Chapter 6 and article

Blog #5 - Chapter 6 and article

As I was reading the chapter and article for this week I found myself relating a lot of things back to the interviews that I did with the school counselors.  I was a little skeptical about the project at first because I was not sure what to expect and I felt weird going in and talking to people about the model when they were unsure themselves about using the model.  In doing this project, I have a better understanding of the model as well as a better view of school counseling in general.  It was nice to be in the school and talk to the counselor about what they do and how it relates to what we are being taught.  When I was reading Chapter 6 about prescriptive and non-prescriptive models I was remembering what the counselors told me about what they do on a daily basis and I was trying to fit that into one of the two systems. It seems to me that the counselors that I interviewed used a combination of both delivery systems.  Some aspects of the counseling programs seem to follow the ASCA model which would be prescriptive whereas other parts of it are based on the needs of the school and the students which falls under the nonprescriptive system.  Is it okay to use both delivery systems or is it one or the other?

The article was also interesting to read because it explained clearly how the model came to be and how it was refined and presented to school counselors in a manner in which they could understand it and implement it as they see fit at their schools.  It seems that the researchers put a lot of time and effort into making sure that the model was what was needed and changed and adjusted things as they received feedback from the model.  The article states that, "The National Model has several components that must be implemented in all schools for strong and effective programs. This will take time, but the results will be worth the effort" (Schwallie-Giddis, ter Maat, & Pak, 2003, p. 174).  I think it is important to keep this in mind when we are talking about the model because as we have said in class it is still in the beginning stages of implementation and we cannot expect that it is going to be perfectly implemented at this point.  One of the school counselors that I interviewed said that it is about "tempering the ideal model with the real model" which I agree with because it is good to know the model but at the same be realistic and know what will work in the specific school that we are in (W. Merryman, personal communication, September 27, 2012).


Dollarhide, C.T., & Saginak, K.A. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs (2nd Ed.). New York: Pearson, Inc.

Schwallie-Giddis, P., ter Maat, M., & Pak, M. (2003). Initiating leadership by introducing and implementing the ASCA National Model. Professional School Counseling, 6(3), 170-174.