University supervision may be provided by a faculty member or doctoral student who lacks school counseling experience. School counselors as site supervisors may not be trained to supervise. Further, the multiple systems may have differing expectations for supervisees. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to explore the lived experiences of eight master’s level school counselors-in-training with supervision. The four super-ordinate themes included: impact of counselor education program, supervisor characteristics, significance of feedback, and characteristics of the supervisee. Findings suggested programmatic changes counselor educators can make to strengthen student preparation.

Teaching School Counselors to Use Evidence-Based Practice to Advance Social Justice: A Case Study

School counselors are called to advocate for social justice in education and use evidence-based practice (EBP) to meet the diverse needs of students in schools today. This conceptual article describes the approach of one Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP)–accredited counselor education program to train future school counselors to use EBP to advocate for social justice and improve equity and access in education. We provide a case study regarding specific curricular changes to meet this imperative and offer recommendations for future research.

A Survey of Military Counseling Content and Curriculum Among Council on Rehabilitation Education- and Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs-Accredited Programs

Purpose:To determine the amount, frequency, and type of course content related to military counseling issues in Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE)- and Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP)-accredited master’s-level counselor education programs.Methods:A questionnaire was sent to all CORE- and CACREP-accredited program directors/coordinators (N= 383) via Microsoft Outlook e-mail system. The authors used the 6-item questionnaire to ask participants to report data in the following areas: (a) if their program offered a certificate program, specialty track, concentration, or degree program in military counseling; (b) if not, do they intend to add a stand-alone military counseling course, certificate program, specialty track, or degree program in military counseling; (c) if they currently have plans, how do they intend to deliver such topics within the structure of their curriculum or counselor education program; (d) if coursework already exists, how is it currently structured within their curriculum and counselor education program; and (e) 3 open-end questions requesting course titles; semester hours related to course content, curriculum, and/or concentration, and comments regarding student assignments and/or projects that are military related.Results:Overall, out of 362 programs surveyed, 85 (23.4%) responded. All 85 of survey respondents indicated that they did not have a (a) certificate program, (b) specialty track, or (c) degree program that related to military counseling. Of the 85 programs, 34 schools (4.7%) had developed stand-alone courses that offered military counseling content. More than two-thirds of the 85 programs reported covering military counseling content in various courses across the curriculum.Conclusion:None of the program directors/coordinators in this study indicated they had a specialty track, concentration, or certificate program. Some of the participants indicated they were considering adding additional seminars, courses, and other student experiences that would integrate assessment, diagnosis, and treatment for persons that are active-duty personnel and veterans. Overall, the data suggest that there is greater attention and a willingness among counselor educators to infuse military counseling–related coursework. This is promising because it is critical that preprofessionals and professionals alike be introduced to the emerging population of providing rehabilitation counseling services to military personnel, veterans, and their family members.

Teaching Group Processes Through Multiple Group Leadership Opportunities in a Masters Level Counselor Education Program

Utilizing an experiential component in group work training is a prominent feature in Counselor Education programs. Although numerous models have been proposed, the vast majority offer limited explanations of incorporating the number of hours of group participation and observation recommended by the Professional Standards for the Training of Group Workers (ASGW, 2000). This article presents an experiential group training model with multiple opportunities for group leadership in a masters level Counselor Education program, and provides a description of common themes experienced by group-leaders-in-training as they progressed through the culminating feature which served as the capstone of this approach.

Desire for Higher Education in First-Generation Hispanic College Students Enrolled in a Graduate Counseling Program

Motivation to seek higher education is rarely examined in Hispanic first-generation graduate students, those whose parents have not attended college, and there is less literature examining those whose desire for education extends to a master’s degree in counseling. The purpose of this study was to conduct a phenomenological examination of the desire to attend college among first-generation Hispanic students enrolled in a counselor education program. One-hour taped interviews were conducted with three volunteer participants enrolled in a graduate counseling program at a Texas university designated as a Hispanic-serving institution. Meaning units and constituents were extracted, and a general structure was developed using the Descriptive Phenomenological Method (Giorgi, 1985). The phenomenological analysis resulted in one structure that identifies the influence of respected others; resilience and self-efficacy; self-denial; a need for distinction and career satisfaction; spirituality; altruism; and a view of commitment to a counseling degree as a nonlinear process.

Using Presentation Capture in Counselor Education Programs

Emporia State University recently implemented a web-based presentation capture application for use in both a graduate and undergraduate counselor education program. Presentation capture, sometimes referred to as course capture or lecture capture, is most often used in traditional classrooms to record lectures by faculty for playback and review by students following class. However, in this educational scenario the students record sessions with assigned clients from the Emporia, Kansas community that are later played back by the faculty for review and evaluation – most often in a classroom environment where all the students gather to review and discuss the client recordings. The faculty critique the interview techniques, interview questions, and client engagement with the students as part of their training, research, and coursework. One of the unique needs of this approach is that the recordings conform to Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements and thus can only be replayed outside the counseling facility using an encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) access. Although this is a very small academic program at a modest-sized university, an empirical research study was conducted to gauge the effectiveness of capturing client sessions using a presentation capture application. Results from that study indicate that both students and faculty found the software and hardware to be very easy to use, and believed it significantly enhanced the quality of the counseling program.