The Leadership Role and Emerging Issues

As I was reading this week's article and chapter, I was able to find a connection between the growing issues within the school counseling field and where the school counselor's role will need to go in order to help future children and schools.  Amatea and Clark (2005) sought to find out school administrators' conceptions of the school counselor's daily responsibilities and role within the school.  Their article broke down the school counselor's role into four distinct areas that tended to follow the historical path of a school counselor.  The most contemporary role was found to be the innovative school leader.  School administrators who saw school counselors in this role saw them as the person within a school to seek out all the different perspectives of all stakeholders.  They were responsible for the bigger picture of the needs in a school.  School counselors as innovative school leaders bring a whole set of skills in dealing with diversity, relationships, conflict resolution and problem-solving.  Their job is to look at the kids in a more holistic way.  School administrators stated that the school counselor should work as an inside program consultant as well as an active working partner.

It was clear that this role demonstrated the best way to approach a comprehensive school counseling program that could benefit all potential stakeholders.  The innovative school leader role parallels the counselor role that is advocated within the current ASCA National Model (Amatea & Clark, 2005).  Current students, such as us, are working towards understanding and implementing the ASCA model once we become school counselors ourselves.  The implemented model can benefit students and the whole school environment/climate therefore; we should be trying to focus our role on the innovative school leader.  In the article, this role was found to be the most contemporary group however, the smallest number of administrators felt that this was an appropriate role for a school counselor.  Most had the conception that school counselors should be filling a different role within the school.  As the new generation of school counselors, it will be our job to take a proactive role in changing administrators' conceptions on what the school counselor's role is within the school.

While I was reading Chapter 13 (Dollarhide & Saginak, 2012) I noticed that many of the emerging issues within schools and current students require the help of a leader in their school.  For instance when dealing with crisis management a leader needs to take control and form plans and steps that a school will take during certain situations.  School counselors can create committees and use prevention efforts to minimize crisis but then have their procedures to fall back on when something does happen.  Another emerging issue that requires a leader is the increasing number of multicultural students within the US.  School counselors can take the extra step to begin to understand the identity development of themselves and then students.  It is important that someone in the school be addressing these issues that are a huge part of a child's life.  One other example of an emerging issue is the topic of spirituality.  Understanding the differences between religion and spirituality is crucial to a school environment.  Spirituality is an important part of a child's development and a leader within the school needs to recognize the importance of it.  "Leadership is a basic requirement for any meaningful change to take place.  It is critical that counselors empower themselves to transform the climate of the school on behalf of students, to advocate for and create a welcoming environment in which everyone can learn, free from harassment and hatred" (Dollarhide & Saginak, p. 237, 2012).

The more I read in Chapter 13 the clearer it became that school counselors need to be taking that innovative school leader role in order to make a difference in children's lives.  Because of the lack of support from administrators, this may be a conversation that we will need to have in our practicums and future jobs.  Being prepared and understanding these emerging issues can benefit us when we have to advocate for our role within the school.

Amatea, E. S. & Clark, M. A. (2005). Changing schools, changing counselors: A qualitative study of school administrators' conceptions of the school counselor role.Professional School Counseling, 9(1), 16-27.

Dollarhide, C. & Saginak, K. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs: K-12 delivery systems in action (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.