Spotlighting Stigma and Barriers: Examining Secondary Students’ Attitudes Toward School Counseling Services

Abstract

Student attitudes toward accessing school counseling services were the focus of a survey of 3,584 middle school and high school students. Respondents identified barriers to seeking help from school counselors, including stigma, a desire to manage problems themselves, a lack of a positive relationship with their school counselor, and a concern that the counselor would not keep disclosures confidential. This study also examined the impact of gender, age, and race/ethnicity on students' willingness to seek help from their school counselor. We present implications for practice and future research.

Validation of High School Students’ Scores on the Revised Fit, Stigma, and Value Scale: Implications for School Counseling Screening

“…Consistent with the findings of , results revealed three related barriers to counseling (fit, stigma, and value) and a global or overall barrier to seeking counseling. The results of the present study build on previous research regarding barriers to secondary students seeking counseling (e.g., Auger et al, 2019;Chan & Quinn, 2012;Chandra & Minkovitz, 2006;Del Mauro & Williams, 2013;Fox & Butler, 2007;Gulliver et al, 2010;Raviv et al, 2009;Wilson & Deane, 2012;Yap et al, 2013) and complement the expanding body of literature on the psychometric properties of the Revised FSV Scale (Kalkbrenner & Neukrug, 2018. Following the removal of Item 6, results demonstrated that fit, stigma, and value represent a theoretical model of barriers to seeking counseling because CFA is a "theory testing strategy" (Mvududu & Sink, 2013, p. 91).…”

“…Substantial barriers to seeing their school counselor were preference for informal sources (parents, friends, and teachers), desire to address concerns themselves, lack of a relationship with the school counselor, and apprehension about confidentiality. Auger and colleagues (2019) started to fill the gap in the literature surrounding some of the common reasons that high school students might avoid seeing their school counselor for personal and academic concerns. The next step in this line of research is the validation of a screening tool for appraising barriers to counseling among a national sample of students.…”

School or Guidance Counselor: How the Title Influences Public Perception

“…Understanding the general public’s perception of school counselor competence by title could provide important insights because school counselors are often the point of entry into mental health services for students (Farmer et al, 2003; Ohrt et al, 2016). Role confusion can also impact parents’ perceptions of whether school counselors are a viable resource for services for their child (Auger et al, 2018; Gulliver et al, 2010; Helms, 2003), and previous research found that role confusion contributes to parents’ perceptions of school counselors’ credibility (Gulliver et al, 2010) and competence (Auger et al, 2018). Without this evidence, whether these two titles are, in fact, interchangeable to members of the general public is unknown.…”

Counselor-Perceived Teacher Actions Needed to Carry out Educational and Vocational Guidance in Secondary Schools in Spain

“…Students perceive that the work of a counselor is aimed at enabling them to face challenges that may appear throughout their academic journey. The view of the counselor as a school psychologist is maintained in many institutions, where they provide personal and emotional adjustment and are only sought for advice to resolve conflicts and obtain help (Amor and Serrano, 2020;Auger et al, 2018;Carey et al, 2018). Many teachers also perceive counselors this way in educational institutions, demonstrating that much remains to be done regarding the review, definition and clarification of the functions and competencies of counselors (Johnson et al, 2010).…”