The most effective counseling programs focus comprehensively on academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary domains in addition to being preventative and using data to better target student needs.

• Research has linked comprehensive school counseling programs with positive academic and behavioral outcomes.
  • Comprehensive school counseling is a framework that organizes counselors’ practice across the academic, social-emotional, and postsecondary domains. It emphasizes a proactive approach that shifts the counselor role away from solely reacting to immediate crises in an isolated manner and instead encourages counselors to implement preventative programming that is aligned with whole school improvement plans.
  • Descriptive studies have found positive associations between implementation of a comprehensive program and student outcomes such as attendance, graduation, test scores, and students’ sense of belonging.
  • Comprehensive counseling programs, including those based on the ASCA National Model, align with all three tiers of the multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) model.
• Collecting and analyzing data about student outcomes helps counselors reach all students, refine programming, and advocate for the reform of policies, systems, and practices that perpetuate inequities.
  • School counselors advance educational equity and opportunity by examining and acting on student outcome data such as attendance, graduation, achievement, and participation in advanced classes, gifted programs, special education, and enrichment programs.
  • When school counselors use data to examine differences in these outcomes across gender, race/ethnicity, income level, disability status, and other intersectional identities, counselors can better target their services to meet student needs.
  • Studies have shown how counselors have used data-driven decision-making to improve the delivery of mental health interventions and counseling.
• Implementing multicultural counseling approaches supports students’ identity development and contributes to inclusive school cultures.
  • School counselors build the multicultural awareness of students by integrating content from different cultures into classroom lessons, constructing meaningful service-learning opportunities that address diverse communities’ needs, and implementing prejudice reduction curricula.
  • Cross-cultural programming can especially support the needs of immigrant youth.
  • Multicultural education practices can improve students’ racial attitudes as well as academic achievement.
  • Counselors can assess their multicultural competencies and identify areas for growth via validated tools such as the Multicultural School Counseling Behavior Scale (MSCBS), Multicultural Counseling Competence and Training Survey-Revised (MCCTS-R), and the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI).

When designing a comprehensive counseling program, schools can rely on existing, validated, counselor-led interventions in all three counseling domains.

• Student Success Skills (SSS), a counselor-led program that promotes cognitive, social, and self- management skills, strengthens student achievement.
  • One randomized controlled trial examining the use of SSS in 5th grade classrooms found improvements in students’ behavioral engagement, cooperation, and levels of test anxiety after participation in the program.
  • Screening tools can ensure that students who need targeted, specialized support are identified.
  • Universal mental health screening is an effective way to identify students who may benefit from intensive mental health support.
  • Some screening tools have been validated for assessing the emotional wellbeing of children and adolescents, identifying bullying behaviors, and evaluating substance use.
• Countless social-emotional tools and interventions show evidence of positive impact on school climate and student behavior and wellbeing.
  • Examples of evidence-based social-emotional interventions include counselor-led classroom lessons focused on strengthening social behaviors and school-wide programs such as wellness days for improving school climate.
  • Emerging evidence suggests that mindfulness interventions may improve student wellbeing.
• Culturally responsive interventions can bolster outcomes for historically marginalized students.
  • Emerging evidence indicates that hip-hop and spoken word therapy, an innovative counseling approach involving the writing, recording, and performing of hip-hop music, may improve the emotional self-awareness of African American and Latinx youth.
  • Observational evidence suggests culturally responsive academic interventions may be particularly important for strengthening the achievement of students of color.
  • Qualitative studies have found that immigrant-origin students especially benefit from interventions that both recognize their existing community cultural wealth and build their social and cultural capital.
• Proactive summer outreach to graduating seniors, individualized learning plans, and early career exploration help students prepare for postsecondary success.
  • Providing targeted one-on-one college counseling to graduating students in the summer months post high-school graduation has been shown to reduce summer melt, increasing college enrollment rates.
  • Individualized learning plans that help students identify career interests and necessary skill requirements are a promising practice for bolstering college and career readiness.
  • Classroom-based career readiness initiatives in early grades are one avenue for jumpstarting career exploration.

Lowering student-to-counselor ratios improves student outcomes and promotes counselor efficacy.

• High counselor caseloads contribute to poor student outcomes and school climate.
  • Descriptive studies have found that high caseloads are negatively associated with student outcomes, including academic achievement and postsecondary enrollment. Quasi-experimental studies have specifically linked caseload size with school climate and postsecondary outcomes.
  • Compelling descriptive evidence from Colorado’s School Counselor Corps Grant Program suggests that the state has saved $20 on social safety net services for every dollar spent on lowering counselor caseloads.
  • Lower caseloads help counselors build relationships with students and reduce burnout and job dissatisfaction.
  • High student-to-counselor ratios are a barrier to implementing comprehensive school counseling programs.
  • Large caseloads make it hard for counselors to build meaningful relationships with students that lay a foundation for instituting interventions and programmatic support.
  • Given studies identifying a relationship between high caseloads and occupational burnout and low job satisfaction, lower student-to-counselor ratios can promote counselor efficacy.

When school and district leaders understand the scope of the counselor role, build strong relationships with counselors, and support their professional growth, counselors are better positioned to fulfill their jobs.

• Strong principal-counselor relationships built on a shared understanding of the counselor role ensure that counselors’ working conditions are aligned with professional expectations.
  • Clear, open, and consistent communication is an essential foundation for these relationships as it establishes mutual respect and trust. It also signals to other educators, parents, and students that counselors are leaders whose input is valued.
  • Research has consistently found that principals and counselors have misaligned expectations about what the counselor role encompasses. For example, principals are more likely than counselors to identify registration and scheduling, test coordination, and record-keeping as significant counseling tasks.
• When school leaders provide school counselors with meaningful professional development, counselors will be better prepared for the unique demands of their jobs.
  • Low support among district and school leaders has historically limited counselor access to in-service professional development opportunities.
  • In-service professional development is important because school counselors have reported that their pre-service academic training did not adequately prepare them for entry into the counseling field. One national survey found that 84% of school counselors felt somewhat or not at all prepared for their roles.
  • Counselors have especially voiced a need for more training in college and career readiness counseling and in using data to inform their practice, in part because many counselor educator programs do not provide training in these areas.