This study provides a proposal for crucial volunteer services to fill the gap for overburdened school counselors when parents are unable to engage in Child−Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT), a highly effective intervention for childhood problems. CPRT has been successfully adapted for use with individuals other than the child's parents. The researcher in this pilot study adapted CPRT for use with senior citizen volunteers who often possess untapped abilities and talents. Seniors received several weeks of training, and then met with children for 1/2 hour supervised, video-taped play sessions for several weeks. Childhood adjustment problems were assessed before and after the intervention using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Teacher Report Form (TRF). Seniors' responses were measured before and after with the Older Adult Self-Report and qualitative interviews. Although no significant differences were noted on pre versus posttest measures for the children (CBCL and TRF), anecdotal reports suggest potential effectiveness of this volunteer intervention for school counselors to utilize. In addition, senior citizens reported their own benefits from working with the children. Suggestions for future research in this area are offered.

Child-senior relationship training (CSRT) is an adaptation of child-parent relationship therapy (CPRT), a highly effective intervention for children, where trained senior citizen volunteers provide free play sessions for children whose parents are unable or unwilling to participate in CPRT. This study explored the effects of CSRT on kindergarten children and the senior volunteers' effectiveness with children following training. The researchers propose CSRT provides benefits to busy school counselors by closing the gap between the high number of students needing services and the historically low number of providers. Although CPRT has been shown to be more effective when used with parents, many times parent involvement is not feasible. CPRT has been successfully adapted for use with other populations such as teachers, aides, high school students, and fifth-grade students. School counselors can potentially provide services to many children by training and supervising seniors for 1.5 hr per week. In this study, researchers used findings from a pilot study to improve delivery of CSRT. Senior citizens were trained to provide 30-min play sessions each week to kindergarten children. Children's behaviors were measured by the Teacher Report Form. Although not considered therapy, results indicate seniors were capable of providing a therapeutic relationship that is hypothesized to assist children in improving behavioral and social-emotional problems. Four single-case studies are presented to examine the effects of CSRT. Keywords: child-parent relationship therapy, child-senior relationship training, play therapy, play therapy in schools, senior citizens as therapeutic agents Children in schools today face issues far beyond academic concerns. Although school counselors are expected to prioritize academic concerns for service delivery, social-emotional issues certainly impact a student's academic work. With high student-to-counselor ratios, school counselors have very little time to address life-changing concerns such as abuse, neglect, domestic violence, homelessness, grief, loss, and mental illness. Abdelnoor and Hollins (2004) examined how death of a family member affected children and found a decrease in school achievement and an increase in anxiety among those who had lost parents. According to Glaze and Maruschak (2008), over half of all prisoners in the United States are parents of minor children. The Department of Health and Human Services (2012) reported over half a million indicated cases of abuse and neglect annually. The majority of those cases involve children under the age of 10.

The authors analyzed the narrative writings of four counselors-in-training in practicum using directed content analysis. Developmental themes corresponded to current theories of counselor development. Narratives and supervisor responses are sequentially provided to aid new counselors and supervisors in understanding the complexities of counselor developmental and counselor supervision.

As full-time graduate students in the Counseling program, each of us is extremely pressed for time which limits our ability to work on original research. Because we do not complete a thesis for our program, there is little opportunity for research involvement. Each of the group members had an interest in becoming part of the research team, and each individual played an important role in the completion of this research. Tiffany Somerville was a co-leader of the eight-week group, and she also wrote portions of the literature review, results, and discussion sections. Danielle Pincente played a significant role in data organization, scoring, and interpretation; she also contributed to portions of the literature review and the results sections. Kelsey Oglesby was a co-leader of the eight-week group, and she also wrote a portion of the literature review. David Ehlers, Samantha Kledzik, and Jacki Pickowitz contributed significantly to the literature review as well.

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