Counseling in Schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Counseling in Schools - Essay Example The British government increased education funds from 60 million pounds in 1951 to 436 million in 1964 and supported child-centered education (Bor, Ebner-Landy, Gill and Brace, 2002). The 1960s were marked with the lifting of individual behavior constraints and the toleration of personal idiosyncrasies. Suicides, drugs, and sexual relationships caused many casualties in early 1960s, many under 25 years. This led to the proposal to provide secondary school students all the help they could get. One way of providing this help was the introduction of school counselors. The Schools Council formed in 1964 represented teachers in policy-making forums and promoting educational development (De Board, 1999). Recent studies have shown its resurgence as a non-stigmatization emotional support among pupils. The enactment of the Children Act in 2004 and the reshaping of children services give a prominent future for counseling (Cooper, 2009). Counseling services in schools are growing rapidly on a l ocal demand-led basis. Sources of counseling include school counselors, contract agencies such as Relate, and educational psychology referral services provided by LEA. Guidance from professional associations is not mandatory due to lack of a statutory base for counseling. The current restructuring of counseling provides new structures that can be challenging. Counselors have to provide therapeutic confidentiality through information protocols, shift towards multi-agency teams, and redefine their professional boundaries. School counselors provide therapeutic individual counseling that is distinct from other form s of support such as mentoring. Counseling is provided through several formats such as external counselors, members of teaching staff, or an external agency (Egan, 2002). Counseling provides pupils with an access to appropriate confidential service that has beneficial personal outcomes such as improved mental health. Students experience mental pressure after bereavement, bull ying, family breakup, and peer rejection. Counseling, especially by external counselors, provides an avenue for relieving mental pressure. These students eventually exhibit positive outcomes in education, behavior, and social and organizational activities. This helps them to enhance their social well being in the school. Confidentiality encourages students to open up to counselors and discuss personal matters that they may not discuss with parents or teachers. Solving individual problems helps enhance student self-esteem and improves their emotional well being. Counseling services are funded from the internal school budgets and provide students with a cost effective service for dealing with their personal difficulties. Schools hire individual external counselors, counseling firms, or utilize members of the teaching staff. This eliminates the need of visiting expensive counselors for students in need of counseling services. Schools provide the necessary funds and provide comprehensiv e support services. The school management has control of the counseling process and provides the overall direction for individual counselors and other pastoral support services. Previous research has shown that young people value having other people to turn to who include school counselors. Although several young people experience mental health problems, only a small percentage is