Counselors Can Help Kick Off...Yet Another Success...

Congratulations to the UMakGCO Team for yet another successful activity. Just recently (07 February 2009) we have concluded the first of a series of guidance and counseling activities for the 'Counselors Can Help Program'. The program kicked off with New Haven and Marillac Hills. Children ages 7 -17 at the New Haven were the primary recepients of the team's program. The same set of activities like 'expressive arts' counselling, and various fun fares were also held with Marillac Hills' 'Children In Conflict with the Law (CICL)'. Each of the team members also gave basic toiletries and used clothes to culminate the event.

It is also noteworthy that the team prepared a heart warming rendition of Highschool Musical's 'Beautiful Day'. Many thanks of course to Prof. Benzon the adviser of the team for her undying support to the team, to Dr. Bernales and Dr. Pimentel for serving as inspiration of the team's endeavors.

The Counselors Can Help Program will continue for the whole of 2009. Many activities have also been lined up like follow-up programs both with New Haven and Marillac.

Thanks to everyone in the team for their undying commitment to the fulfillment of the team's vision and mission.

Meeting on Thursday Feb. 5 @ Makati Elem School 6 PM

This is to reiterate the announcement of our last meeting before the FEb. 7, 2009 New Haven and Marilag Activities.It shall be noted that this meeting is an important one as we will be wrapping up our programme, sort the 8 sacks of used clothes that Ms. Norie has donated, and distribution of our raffle tickets for the Feb. 14, 2009 fund raising activity.

The venue of our meeting will be at Makati Elementary School Rockwell along JP Rizal St. Take off at Escuela Street then ride a tricycle going to Makati Elementary School. The reason why we are holding the meeting at the named venue is that the 8 sacks of clothes that we will be sorting is stationed there.

Attendance is a must.

Dennis

Meeting on Thursday Feb. 5 @ Makati Elem School 6 PM

This is to reiterate the announcement of our last meeting before the FEb. 7, 2009 New Haven and Marilag Activities.It shall be noted that this meeting is an important one aswe will be wrapping up our programme, sort the used 8 sacksof clothes that Ms. Norie has donated, and distribution ofour raffle ticket for the Feb. 14, 2009 fund raising activity.
The venue of our meeting will be at Makati Elementary School Rockwell along JP Rizal St. Take off at Escuela Street thenride a tricycle going to Makati Elementary School. The reasonwhy we are holding this meeting at the named venue is thatthe 8 sacks of clothes that we will be sorting is there.

Attendance is a must.

Dennis

Lecture/ Workshop on Expressive Arts...A Success!

Congratulations to everyone...It was indeed a job well done...Many thanks also to our resource speaker, Mrs. Mary Grace B. Bautista of Rosefield College and University of Asia and the Pacific. Most especially to Prof. Alicia G. Benzon for the undying support for the UMakGCO family.

Minutes of Meeting 10 January 2009

Minutes of the Meeting Held at the Media Center on 10 January 2009 @ 12 noon to 1 pm

Presided by Mr. Dennis E. Maligaya

Members Present: Leo, JM, Mel, Norie, Kristy, Jo, Julie, Luz (9 members present of 17)


Matters Discussed and Agreed During the Meeting:

1. Imposition of Penalty for Absence/s during Meetings:

Everyone knows that the Organization’s meeting is being held every Saturday (and is the only time that we get to meet one another), especially now that we have matters at hand and need to be discussed. It has been observed by most of the members that full attendance has not been met.

Mr. Maligaya has again challenged the commitment of everyone in this organization and of their cooperation to its upcoming projects. In a vote of 5 against 4 of those present during the meeting, it has been agreed that effective January 17, 2009, those who will be absent during meetings, whether reasonable or not shall be imposed a fine of Php100.00. The proceeds will go to the UMakGCO common fund.

For comments and suggestions on this matter please feel free to write them on our website: www.umakgco.blogspot.com

2. Collection of Weekly/ Monthly Dues:

We have started to collect Php25.00 or Php100.00 for weekly/monthly dues. As discussed during previous meetings, the said dues will defray mobilization expenses of the organization.

3. Creation of Teams for the New Haven/ Marilag Foundation Project:

· Sponsorship Letter follow-ups : Please coordinate them with Ms. Norie, cel no. 0922 857 5567;

· Boxes for Give to New Haven/ Marilag: Boxes will be installed inside the Dean’s office and private schools c/o some members starting 17 January 2009. Please drop your used clothes, canned goods, noodles, toys, etc. to these boxes. Ms. Kristy, cel no. 0928 666 8922 will be assigned to coordinate this task.


· Streamers/ Banners: Design/ layout of streamers and banners will be done by Mr. JM Cabaccan.

· Coordination with New Haven and Marilag Foundations : c/o Ms. Julie

· Funds Allocation : c/o Ms. Angie Arboleda, cel no. 0906 351 0446 please coordinate with her all payments of monthly dues and/or requests for funds.

· Uniform Fitting: c/o Ms. Julie on 17 January 2009. Please come at designated time and place – Media Center or Dean’s Office at 12noon.

4. Lecture and Workshop on Expressive Arts in Counseling Young Children: This will be our first ever lecture/ workshop on 17 January 2009 at the Media Center, 4 pm to 7 pm. Please bring also art materials like crayons, colored pens, and colored papers. Attendance is a must as we will be giving out ‘Certificate of Attendance’. Our resource person will be Mrs. Mary Grace B. Bautista of University of Asia and the Pacific and Rosefield School.

Happy Holidays Everyone...

Ho, Ho, Ho.....

It's the Holidays- the most favorite time of the year. Are you getting presents? Sorry we haven't been communicating as much as we normally do over the last few days. We're spending sometime with our families and living the ESP - Enjoyable, Simple and Prosperous lifestyle we talk about all the time. We hope you are too. We have lots of powerful things coming in 2009 to help us conquer the current challenges and still grow and prosper. It can happen and it can happen for all of us. However, I'm not going to get into that now. Here's my holiday advice. STOP! That's it. Just stop and appreciate the time of year, your family, your friends and everything else that's good. Cherish it. It's the energy source you'll need most for moving forward in the coming year. All is well. All is merry and bright. When we thought about spending the holidays with family we couldn't forget each other. By the way, thanks for those who took time to sent SMS greetings.

Let's see everyone soon on January 10. But for time being, I hope all the best and I hope your Holidays is simply awesome!

Dennis

UMakGCO Officers for 2008 - 2009

I am pleased to announce the UMakGCO officers that will serve this season. They are:


President Maligaya, Dennis E.
Vice President Andres, Melynda T.
Secretary Maguddayao, Michelle B.
Treasurer Arboleda, Angelita
Auditor Cabaccan, Jose Mari J.
Program Manager Templanza, Julie O.
Program Manager Allera, Norina E.
Business Development Manager Adap, Leonardo G.

We are all counting on you guys. So keep up!

Roles and Responsibilities of Officers

Below are the basic roles and responsibilities of the UMakGCO Officers. While we have elected officers to represent the whole organization to the school and our community, this however does not spare the members from doing their job, that is to support the UMakGCO and to protect the best interest of the organization.

President

An association president’s actions shape the character of the organization and the lifestyle of its members. For this reason, the president must understand the role and responsibilities of the position as well as the tools of effective leadership and management.

Key Points

The association is both a community and a business. The president should work to enhance the lifestyle of its members and protect the value of the organization;

The president works closely with the school, the organization officers, and its members to establish the overall goals of the organization;

The president must be knowledgeable of all association governing documents, and ensure that the organization operates accordingly.

The president is responsible for the association’s fiscal well being, including directing the budget process, collecting assessments, ensuring that reserves are adequately funded, and that other coverage is sufficient to protect the organization;

The president presides at board and other meetings, prepares meeting agendas, and ensures that valid voting procedures are used;

The president identifies and trains potential organization leaders.

The president works closely with professional managers and other organization professionals to ensure the successful operation of the organization;
As spokesperson for the organization, the president must be an effective communicator.

Vice President

A Vice President has roles to fulfill. As the president's right-hand person, you need to keep in touch with the president. A good vice president is informed about organizatrion activities.

You also need to know about the president's responsibilities, because you may be called on to fill in for the president. The president probably will ask you to preside at least once a year and assume other presidential duties occasionally. If the president resigns, you succeed to that office.

In addition to learning the president's tasks, you need to think about building programs for your organization. The vice president acts as program-planning chairperson. You preside over the program part of the meeting.

Treasurer

Role:
Handling and accounting for the organization’s money.

Responsibilities:

Overseeing the organization’s financial transactions, including paying bills and banking money;

Drawing up budgets to be approved by the organization;

Recording all transactions;

Reporting to the organization on its current financial position;

Preparing the books for an annual audit or independent examination, if appropriate;


Secretary

Role:
General administration and planning.

Responsibilities:

Setting the Agenda with the Chair;

Ensuring all members know how to add points to the Agenda;

Taking the Minutes of the meetings;

Distributing copies of the previous Minutes, or reading them out for approval;

Distributing reminders of meetings to organization members;

Writing letters for the group;

Keeping copies of letters written and received;

Reading out correspondence at meetings as appropriate;

Keeping members informed about what's happening between meetings.


You may have noticed that I have not posted yet the ones for our Program Managers and the Business Development Manager. It is due to the fact that I am still drafting the same because the said positions are so crucial that we have to identify each and every roles and responsibilities carefully basically to protect the best interest of the organization.


Read on....

Dennis

Bounced Emails

I have started shooting emails today and the following email addresses were found to be either inactive or inaccurate. To wit:

1. arlyngarcia33@yahoo.com>:This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (arlyngarcia33@yahoo.com)
2. :This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account
(juneth_0925@yahoo.com)
3. :This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account (michellemaguddayao@yahoo.com)
4. :This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account
(urtype_80@yahoo.com) [0]

Again, it is imperative that we have an active email address, please take time to activate the same or make another one. Please inform me of any changes by shooting an email through - sinead1220@hotmail.com

Thanks and more power everyone.

Dennis

Optional Gifts To Our Professors

On our Christmas Party, we shall be inviting the following professors and chairpersons:

* Dr. Bernales - our Dean
* Dr. Pimentel - our Department Head and Adviser
* Prof. Benzon - our Adviser
* Dr. Feraren
* Dr. Onejosa

So, if you have gifts to give to our professors, please bring them on our Christmas Party on 13th December, 2008.

Christmas Party Contribution

I am asking everyone to give their P500.00 contribution for our Christmas Party this coming December 13, 2008 to Ms. Angie Arboleda, our Treasurer. We would not be able to issue receipts yet, but be assured that the same will be recorded accordingly.

You may also pay the amount to our Auditor, Mr JM Cabacan if Ms. Arboleda is not around.

I shall announce the final party venue on Thursday, 11 December 2008.

Lastly, should there will be excess in the contribution, the same will be put to our common fund for petty expenses of the organization in line with our immersion plans.

Thanks everyone...

Counselors Go For The E!

I believe, in this time and age, we counselors should also keep abreast of the trends in ICT. Thus, with this most inexpensive and accessible means, I am advocating the use of our website (www.umakgco.blogspot.com) and email (umakgco@gmail.com) engines for our forums/ fora. Announcements would have to be done through this website. Comments and suggestions will be accepted after every topic or page, so that everything we talked about are chronicled or documented, thus eliminating the need for paper.

I will provide everyone the necessary profile names and passwords on December 13 so that you would also have the luxury of posting your thoughts for the benefit of our organization.

Daily or weekly newsletters pertaining to guidance and counseling will also be posted on this website. So, please take this responsibility religiously in the comfort of your own homes at your own time.

Again, 'Nobody is too old to try new things'!


Thanks,

Dennis

Lecture/ Talk on Expressive Arts in Counselling Young Children

I am pleased to announce that everyone is encouraged to attend the lecture/ talk on 'Expressive Arts in Counseling Young Children' on January 10, 2008, 4 pm to be given by Ms. Grace Benzon, the daughter of Prof. Benzon.

The lecture is free of charge. However, as a token of our appreciation, could I ask everyone to shell out Php 50 for a special gift to Ms. Grace . Prof. Benzon and Ms. Grace of course does not know of this contribution thing, so this will come as a surprise!. Our treasurer will start collecting next meeting- Dec. 13, 2008 before our party.

Lastly, please bring art materials like crayons, colored papers, art pens, etc. as this will also be a workshop.

Thanks and more power everyone.

Dennis

Immersion Plans on Status Quo...

Counselors,

Our immersion activity plans would have to be put on hold at least during the Holidays. We shall resume talks on January 10, 2009 for our New Haven and Marilag projects.

I have already drafted the letters of intent and sponsorship so that it would not be much of a hassle later on.

Ms Julie, our project manager for New Haven and Marilag will sketch out plans for the said project. Deliberation will have to be on January 10.

I am also asking everyone to bring at least one name of prospective sponsor to help defray costs of our upcoming projects. We need funds to cover the whole activity- gift giving most especially. For sure, you wouldn't want to shoulder much of the cost of these projects right? So, I need your full cooperation on this matter since we will also be the ones benefitting from this affair. So, we should spread the cost so that our personal budgets would not be severed. And sponsors would greatly help us. Sponsors by the way are not limited to corporate ones, if you have wealthy benefactors then they will be most welcome. We could also dub a 'Give to New Haven and Marilag' project for used clothes, toys, canned good, rice, etc. - but NOTHING IN CASH' from our school children. In that way, we would also be teaching them the value of 'gift-giving' or 'giving to charities'. Such a magnanimity right?... Don't worry, we will formalize everything, from letters of intent down to the littlest details of these projects to preserve our integrity. He, he, he, he...

By the way, I wish to reiterate that while the whole essence of holding these projects are of the personal agenda/ interest of the organization, i.e., provide opportunity for on-the-job-training and related exposure/ immersion in the counselling profession, the value of social responsibility is most regarded. It's high time that we give something to the needy. Our time, money, effort will surely be compensated ten or a hundred folds later on. But think not of what we could get instead of what we could give. After all, that is what the objective of our profession is based on. We help ourselves by helping others...

Again, I need your full cooperation on our projects. Please attend scheduled meetings so that you would be updated of the goings-on. If not, please inform your co-members if you won't be available. Please also make it a habit to visit this website for announcements. Further, I will also continue posting applicable readings/ reviewers that will surely help us in our chosen profession especially with the board exams. Just be sure you know how to navigate this website. If not, ask your seatmate in the cafes or your daughters and sons. He, he, he, he, he...

For comments and suggestions, please feel free to write then at the bottom of this page.

Thanks,

Dennis

Christmas Party Result of Venue Canvassing

Hi Counselors,

Lei and I have exhausted every possible (except at Camp Hut because the manager was out when I went there...) venue for our christmas party on 13th December. So far, the only most feasible venue is at North Park- Market! Market! where food is also great and the venue itself is accessible and not very crowded as compared to other restaurants like TGI Fridays, Gerry's Grill, Gilligan's and a lot more. The price also suits our budget of at least Php500.00. there was one venue though- kabisera at Bonifacio High Street where food and venue is above the average but the per head fee would fetch at over P1000 due of course to the ambiance and exclusivity they could give us on top of the sound system they will be providing. So, since our concern is the price, then Kabisera and all the others, except North Park, are out of our options.

I still have to visit Camp Hut tonight at 9 pm so I could talk to the manager and maybe we could arrange for something special.

My other concern as well is that you may have reservations with the accessibility of the party venue, well, North Park is not really a hassle in terms of commuting but our invited guests- our professors, may not have the same luxury as they have for sure other party engagements during that time.

So, as of now, everything is still tentative with North Park, and the final announcement will be posted not later than Thursday this week.

By the way, if you have comments or suggestions, please feel free to write them at the bottom of this page.

Guidance and School Counseling - A Brief History of School Guidance and Counseling in the United States

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School counselors help to make learning a positive experience for every student. They are sensitive to individual differences. They know that a classroom environment that is good for one child is not necessarily good for another. Counselors facilitate communication among teachers, parents, administrators, and students to adapt the school's environment in the best interests of each individual student. They help individual students make the most of their school experiences and prepare them for the future.

A Brief History of School Guidance and Counseling in the United States

The history of school counseling formally started at the turn of the twentieth century, although a case can be made for tracing the foundations of counseling and guidance principles to ancient Greece and Rome with the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle. There is also evidence to argue that some of the techniques and skills of modern-day guidance counselors were practiced by Catholic priests in the Middle Ages, as can be seen by the dedication to the concept of confidentiality within the confessional. Near the end of the sixteenth century, one of the first texts about career options appeared: The Universal Plaza of All the Professions of the World, (1626) written by Tomaso Garzoni. Nevertheless, formal guidance programs using specialized textbooks did not start until the turn of the twentieth century.

The factors leading to the development of guidance and counseling in the United States began in the 1890s with the social reform movement. The difficulties of people living in urban slums and the widespread use of child labor outraged many. One of the consequences was the compulsory education movement and shortly thereafter the vocational guidance movement, which, in its early days, was concerned with guiding people into the workforce to become productive members of society. The social and political reformer Frank Parsons is often credited with being the father of the vocational guidance movement. His work with the Civic Service House led to the development of the Boston Vocation Bureau. In 1909 the Boston Vocation Bureau helped outline a system of vocational guidance in the Boston public schools. The work of the bureau influenced the need for and the use of vocational guidance both in the United States and other countries. By 1918 there were documented accounts of the bureau's influence as far away as Uruguay and China. Guidance and counseling in these early years were considered to be mostly vocational in nature, but as the profession advanced other personal concerns became part of the school counselor's agenda.

The United States' entry into World War I brought the need for assessment of large groups of draftees, in large part to select appropriate people for leadership positions. These early psychological assessments performed on large groups of people were quickly identified as being valuable tools to be used in the educational system, thus beginning the standardized testing movement that in the early twenty-first century is still a strong aspect of U.S. public education. At the same time, vocational guidance was spreading throughout the country, so that by 1918 more than 900 high schools had some type of vocational guidance system. In 1913 the National Vocational Guidance Association was formed and helped legitimize and increase the number of guidance counselors. Early vocational guidance counselors were often teachers appointed to assume the extra duties of the position in addition to their regular teaching responsibilities.
The 1920s and 1930s saw an expansion of counseling roles beyond working only with vocational concerns. Social, personal, and educational aspects of a student's life also needed attention. The Great Depression of the 1930s led to the restriction of funds for counseling programs. Not until 1938, after a recommendation from a presidential committee and the passage of the George Dean Act, which provided funds directly for the purposes of vocational guidance counseling, did guidance counselors start to see an increase in support for their work.

After World War II a strong trend away from testing appeared. One of the main persons indirectly responsible for this shift was the American psychologist Carl Rogers. Many in the counseling field adopted his emphasis on "nondirective" (later called "client-centered") counseling. Rogers published Counseling and Psychotherapy in 1942 and Client-Centered Therapy in 1951. These two works defined a new counseling theory in complete contrast to previous theories in psychology and counseling. This new theory minimized counselor advice-giving and stressed the creation of conditions that left the client more in control of the counseling content.

In 1958 the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was enacted, providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. Instituted primarily to stimulate the advancement of education in science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages, NDEA also provided aid in other areas, including technical education, area studies, geography, English as a second language, counseling and guidance, school libraries, and educational media centers. Further support for school counseling was spurred by the Soviet Union's launching of Sputnik and fears that other countries were outperforming the United States in the fields of mathematics and science. Hence, by providing appropriate funding for education, including guidance and counseling, it was thought that more students would find their way into the sciences. Additionally, in the 1950s the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) was formed, furthering the professional identity of the school counselor.

The work of C. Gilbert Wrenn, including his 1962 book The Counselor in a Changing World, brought to light the need for more cultural sensitivity on the part of school counselors. The 1960s also brought many more counseling theories to the field, including Frederick Perl's gestalt therapy, William Glasser's reality therapy, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May's existential approach, and John Krumboltz's behavioral counseling approach. It was during this time that legislative support and an amendment to the NDEA provided funds for training and hiring school counselors with an elementary emphasis.

In the 1970s the school counselor was beginning to be defined as part of a larger program, as opposed to being the entire program. There was an emphasis on accountability of services provided by school counselors and the benefits that could be obtained with structured evaluations. This decade also gave rise to the special education movement. The educational and counseling needs of students with disabilities was addressed with the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975.

The 1980s saw the development of training standards and criteria for school counseling. This was also a time of more intense evaluation of education as a whole and counseling programs in particular. In order for schools to provide adequate educational opportunities for individuals with disabilities, school counselors were trained to adapt the educational environment to student needs. The duties and roles of many counselors began to change considerably. Counselors started finding themselves as gatekeepers to Individualized Education Programs (IEP) and Student Study Teams (SST) as well as consultants to special education teachers, especially after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

The development of national educational standards and the school reform movement of the 1990s ignored school counseling as an integral part of a student's educational development. The ASCA compensated partially with the development of national standards for school counseling programs. These standards clearly defined the roles and responsibilities of school counseling programs and showed the necessity of school counseling for the overall educational development of every student.

Major Roles and Functions for School Counselors

The roles of a school counselor are somewhat different at various grade levels.
Elementary school level. In elementary schools, counselors spend their time with children individually, in small groups, or in classrooms–thus having some connection with every student in the school. With the advent of systems thinking, the elementary school counselor now has a working relationship with students' families and with community social agencies. Although the roles of school counselors vary among settings, common tasks include individual counseling, small-group counseling, large-group or classroom presentations, involvement in schoolwide behavior plans for promoting positive and extinguishing negative behaviors, and consulting with teachers, parents, and the community. Additional duties might include developing classroom management plans or behavior plans for individual students, such as conducting SST and IEP meetings.

Middle and high school level. Like elementary school counselors, the roles of middle and high school counselors vary depending on the district and the school administrators. Counselors deal with a vast array of student problems–personal, academic, social, and career issues. Typically, these areas get blended together when working with a student on any one topic; hence, it is impossible to separate the duties of a counselor on the basis of a particular problem. Counselors in middle and high school have experience with all these areas and work with others in the school and community to find resources when a need arises. It is common for a school counselor to be the first person a student with a difficulty approaches. The school counselor then assesses the severity of the problem in order to provide appropriate support. School administrators sometimes assign counselors such responsibilities as class scheduling, discipline, and administration. These tasks can be integrated with the goals of school counseling but can also dilute the time available for helping individuals.

Training Requirements

The requirements for the credentialing (in some locations called certification, licensure, or endorsement) of professional school counselors vary from state to state. All states and the District of Columbia require a graduate education (i.e., completion of some graduate-level course work), with forty-five states and the District of Columbia requiring a master's degree in counseling and guidance or a related field. A majority of states also require that graduate work include a certain number of practicum hours, ranging from 200 to 700, in a school setting. Additionally, a majority of states require applicants to have previous teaching experience. Some of these states allow students to gain experience through the graduate program by means of internships.

Half of the states require standardized testing as part of the credentialing process. Many of these tests simply cover basic mathematics, writing, and reading skills, while some states require more specialized tests covering the field of guidance and counseling. Nineteen states require a minimum number of course credit hours specifically related to guidance and counseling. Fourteen states require students to take courses in other subject areas, such as education of children with disabilities, multicultural issues, substance abuse, state and federal laws and constitutions, applied technology, and identification and reporting of child abuse. Thirty-eight states recognize credentials from other states. Another thirty-eight states require applicants to undergo a criminal background check.

Issues Major Trends and Controversies

Among the many issues facing the school counseling profession are the following three: what the professional title should be, how counselors should be evaluated, and to what extent counselors should work on prevention instead of remediation.
Professional title. Some professionals in the field prefer to be called guidance counselor, while an increasing number prefer the term school counselor. The growing trend is for counselors to be seen as professionals in a large system, working fluidly with all aspects within the system. The expected duties are more extensive than those practiced by vocational guidance counselors of the past, hence the feeling of many school counselors that the name of the profession should reflect its expanded roles.

Evaluation. A major trend in education is the demand for accountability and evaluation. School counselors have not been immune to this demand. Since the early 1970s there has been a growing concern with this issue and numerous criteria have been developed to help school counselors evaluate their specific intervention techniques.

The National Standards for Professional School Counselors was adopted by ASCA in 1997. Similar to the academic standards used nationally by state departments of education, the counseling standards provide a blueprint of the tasks of and goals for school counselors. The standards have not been adopted by every state. The average state student–counselor ratio varies from a high of about 1,250 to a low of about 400, so the evaluation of counselor performance with different workloads is a difficult undertaking.

Prevention versus remediation. A growing trend in the field of counseling is the focus on prevention instead of remediation. In the past it was not uncommon for counselors to have interactions with students only after some crisis had occurred. There is now a shift for school counselors to intercede prior to any incidents and to become more proactive in developing and enacting schoolwide prevention plans. The schools, community, and families are requesting assistance in preventing students from being involved with many difficulties, such as participating in gangs, dropping out of school, becoming a teenage parent, using drugs, and participating in or becoming victims of acts of violence.

Gangs. Students as early as third grade are being taught gang-type activities. Students are more likely to end up in a gang if family members and peers are already involved in gang activity. It is difficult for children to leave a gang once they have been actively involved. Antigang resources are often focused on fourth and fifth graders–an age before most students join a gang. Counselors are in a position to ascertain whether a child is "at risk" of gang-type activity. The counselor can also be influential in working with the family to help the child avoid gang activity.
Dropouts. In many large metropolitan school districts, over 25 percent of students do not complete their high school education. Premature school termination is becoming an increasingly more difficult problem as more careers require education well beyond the high school level. Counselors are in a unique position to assist students with career guidance and help them establish meaningful goals including the completion of a basic education.

Teen pregnancy. Teen pregnancy continues to be a societal concern. Precipitating factors are visible prior to middle school. Counselors are often the liaison with community agencies that work to prevent student pregnancy and assist with students who do become pregnant.
Substance abuse. Drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, continue to be a serious problem for youth. Despite national efforts to eradicate these problems, many students still find their way to these mindaltering chemicals. Counselors are trained to understand the effects of different drugs and can assist with interventions or community referrals. The counselor is also essential in developing substance abuse prevention programs in a school.

School violence. School violence can range from bullying to gunfire. Counselors have training to assist teachers and students in cases of violence and to establish violence prevention programs. Counselor leadership in making teasing and bullying unacceptable school behaviors is a powerful way to provide a safer and more inclusive environment for students.
Diversity. Tolerance of diversity is an important goal in a multicultural society. School counselors help all students to be accepting of others regardless of sex, age, race, sexual orientation, culture, disability, or religious beliefs.

Child abuse. Many states have mandatory reporting laws concerning child abuse. Students in all grades are susceptible to abuse by others, and the counselor is often the first person to discover these deplorable acts and then report them to the proper authorities.
Terrorism. Terrorism is becoming an increasingly difficult problem in the world of the early twenty-first century. Children are affected, directly and indirectly, by both massive and small-scale acts of terrorism. Counselors are able to ascertain the extent to which a student or teacher may be adversely affected by terrorist acts. In these cases the counselor can either intervene or direct the person to more intensive interventions.

School Counseling around the World

How are other countries providing counseling? It is clear that school counseling has made significant progress in the United States. Political, social, and cultural factors are deeply embedded in the way a given country addresses the educational needs of its populace. Following are brief examples of how school counseling is practiced in some other countries.
In Japan, the goal of high school counseling is to "help every student develop abilities of self-understanding, decision-making, life planning, and action-taking to be able to adjust in the career options he or she decides to pursue" (Watanabe-Muraoka, Senzaki, and Herr, p. 101). In France, secondary school counseling was started in 1922 and by the late 1930s was adopted by the educational system and seen as a necessary part of the institution. School counselors assist students with vocational guidance.

In Thailand, school counseling often incorporates advice-giving by teachers. In Israel, school counselors devote one-third of their time to classroom instruction and the rest to personal and social counseling. Career counseling is somewhat curtailed because students are required to enlist with the armed services after high school. In Hong Kong, school counseling and guidance is becoming more of a service that is incorporated into the whole school with an emphasis on prevention. Turkey has a fifty-year history of counseling development. There is a professional association that publishes a journal and sponsors conferences. Many secondary schools have counseling services and receive support from the Ministry of National Education.
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All countries benefit from professional dialogue and a continual exchange of information. In Europe the Transnational Network of National Resource Centres for Vocational Guidance was established to share information, include businesses and social agencies, and improve counseling methods and materials. The Internet is being used widely as a mechanism for disseminating information. Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, the Slovak Republic, and Norway are among many countries using the web to make career and counseling information available to guidance experts. As school counseling continues to define itself as a profession and to show its usefulness empirically, counseling services in schools are likely to expand worldwide in an effort to improve everyone's life satisfaction.
See also: ADOLESCENT PEER CULTURE, subentry on GANGS; PSYCHOLOGIST, SCHOOL; RISK BEHAVIORS; ROGERS, CARL; VIOLENCE, CHILDREN'S EXPOSURE TO.
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CAMPBELL, CHARI A., and DAHIR, CAROL A. 1997. Sharing the Vision: The National Standards for School Counseling Programs. Alexandria, VA: American School Counselor Association.
DAHIR, CAROL A. 2001. "The National Standards for School Counseling Programs: Development and Implementation." Professional School Counseling 4:320–327.
DOGAN, SULEYMAN. 1999. "The Historical Development of Counseling in Turkey." International Journal for the Advancement of Counseling 22:51–67.
FAUST, VERNE. 1968. History of Elementary School Counseling: Overview and Critique. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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GINN, S. J. 1924. "Vocational Guidance in Boston Public Schools." Vocational Guidance Magazine 3:3–7.
GYSBERS, NORMAN C., and HENDERSON, PATRICIA. 1994. Developing and Managing Your School Guidance Program, 2nd edition. Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.
GYSBERS, NORMAN C., and HENDERSON, PATRICIA. 2001. "Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Programs: A Rich History and a Bright Future." Professional School Counseling 4:246–256.
GYSBERS, NORMAN C. ; LAPEN, RICHARD T.; and JONES, BRUCE ANTHONY. 2000. "School Board Policies for Guidance and Counseling: A Call to Action." Professional School Counseling 3:349–355.
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JOHN D. KRUMBOLTZ
THIERRY G. KOLPIN

CURRENT TRENDS IN THE PRACTICE OF COUNSELING

BY: Dr. Krishna Prasad Sreedhar

Introduction

Counseling in its widest connotation existed in one form or the other from time immemorial. In all cultures the elders not only set the norms of behavior within that culture but also counseled the youngsters to follow the norms. In India, elders especially parents and teachers thought that imparting counseling in the form of advice and guidance was one of their fundamental, and seared duty. The oft repeated adage; "Mata, Pita, Guru, Deivam" (Mother, Father, Teacher, God)reminded the youngsters not only of the agents of counseling but also of the priority as to who should impart counseling at various stages of life. Ancient epics of India are replete with depictions of counseling. Elders were only too ready to take up the role of counselors and youngsters sought counseling with prompt compliance. Many such incidents could be explained away as mere acts of 'giving advice'. But in most of those ancient transactions it is not difficult to see the scientific practice and ethics of modern counseling techniques. The most widely acknowledges counseling situation in the epics is that of the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Whether this dialogue had all the characteristics of modern counseling may have to be answered by committed researchers in this area. Many, often ask questions regarding the relevance and suitability of modern counselling techniques in all cultures. Experts in this field are of the opinion that the culture of India with the above heritage is potentially oriented to the modern techniques of counseling.
Counseling as Others See It
Counseling is a much-misunderstood concept. To the laymen it is an occasion where an expert solves the problems of others. Laymen believe that the expert has ready-made solutions for all the problems of human beings. Most counselors know that this is far from truth.

Guidance and Counseling

The term guidance denotes explicit directions given by an informed person regarding any subject. An expert in career guidance can impart information regarding different career possibilities. He may also be able to tell us where the careers are open and even the possible openings at the time of consultation. In imparting such information the guidance expert can give pieces of information irrespective of the suitability of the client for the job. However, he has also the option to test the suitability of the client using suitable psychological test.

Counselling, on the other hand is more dynamic. It aims at the solution of clients’ problems. Counselling is a much-misunderstood concept. To the laymen it is an occasion where an expert solves the problems of others. Laymen believe that the expert has ready-made solutions for all the problems of human beings. Most counselors say that this is far from the truth. Counselling is a process between the counsellor and the client in which solutions emerge as a joint venture of the two.

Characteristics of counselling is expected to be a process.
Counselling is usually for normal people with problems.
It is essentially a dynamic interaction between the client and the counsellor.
Client is expected to be frank and forthright in his approach.
It is the duty of the counsellor to keep confidentiality regarding the client.
Counsellor is to show warmth and sympathy while listening to the client’s problems.
Counsellor is expected to be non judgmental and non critical.
The relationship between the client and the counsellor is expected to be genuine.
Counselling usually works at the level of rapport and not at the level of transference.
Client’s conscious motives are explored rather than the unconscious motives.


Perspective of Counseling

The perspective of Counseling may change from counselor to counselor. There are differences in training, clients and settings, and even goals. But the basic perspective of counseling remains the same, through with different emphasis. The best examples are the three different definitions of counseling given by Good (1945), Pepinsky and Pepinsky (1954) and Wrenn (1951). Good defined counseling as the "...individualized and personalized assistance with personal, educational, vocational problems, in which all pertinent facts are studied and analyzed, and a solution is sought, often with the assistance of Specialists, school and community resources, and personal interviews in which the counselee is taught to make his own decisions". According to Pepinsky and Pepinsky, "Counseling is a process involving an interaction between a counselor and a client in a private setting, worth the purpose of helping the client change his/her behavior so that a satisfactory resolution of needs may be obtained". To Wrenn, "Counseling is a dynamic and purposeful relationship between two people in which procedures vary with the nature of students’ needs, but in which there is always mutual participation by the counselor and the student with the focus upon self-clarification and self-determination by the student". All these definitions have common base but are different in their emphasis. The difference among the three definitions stems from the fact that they have three different orientations. Hann (1953) identifies one group as the social welfare advocates with ideographic interest. The second group is more medically oriented and the thirds group consists of people with student personnel administration and has great interest in measurement. Along with the differences it is worth noting the commonalties. Common to all these perspectives are the notions that,
counseling is aimed at helping people make choices and act on them,
counseling is a learning process, and counseling enables personality development
A recent and much accepted definition is:
"Counseling denotes a professional relationship between a trained counselor and client. This relationship is usually person-to-person, although it may sometimes involve more than two people. It is designed to help clients to understand and their self determined goals through meaningful resolution of problems of an emotional or interpersonal nature" (Burks and Stefflre, 1979).
The merit of the definition by Burks and Steffler is that it is sufficiently theoretical and at the same time reasonably operational.

Theory and Practice of Counseling

Theory and practice should go hand in hand. Many trained counselors initially adhere to the theory while starting their career as counsellor. However, even those who are fanatically tied down to one theory appear to change over time. This is because the client is a human being and he is the link between the theory and practice of the counsellor. Rigid theories, like the Procrustean bed, repel the human psyche. When the man does not fit into the theory the counselor is compelled to change his theory. This is one of the most demanding challenges of counselling.

Counselors should keep their minds more receptive and flexible. The psychological concept of individual difference must be understood thoroughly. Individual clients differing in their personalities come with dissimilar problems, goals and aspirations. To believe that all those clients would benefit from one kind of theory is unrealistic. It is useful to know that all the well-known theories have emerged from the practice of individual counselor’s personal experience with counselees. This is why we have different theories and practices. Trying to know these theories as old and new broadens our perspective. But what would be ultimately useful is the one that is carved out from the counselor’s experience with the counselees. This is why all textbook writers speak of a ‘Personal Theory’.

Current Trends in the Practice of Counseling
Introduction
Cognitive Approaches
Affective Approaches
Behavioral Approaches
Towards a Personal Theory of Counseling

Introduction

Prospective counselors should be aware of major approaches to counseling so as to enable them to acquire a sound basis for developing their own personal brand of counselling. The current trends in this area can be broadly classified into three approaches. They are:
cognitive approaches
affective approaches, and
behavioral approaches.
It may be observed that the approaches closely parallel the three aspects of personality viz., cognition, affection and conation (i.e. knowing, feeling and doing as given by the ancient Philosophers).

Cognitive Approaches

As Feorge and Cristiani (1981) have pointed out, in the cognitive approaches, the process of counseling is the curing of unreason by reason; i.e., to help clients eliminate most emotional disturbances by learning to think rationally, to help them get rid of illogical, irrational ideas and attitudes and substitute logical, rational ideas and attitudes. It is believed that this process helps the client to attain rational behavior, happiness, and self-actualization. For example Transactional Analysis (TA) aims at the internal dialogues of individuals, which occurs between the various ego states and the struggles between the real parts of their behavior (whether the same is productive or counter productive) and the behavior of others by identifying which ego state is in power at any given time. TA thus gives the clients information about the various types of transactions that occur among individuals and to help them identify the kinds of behavior in which they are involved. The goal of TA is to help clients review their past decisions and make new decisions about their present behavior. It is assumed that this would change their life direction into developing an autonomous life style characterized by awareness, spontaneity. This, it is believed that would, eliminate a life style characterized by manipulative game – playing a self-defeating neurotic tendencies.
Directive teaching is the core in all the cognitive approaches. For example in Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) the counselor takes up an active teaching role to educate clients. The RET counselor makes the client understand that the latter’s internationalized sentences are quite illogical and especially the current illogical thinking are self-defeating verbalizations of the client. The success if the counselor lies in bringing illogical thinking forcefully to the client’s attention. He must also show to the counselee how these thoughts are maintaining his unhappiness and how a rethinking and maintenance of logically and rationality make him happy and contented. In reality therapy, the meaning of reality and the necessity to act responsibly are taught by the counselor.

Affective Approaches

As the term suggests the affective approaches in counseling focus their attention to what is going on inside the individual, and particularly what the individual is experiencing at a given time.
Client-centered counseling of Rogers is perhaps the most well-defined technique in the affective approaches. It also highlights an issue in counseling; namely, how much responsibility can be placed on the client for his own problem solving?
Rogers believed that when the individual perceived himself as behaving in a manner consistent with his 'picture' of himself, he generally experiences feelings of adequacy, security, and worth. If on the other hand, he acts in a manner different from the way he defines himself, he experiences what is known as "threat" and feels insecure, inadequate, or worthless. Under pressure and with no other alternative, he may then defend himself against this threat using one or more of the commonly described "defense mechanisms". Unless counseling eliminates this defensive chain reaction and strengthens his self-concept, the defensive behavior would increase vulnerability to further threat, guilt, thereby creating more distortion and more self-defeating mechanisms. The role of the therapist is not just eliminating the defense mechanisms. Rogers highlights the importance of 'Congruence'. It means the close 'matching of awareness and experience'. In this context, the client centered counselors emphasizes the importance of accurate communication. If a client is aware of communicating a feeling which he is genuinely experiencing, his behavior is said to be congruent or integrated. In incongruent communication the awareness and experience of the client are two different if not opposing things. So also the recipient may experience an awareness of phony communication. The implication here for the counselor is that the counselor should help the client to face courageously the incongruence between awareness and experience so that communication of his real experiences is in full awareness and not distorted with defense mechanisms and neurotic constrictions.

The 'self-theory' of Rogers also assumes a perspective called 'phenomenology'. According to this perspective, people's 'reality' is that which they perceive. The way to understand individuals is to infer the 'phenomenological field' from their behavior. In other words, the 'internal frame of reference' of the client is used in counseling with the implication that counselors must attempt to perceive client's perceptual worlds as closely as they can. This is known as the empathic skill of the counselor.
Individual client's need to strive for wholeness is the focus in Gestalt therapy and counseling. This school of counseling gives importance to the internal world of the individual. Striving for the gestalt or the wholeness is actually a striving for an integration of thinking, feeling, and behaving. The key concept here is awareness. It is believed that the counselors help the clients work toward a total awareness of his experiences. Gestalt psychologists point out that such awareness permits sellf-regulation and self-control in the direction of increased integration and creativity.
Recently, one of the major forces that have come to occupy an important place in psychology is 'Existentialism'. Unlike Psychoanalysis, existentialism is a temperamental way of looking at life. It is basically a philosophy of experiences which need not necessarily be categorized into cognitive compartments. Man is essentially an emotional being rather than a rational animal! The existence of man is unique because he is the only being who reacts to the fact of his existence. The awareness of one's own existence and the possibility of non-existence alters the inner world or the phenomenology. These new premises create new experiences and needs that are yet to be known. The predicament of human beings is such that it includes the individual's capacity for increased self-awareness, the search for unique meaning in a meaningless world, being alone and being in relation with others, freedom to choose one's fate, responsibility, anxiety, finiteness and death, and a basic urge for self-actualization. As a theory existentialism is sound and appealing, but the practice of counseling on the basis of this theory is difficult. However, the existential counselor tries to understand the client as 'a being' and as 'a being in the world'. Counselors are supposed to expose his own inner reality and at the same time be human. This according to existentialists enables clients to become aware of similar conditions and qualities in themselves. It is pointed out that through this process clients come to recognize their potentialities and achieve self-growth by accepting it as their responsibility. In a nut shell, it can be said that making the client accept responsibility for himself is the aim of existential counseling.

Behavioral Approaches

While the dynamically oriented theorists try to understand conscious and unconscious through inference, the behavioral counselors concentrate on objective study of client behavior and the learning process. As the emphasis is primarily on overt behavior, the first emphasis is to discover how the behavior was acquired and how it can be changed. The second emphasis, which is a later addition, is on precondition for behavior change. This approach is characterized by (1) a focus on overt and specified behavior; (2) a precise and well spelt out target behaviors called goals; (3) a formulation of a specific and objective treatment procedure to the problem at hand; and (4) an objective assessment of the outcome of counseling in terms of the degree of approximation to the target behavior.
In the behavioral approaches well defined counseling goals are of central importance. The much talked about counselor-counselee relationship in other approaches is of secondary importance only. The main aim of this relationship to the behaviorist counselor is to facilitate greater understanding of the client's view of the problem. This helps to formulate a more successful behavioral plan for bringing about change in the client's maladaptive behavior to one of adaptive behavior (target behavior).
As the behavioral approaches base their understanding of human behavior through the theories of learning, they use very specific techniques like behavior contracts, social modeling, systematic desensitization and assertive training. All these techniques are well known to counselors.

Personal Theory of Counselling
The three basic approaches (Cognitive, Affective, and Conative) with their differing foundations vary in their theory and practice of counselling. By about 1973, Patterson began to think in terms of commonalties among the approaches. Fortunately most of the controversies existed only as academic gymnastics at a theoretical level. The practicing counselors were undergoing transformation as the clients were not interested in theories and their subtleties but were interested only in immediate problem solving. This demand of the client to the counsellor had made many counselors to abandon their dogmatic approach. Orientation of the counselors started changing towards a pragmatic approach. The client and his needs became more important than the counselor’s theory and dogma. This was how ‘personal theory’ emerged.
Here it is absolutely necessary to point out that training in some known approach is better than no training. Corey (19977) recommends the eclectic approach as a framework to begin with. However, George and Cristiani (1981) point out that although beginning counselors need a firm understanding of all the major approaches, they should start first with a thorough grounding in one theoretical approach to counselling. It is further pointed out that judicious integration and assimilation of techniques from other approaches could be done with experience.
Caution has been sounded in developing a personal view of counseling. Counselors must know their own assumptions about the nature of people, they must explore in depth their own values, attitudes, and beliefs about what constitutes a good life, what people are like, and what they themselves are like. Counselors should also identify their own models of mature, well-functioning individual so that they can keep this as a goal. (A summary of the above is given as appendix).
The present author’s personal opinion is that here in the cultural setting of India, let us start with the behavioral approach. The advantage of this approach is that it is sufficiently objective. It is based on sound principles of learning. The process involved is clear and well defined. The tangible alone are taken into account. There is high accountability for the behavior of the client and counsellor. The goals are operationally defined and free from philosophical overtones.
In conclusion I wish to quote this important paragraph form Brammer and Shostrom (19977) as guidance to all of us who are interested in the area of counselling practice.
"Each counselor and psychotherapist must ultimately develop a point of view which is uniquely his or her own. Freud was not a Freudian, Jung not Jungian, and Rogers not a Rogerian. Each of them was himself most fully and completely, while building upon the wisdom of the past. Each practitioner must feel that his counseling practice reflects such individuality. This is the reason why no one text or school is fully adequate, and why we try to exemplify an approach which we have termed 'creative synthesizing'. This approach is not an arrogant attempt to put down predecessors. Ideas are rarely developed in solitary efforts. Usually, they are the results of many years of cumulative cross-fertilization of numerous minds. Isaac Newton is alleged to have said on this point, 'If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants'. ".

Parts of a Guidance Program

Definition:

The comprehensive guidance model is based on the following assumptions:
All students are in need of specific knowledge and skills that are the instructional responsibility of guidance programs.
All students need assistance with their personal, educational, and career planning.
Some students require special assistance in dealing with developmental problems and immediate crises.
Other educational programs in the school—and the staff involved with these programs—require support that can best be supplied by the guidance program.
A District-Wide Structure
How does the model work? First, there is a district-wide structure, or comprehensive guidance program. School counselors understand that they are part of a pre-K-12 team. Middle school counselors recognize that, as they respond to the specific developmental needs of middle school students, they are continuing the work that began in elementary schools. And, they know the work they do will provide the foundation for the work of school counselors at the high school level and, possibly, beyond.

There are three major components in the comprehensive guidance program. Those components are content, organizational framework, and resources (Gysbers and Henderson, 2000). The content includes the knowledge and skills (competencies) students must master in order to prepare themselves for a complex and rapidly changing world. This content generally is organized according to domains' career, educational, and personal-social.

The organizational framework for the program contains seven structural and program components. The structural components (definition, rationale, and assumptions) provide the ideological foundation for the program. The program components (guidance curriculum, individual planning, responsive services, and system support) provide the organizers and the delivery system.

Structural Components
Definition. Definition includes the mission statement of the guidance program and describes its centrality within the district's educational programs. It delineates the competencies that students will acquire as a result of their involvement in the guidance program, summarizes the program components, and identifies the specific population the program serves.

Rationale. Rationale describes the importance of guidance as an equal partner with other educational programs in the school district. It explains why students need to acquire the competencies they will master as a result of their involvement in the school's comprehensive guidance program.

Assumptions. Assumptions are the principles that shape and guide the program. They include statements about the contributions that guidance programs make to students' development, the premises that undergird the comprehensiveness and balanced nature of the program, and the relationships between the guidance program and the school's other educational programs.

Program Components
Guidance curriculum. The guidance curriculum links the school to the economic and social systems of the community, the needs of students to the needs of the wider society, and the present situations of students to their future plans. Guidance counselors work collaboratively with teachers to deliver the program through stand-alone and integrated units in the classroom as well as through school-wide events such as career days.

Individual planning. The individual planning component involves raising the consciousness of young people concerning themselves and their potential. Individual planning begins in middle school and continues through the high school years. Planning devices such as career portfolios are used extensively.

Responsive services. The responsive services component includes prevention programs for students who may be at risk of making unhealthy or inappropriate choices. It also includes remedial programs for students who may already have made unwise choices. Responsive services include individual and small-group counseling, consultation with staff and parents, and referral to specialists.

System support. Support for the guidance program includes staff development, community resource development, policy development, budget, and facilities. Support for other programs includes individual planning activities, linkage with special education programs, and guidance-related administrative work.

Positive Results
Research has demonstrated that, when middle school counselors have the time, the resources, and the structure of a comprehensive guidance program in which to work, they contribute to positive academic, personal-social, and career development as well as the development of positive and safe learning climates in schools.

References
Gysbers, N. C. and Henderson, P. Developing and Managing Your School Guidance Program, 3rd Edition. Alexandria, Va.: American Counseling Association, 2000.

Lapan, R. T.; Gysbers, N. C.; and Petroski, G. "Helping 7th Graders Be Safe and Academically Successful: A Statewide Study of the Impact of Comprehensive Guidance Programs." Journal of Counseling and Development, in press.
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The Special Role of the Middle-Level Counselor
In addition to preparing youngsters for the increased independence they will experience in high school, school counselors at the middle level face the challenge of developing programs that meet the unique needs of young adolescents. School counselors at the middle level must:
• Implement practical strategies to help students move toward self-understanding.
• Be prepared to help youngsters and their parents understand one another and work together in making the difficult choices that occur during adolescence.
• Understand the relationship between peer pressure and substance abuse and develop counseling strategies designed to help young adolescents deal with this pressure.
• Provide programs that help young adolescents manage stress and develop confidence and hope for the future.
• Implement programs that take into account the impact of physical and sexual maturation on students' lives.
• Collaborate with teachers to implement programs that help youngsters develop a strong work ethic.
• Promote career exploration activities.

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Impact on Students
Seventh-grade students attending middle schools with more fully implemented comprehensive guidance programs reported:
• Feeling safer attending their schools.
• Having better relationships with teachers.
• Believing that their education was more relevant and important to their futures.
• Being more satisfied with the quality of education available to them in their schools.
• Having fewer problems related to the physical and interpersonal environments in their schools.
• Earning higher grades.




PARTS OF A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDANCE PROGRAM

PROGRAM STRUCTURE


Program Aims:

The Program will provide,
Provide a structure to help meet the guidance and counseling needs of all students;
Encourage respect for individual strengths and needs and social and cultural diversity;
Helps students understand themselves and build meaningful relationships with others;
Help students plan and achieve educational goals and explore personal career paths;
Provide consultation and co-ordination services to educators, parents, administrators, and others who work with students;
Ensure the accessibility of guidance and counseling to all students;
Provide developmental as well as preventative and reactive services

Program Domains

The program will provide direction by assisting students to acquire knowledge, attitudes, strategies, and skills in the four program domain:
Personal – to understand and appreciate oneself;
Social – to relate effectively to others
Educational – to develop appropriate educational plans
Career – to develop life and career plans

Program Characteristics

It is designed and developed as a school program with defined outcomes for students from each level;
It includes achievable and measurable student outcomes in each of the four student program domains: personal, social, educational, and career;
It is developmental, in that activities appropriate to student maturity levels are systematically presented;
It is developed in detail locally, within provincial parameters;
It has four components:
Guidance curriculum;
Professional services (counseling, co-ordination, and consultation);
Life and career planning;
Program management and system support
It outlines roles for all members of the school community;
It includes the establishment of an advisory group comprising the guidance counselor, educators, parents, students, support staff, and community representatives;

CODE OF ETHICS FOR COUNSELORS AND THE COUNSELING PROFESSION

PHILIPPINE GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING ASSOCIATION, INC.
Accredited Professional Organization (APO)
by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC)
PROPOSED CODE OF ETHICS(REVISED as of December 21, 2006 @ Dr. Villar’s Residence)

PREAMBLE
The Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association, Inc. (PGCA) is an organization of helping professionals whose members are committed to the development of the well-functioning individual in a society utilizing his/her potentials to the fullest. Members of the Association are bound to uphold the dignity and worth of the individual throughout life in the following settings: educational, community, clinical, hospital, or industry. This Code of Ethics in Guidance and Counseling expresses the ethical principles and values of the Association and serves as a guide to the professional and personal conduct of all its members. It also informs the public which they serve of the standards of ethical conduct for which members are to be responsible and accountable. The Code reflects such values as integrity, competence, responsibility and an understanding of and respect for the cultural diversity of society. Members have a responsibility to ensure that they are familiar with this Code of Ethics, understand its application to their professional and personal conduct, and strive to adhere to its principles and values. They should also be familiar with other sources of information which will assist them in making informed professional decisions. These include the laws, rules and regulations, and policies which are professionally relevant in their working environment. Members are accountable to both the public and their peers and are therefore subject to the complaints and disciplinary procedures of the Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association. By accepting this statement of ethics, members of the Association are committing themselves to act ethically in the provision of professional services.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
The expectations for ethical conduct as expressed in this Code are based on the following fundamental principles: · Respecting human rights and dignity· Respect for the client’s right to be self-governing· A commitment to promoting the client’s well being· Fostering responsible caring· Fair treatment of all clients and the provision of adequate services· Equal opportunity to clients availing counseling services· Ensuring the integrity of practitioner-client relationship· Fostering the practitioner’s self-knowledge and care for self· Enhancing the quality of professional knowledge and its application· Responsibility to the society.

CHAPTER I

PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
1. General Responsibility. Counselors maintain a high standard of professional competence and ethical behavior thereby recognizing the need for continuing education in order to meet this responsibility.
2. Respect for Rights. Counselors respect the rights of a client and uphold the integrity of the counseling profession. They participate in only those practices which are respectful of the legal, civic, and moral rights of others, and act to safeguard the dignity and rights of their clients, students, and research participants.
3. Boundaries of Competence. Counselors limit their practices within their professional competence, educational background, and personal experience as what the laws, rules, guidelines, accreditation and credential are concerned. If the counseling needs of a client are beyond the counselor’s expertise and competence appropriate referral must be made.
4. Continuing Education. Counselors continuously update themselves with the current trends and development in the profession to maintain a high degree of proficiency through active participation in scientific and professional endeavor.
5. Research and Development. Counselors engage in research activities for the advancement of the counseling profession. They have the responsibility to disseminate such information through presentation and publication.
6. Ethical Behavior. Counselors uphold the values and ethical principles operating in this Code. They are expected to behave as professionals in their counseling sessions as well as in dealing with their fellow colleagues.
7. Sensitivity to Diversity. Counselors recognize and respect client’s diversity in terms of religion, race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, education, and socio-economic status.
8. Equal Opportunity. Counselors provide equal opportunity to everyone to avail of the counseling services in various setting regardless of age, gender, socioeconomic status, civil status, religion, culture, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation.
9. Good Quality of Practice. Counselors maintain a good quality of practice in the helping profession at all times. They continually monitor their effectiveness as professionals and take steps to improve when necessary.
10. Knowledge of Legislative Laws. Counselors have a responsibility to read, understand, and follow Republic Act 9258 (Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004) and its Implementing Rules and Regulations. Other mandated laws protecting the interest of clients’ rights should be known to the practicing counselors.
11. Extension of Ethical Responsibilities. Counseling services and products provided by counselors through classroom instruction, public lectures, demonstrations, publications, radio and television programs, computer technology and other media must meet the appropriate ethical standards of this Code of Ethics.

CHAPTER II

COUNSELING RELATIONSHIP
1. General Responsibility. Counselors have a primary responsibility to respect the integrity and promote the welfare of their clients. They work collaboratively with clients in creating counseling relationships that are consistent with client abilities and needs.
2. Confidentiality. The counselor must preserve and safeguard the confidentiality of the clients except: 2.1 When disclosure is required to prevent clear and imminent danger to the client or others; 2.2 When legal requirements demand that confidential matter be revealed;
3. Children and Persons with Diminished Capacity. Counselors conduct the informed consent process with those legally appropriate to give consent when counseling children and/or persons with diminished capacity. These clients also give consent to such services or involvement commensurate with their capacity to do so.
4. Maintenance of Records. Counselors maintain records in sufficient detail to track the sequence and nature of professional services rendered and consistent with any legal, regulatory, agency, or institutional requirement. They secure the safety of such records and, create, maintain, transfer, and dispose of them in a manner compliant with the requirements of confidentiality and other articles of this Code of Ethics.
5. Access to Records. Counselors understand that clients have the right to access their counseling records. Disclosure of such information to others is allowed only through the clients informed consent and/or if there is imminent changes to life properly.
6. Dual Relationships. Counselors avoid personal, familial, social and/or business relationships except those already existing prior to the establishment of the counseling relationships.
7. Understanding Diversity. Counselors actively work to understand the diverse cultural background of the clients with whom they work, and do not condone or engage in discrimination based on age, color, culture, ethnicity, disability, gender, religion, sexual orientation, marital, or socioeconomic status.
8. Relationships with Former Clients. Counselors exercise caution about entering any friendly, social, financial and business relationships with former clients until such time that the issues in relational dynamic present during counseling have been fully resolved and properly terminated.
9. Multiple Clients. When counselors agree to provide counseling to two or more persons who have a relationship (such as husband and wife, or parents and children), counselors clarify at the outset which person or persons are clients and the nature of the relationship they will have with each person.
10. Multiple Helpers. If, after entering a counseling relationship, a counselor discovers the client is already in a counseling relationship then, the counselor is responsible for discussing the issues related to continuing or terminating counseling with the client. It may be necessary, with client consent, to discuss these issues with the other helper or counselor may opt not to take on the case unless the client decides to terminate the counseling relationship.
11. Group Work. Counselors have the responsibility to protect group members from physical and/or psychological harm resulting from interaction within the group, both during and following the group experience.
12. Termination of Counseling. Counselors must terminate the counseling relationships when it is deemed necessary. More specifically terminating the counseling relationships should be done when 12.1. Goals of counseling have been met. 12.2. Client condition is beyond the counselor’s expertise. 12.3. Transference or counter-transference issues are evident.13. Computer Use. When computer applications are used as a component of counseling services, as in testing or assessment, counselors must ensure that: (a) client is capable of using the computer application; (b) the computer application is appropriate to the needs of the client; and (c) the client understands the purpose and operation of computer application.Pertinent records stored in the computer such as counseling transcription, test data and personal information data must be kept with confidentiality. In any case, computer applications do not diminish the counselor’s responsibility to act in accordance with the PGCA Code of Ethics, and in particular, to ensure adherence to the principles of confidentiality, informed consent, and safeguarding against harmful effects.

CHAPTER III
CONSULTING AND PRIVATE PRACTICE

1. General Responsibility. Counselors provide consultative services only in those areas in which they have demonstrated competency by virtue of their education and experience.
2. Undiminished Responsibility and Liability. Counselors who work in private practice, whether incorporated or not, must ensure that there is no diminishing of their individual professional responsibility to act in accordance with the PGCA Code of Ethics, or in their liability for any failure to do so.
3. Consultative Relationships. Counselors ensure that consultation occurs within a voluntary relationship between a counselor and a client, group, or organization, and that the goals are understood by all parties concerned.
4. Informed Consent. Counselors, who provide services for the use of third parties, acknowledge and clarify for the informed consent of clients, all obligations of such consulting relationships, including the purpose, entitlement to information, and any restrictions on confidentiality. Third parties may include public and private institutions, funding agencies, employees, and so forth.
5. Accurate Advertising. Counselors, when advertising services as private practitioners, do so in a manner that accurately and clearly informs the public of their services, areas of expertise, credentials such as licensure and accreditation in an accurate manner that is not false, misleading, deceptive, or fraudulent.
6. Respect for Privacy. Counselors limit any discussion of client information obtained from a consulting relationship to persons clearly involved with the case. Any written and oral reports must be restricted to the purposes of the consultation and, every effort is made to protect client identity and to avoid undue invasion of privacy.
7. Cooperating Agencies. Before sharing information, counselors make efforts to ensure that these other agencies have defined policies that serve the clients interest.
8. Conflict of Interest. Counselors who engage in consultation avoid circumstances where the duality of relationships or the prior possession of information could lead to a conflict of interest.9. Professional Fees. Professional fees are based on standards prescribed by the existing laws, ordinances, promulgations, and resolutions. Counselors consider the financial status of clients and locality in establishing fees for professional counseling services.10. Pro Bono Service. Counselors render professional services in the community or society for which there is little or no financial return (pro bono).

CHAPTER IV
RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PROFESSIONALS
1. General Responsibility. Counselors maintain harmonious working relationships with other professionals in their work setting and affiliated organizations.
2. Roles and Functions. Counselors set the parameters and levels of their professional roles and functions.
3. Working Agreement. Counselors establish working agreements with supervisors, colleagues, and subordinates regarding counseling relationships, adherence to professional standards, house rules, work load, time schedule, responsibility, and accountability. Working agreements are specified and made known to those concerned.
4. Evaluation. Counselors submit regularly to professional review and evaluation by their employer and peer. This can be done semi-quarterly or annually as agreed by the counselor and the employer.
5. In-Service. Counselors participate in in-service training for professional growth and development.
6. Damage Control. Counselors alert their employers to conditions that may be potentially disruptive or damaging to the counselor’s professional responsibilities or that may limit their effectiveness.
7. Supervisory Relationships. Counselors in supervisory position foster good working relationships and treat all colleagues fairly.
8. Consulting with other Professionals. Counselors may consult with other professionally competent persons about the client. However, if the identity of the client is to be revealed, it is done with the written consent of the client. Counselors choose professional consultants in a manner which will avoid placing the consultant in a conflict of interest situation.
9. Client Advocate. Counselors strive to reach agreement with employers as to acceptable standards of conduct that allow for changes in institutional policy conducive to the growth and development of clients.
10. Coordination. Counselors maintain proper coordination with fellow professionals in relation to counseling services and programs implemented in their workplace.
11. Networking and Linkages. Counselors establish a good system of networking and linkages with other sectors to promote public and social awareness as well as for the enhancement of the profession.
12. Referral Fee. Counselors desist from accepting referral fee from other professionals.
13. Professional Conduct. Counselors have a responsibility both to clients and the institution within which services are performed to maintain high standards of professional conduct.

CHAPTER V
EVALUATION, ASSESSMENT, AND INTERPRETATION
1. General Responsibility. Counselors take responsibility to inform the clients about the purpose of any evaluation and assessment instruments and procedures and the meaning of evaluation and assessment results.
2. Test Selection and Evaluation. Counselors have the competence to evaluate tests in terms of the (a) appropriateness of the test to the purpose of testing; (b) reliability and validity; (c) appropriateness of level of difficulty to clients; and (d) appropriateness of norms of norm-referenced tests.
3. Test Competence. Counselors using psychological tests and other assessment tools should only do so if they have undergone training in the use of these tools, familiar with the training requirements of different tests, and are conversant with the concepts of reliability and validity.
4. Purpose and Results of Assessment. Counselors take responsibility to inform clients about the purpose of assessment, the procedures involved, and the meaning of evaluation and assessment results.
5. Test Administration. Counselors administer psychological tests in accordance with standards or guidelines of testing procedures found in the Test Manual.
6. Administrative and Supervisory Conditions. Counselors ensure that evaluation and assessment instruments and procedures are administered and supervised under established conditions consistent with professional standards. They note any departures from standard conditions, and any unusual behavior of irregularities which may affect the interpretation of results.
7. Test Data Utilization. Counselors utilize assessment data by taking into account various factors and characteristics of the person derived from integrated profile of battery test results that might affect the counselor’s judgment or reduce the accuracy of information.
8. Test Confidentiality. Counselors have the responsibility to observe the principle of confidentiality in testing.
9. Computer-Generated Tests. Counselors ensure that computer-generated test administration and scoring programs operate properly thereby providing clients with accurate test results.
10. Obsolete Data. Counselors do not base their assessments or recommendations or decisions on data or test results that are outdated for the current purpose.
11. Intellectual Property. Counselors safeguard and respect the publisher’s intellectual property rights of psychological tests. Reproduction and/or modification of parts thereof without acknowledgement and permission from the publisher of psychological tests are punishable by the Law.
12. Maintaining Test Security. Counselors make reasonable efforts to maintain the integrity and security of tests and other assessment techniques.

CHAPTER VI
COUNSELOR EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND SUPERVISION
1. General Responsibility. Counselors responsible for counselor education, training, and supervision adhere to current guidelines and standards with respect to such activities and conduct themselves in a manner consistent in this Code and Standards of Practice.
2. Counselor Educators and Trainers. Counselor educators and trainers possess the necessary qualifications, skills and competencies to conduct counselor education and training programs.
3. Description of Education and Training Programs. Counselors responsible for education and training programs ensure accurate description of the course/training, goals and objectives, content outline, requirements, methodology, and references.
4. Program Orientation. Counselors in teaching, training, and supervision programs take responsibility to orient perspective students, trainees, and supervisees to all core elements of such programs and activities.
5. Counselor Supervision. Counselors inform the supervisees about the process of supervision, expectations, outcomes, monitoring, and evaluation in order to provide competent counseling services.
6. Ethical Orientation. Counselors have an obligation to make their students, trainees, and supervisees aware of their ethical responsibilities.
7. Evaluation. Counselor educators and trainers ensure a fair, accurate and honest appraisal of students, supervisees and trainees.
8. Relational Boundaries. Counselors establish relationships with their students, trainees, and supervisees such that appropriate relational boundaries are clarified and maintained, and dual relationships avoided.
9. Contribution to Research. Counselors give credit to students and supervisees for their contributions to research and scholarly projects in the field of guidance and counselling.
10. Counselor Care. The counselor organization provides continuing activities for counselor care.
11. Counselor Rights. Rehabilitation services should be available for counsellors under stress.

CHAPTER VII
RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION
1. General Responsibility. In planning any research activity dealing with human subjects, the counselor must observe ethical principles and standards of good practice.
2. Informed Consent. All research subjects must be informed of the purpose of the study except when withholding information or providing misinformation to them is essential to the investigation. In such research, the counselor must be responsible for corrective action as possible following completion of the research. 2.1. Voluntary Participation. Participation of identified subjects in research must be on a voluntary basis.
3. Welfare of the Subjects. Counselors are responsible for the welfare of the subjects throughout the research and must take all reasonable precautions to avoid causing injury in terms of physical, psychological, or social effects on their subjects.
4. Joint Research Activity. Counselors working with another individual in research and/or publication incur an obligation to cooperate in terms of finishing the entire joint venture as agreed upon by both parties.
5. Joint Authorship. Counselors working in a group research acknowledge the fact that all correspondence regarding the said research in that publication must be addressed to the first author.
6. Confidentiality of Information. Counselors must take due care to disguise the identity of respective subjects and research locale.
7. Reporting Accurate Results. Counselors conduct, report and make thorough discussion of research with accuracy and avoid bias and misleading results.
8. Professional Value. Counselors communicate to others the results of any research judged to be of professional value. Results that reflect unfavourably on institutions, programs or services must not be withheld.
9. Acknowledgment. Counselors give due credit through acknowledgment, footnote statements, or other appropriate means to those who have contributed significantly to the research and/or publication in accordance with such contributions.
10. Replication. Counselors acknowledge the fact that their researches can be replicated by others at one point in time due to its relevance and theory-testing.
11. Publication. Counselors submit their research output in a peer-refereed journal for publication using the prescribed standards in writing style.
12. Review of Materials Submitted. Counselors who review materials for publications must respect the confidentiality and propriety rights of those persons who submitted.