School Counselors’ Perceptions of Family Systems Perspectives

Abstract

School counselors traditionally have been trained in individual models and often lack the training in a family systems perspective that is necessary to provide a comprehensive school counseling program. One project 10 years ago empirically studied school counselors' perceptions of the importance of utilizing a family systems perspective when working with children and families. The present study updated this information, and determined how prepared and competent they felt, and how frequently they use a family systems perspective. A total of 657 school counselors completed 56 online questions about a family systems approach, including its importance, their preparedness, rating of their own competency, frequency of use, how they learned about family systems, and barriers might prevent use. Less than half (39%) reported taking a course in family systems, but more than half (87%) said that such a course should be required. They used family systems daily or at least several times per week. Overall, the more methods they used to learn about family systems, the more important they rated it, the more prepared and competent they rated themselves, and the more frequently they used this approach. Many (79%) responded to the open-ended question about barriers and often mentioned barriers such as lack of training (23%), lack of parental involvement (18%), and time (18%). In both quantitative and qualitative data, most school counselors recognized the importance of requiring a family systems course in their training curriculum. Lack of this kind of course may be leaving counselors unprepared to respond to student needs.

Investigating school counselor–parent relationships, interaction, and involvement

“…Including parents in individual planning can be a simple yet powerful way of including parents in the academic process. A common challenge to parent inclusion is parent availability, especially among parents whose employment does not provide flexibility in scheduling (Martin, 2017). To address this concern school counselors may implement video conferencing, phone conferencing, or flexible scheduling that offers a limited number of afterschool conferencing hours.…”

“…To help address these challenges, mutual respect plays a vital role in parent consultation (Bryceson & Sheridan, 2022; Dinkmeyer, 2006). Additional problems such as work schedules (Martin, 2017), as well as legal and custody concerns, can make connecting with parents difficult (Brown & Minton, 2017). School counselors may also believe their own schedule is prohibitive of meeting with parents (Shillingford & Lambie, 2010).…”

The Influence of School-Based Family Counseling on Elementary Students and Their Families

“…However, the lack of research regarding SBFC may be due to a lack of training in the family systems approach and working in a school setting (Mince, 2000). Martin (2013) surveyed a random sample of 657 members of the American School Counseling Association and found (a) school counselors did not feel adequately prepared and competent to use a family systems perspective, (b) school counselors thought family systems practice was less important in the school setting, and (c) family systems practice was used less frequently in the school systems. The importance of utilizing a family systems approach to mental health counseling with children in school settings may mitigate school personnel’s misconceptions of problems originating from within the child alone without consideration of the family system and the notion of the child being “bad” (Powell, 2011).…”